10 years after murder of her sister, First Nations woman finds 'heart medicine' in beading red dress pins

The last few weeks have been difficult for Gerri-Lee Pangman.

The Manitoba woman recently marked the 10th anniversary of the death of her sister Jennifer McPherson, who was killed by her husband after they moved to British Columbia.

On Friday, Pangman is marking Red Dress Day, the national day of awareness and action for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. 

She turns to beading in her time of grief, creating pins depicting red dresses — a symbol associated with MMIWG. 

"[Beading] is a way to keep her spirit alive inside myself and to share her beauty with the community and to let them know … she was loved," Pangman said of her sister.

On Thursday, Pangman, a member of Peguis First Nation, shared her love of beading with students and faculty at the University of Manitoba, teaching others how to make their own red dress pins.

"If people are going through something, they can just pick up some beads and you think good thoughts," she said.

"When I bead, I think of my sister and it's healing. It's like heart medicine."

She remembers her sister Jennifer as a "beautiful soul," who was creative and loved everyone around her. 

"We miss her love tremendously every day and we will for the rest of our lives," she said.

Red Dress Alert may have saved sister: Pangman

Pangman thinks her sister might still be alive today if a public alert system like the one suggested by a Manitoba member of Parliament earlier this week existed decades ago. 

Her sister's husband, Traigo Andretti, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 for McPherson's 2013 death.

But he also later pleaded guilty to the 2006 killing of Myrna Letandre. 

Police say Letandre was killed in a Winnipeg rooming home where McPherson and Andretti lived, years before they moved to British Columbia, where McPherson was killed. 

On Tuesday, Winnipeg MP Leah Gazan presented a motion calling for the government to create a Red Dress Alert system, similar to Amber Alerts for missing children, which would send emergency notifications to the public when an Indigenous woman, girl or two-spirit person goes missing.

"If they would have done that many years ago when Myrna Letandre went missing … if there was a Red Dress Alert back then, my sister would be here today," said Pangman. 

"I always feel that the police didn't do their job ... and if they went into the house, they would find [Letandre's] DNA everywhere and my sister would be here today."

'We're not alone'

For Jenelle Manitowabi, who works for the University of Manitoba's Indigenous engagement office and is originally from Lac Seul First Nation in Ontario, events like the one Pangman led on Thursday afternoon are a time for Indigenous students and staff to come together and support each other.

"It means that we are creating a space to have conversations that maybe we are not really having as much as we should," said Manitowabi. 

Manitowabi is already an avid beader, but says the event was more than just a chance to create a red dress pin. 

"Events like this where we are able to show our support for each other, they really bond us.… It's [our] reality, but we're confronting it and we're not alone." 

She says the need to come together and support one another is particularly important for Indigenous people living in Winnipeg.

"I definitely don't feel safe being an Indigenous woman, but the reality is you can't escape that," said Manitowabi.

"I can't change the fact that I'm an Indigenous woman and this is a reality that I have to live with."

Marches, round dance mark Red Dress Day

Red Dress Day will be marked in Winnipeg on Friday with a round dance at Portage and Main at noon, followed by a march to The Forks.

There will also be a March to The Forks that starts at Camp Morgan — an encampment set up at the Brady Road landfill in south Winnipeg, where the partial remains of Rebecca Contois, an Indigenous woman, were found last June. 

Advocates have called for a search of that landfill for the remains of any other people, along with a search of Prairie Green landfill north of the city, where police believe the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were taken last year.

Winnipeg police have charged Jeremy Skibicki with first-degree murder in the deaths of Contois, Harris, Myran and a fourth unknown woman, whom community members have named Mashkode Bizhiki'ikwe, or Buffalo Woman.