Family seeks answers on 10th anniversary of woman's unsolved murder

The daughter of Tanya Brooks says she still can't believe someone killed her mother and left her body in a window well of a Halifax school a decade ago.

"What was the point in taking someone's life?" said C.J. Brooks, Tanya Brooks's oldest child, who is 29.

"How can someone just leave my mom there? How could they do just that? It's an indescribable feeling really. It's something I have to live with everyday."

C.J. Brooks joined other family and friends of Tanya Brooks at the former St. Pat's-Alexandra school on Friday to remember the 36-year-old mother of five who was known for her infectious laugh and gentle soul. The school closed in 2011.

Drumming, smudging and prayers marked the anniversary of the Millbrook First Nation woman's unsolved murder — one of hundreds of cases of murdered Indigenous women across Canada.   

Halifax Regional Police have said investigators were able to trace Tanya Brooks's last movements until about 9 p.m. the night before her body was found.

She left the Gottingen Street police station at 8:20 p.m. on May 10. Her body was found on May 11.

C.J. Brooks said the last time she spoke to her mother was on May 10.

She said she had to keep the conversation brief.

"A few hours later I felt really weird," she said. She tried calling her mom repeatedly but didn't get an answer. "I had a bad feeling."

"It's not an easy feeling to get over, if you think about it. Somebody took my mom."

"I'm going to be there for my brothers as much as I can for them because I don't want them to forget that she loved them, too."

There was a witness who saw Tanya Brooks walking hastily toward the school, looking over her shoulder at a group of people following her, said her sister Vanessa Brooks.

The witness called his sister to say he felt unsafe in his apartment, but didn't call the police, she said.

"He opted to call his sister instead of saving my sister," Vanessa Brooks told CBC's Information Morning.

Tanya Brooks struggled with addiction, she said.

A couple months before her death, she was brutally beaten by her drug dealer, said Vanessa Brooks.

"He beat her for two minutes and only stopped when the pipe broke," she said.

She suffered seizures on the way to the hospital from blows to the head and her arm she used to protect herself was broken in multiple places, said Vanessa Brooks.

She said her sister was hit between 75 and 100 times.  

The investigation is still active, but is relying on receiving new tips from the public, said Vanessa Brooks.

"We're no further ahead 10 years later than when we started."

No arrests have been made in connection with the case.

Police said they believe Tanya Brooks knew her killer, or killers, and there are people who know what happened to her.

Between 1980 and 2012, 1,017 Indigenous women were murdered, representing 16 per cent of all women murdered in Canada in that period, according to RCMP statistics. Indigenous women represent four per cent of the population of women in Canada.

The murder was added to the province's major unsolved crimes program in 2009, offering an award of up to $150,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.