Family still seeks answers 35 years after Mary Johns found dead in serial killer's barber shop

The first family to share at the national inquiry looking into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls says it's a "huge injustice" that they still don't have answers about Mary Johns' horrific death.

Frances Neumann, Johns' sister-in-law, and Neumann's daughter Tracy Camilleri testified at the inquiry's first hearing in Whitehorse this week. Commissioners say 40 families are signed up to share their stories about how their loved ones went missing or were killed.

Johns was only 29 when she was found dead in serial killer Gilbert Jordan's barber shop in Vancouver in 1982. She was found face down on a foam mattress inside the business belonging to the man known as the Boozing Barber.

Jordan targeted Indigenous women and was known to use alcohol as a weapon. He was linked to the deaths of several women, court records say.

Jordan, who died in 2006, was only convicted in the manslaughter death of one woman and released from prison in 1997.

"This is a huge injustice we have all felt," Camilleri said.

"He never answered for her death."

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Johns' sister-in-law Frances Neumann said 35 years later, at last these stories are being cracked open for the world to see and hear.

"I'm so happy this inquiry has finally happened. We have waited for years to have our story told," Neumann said from her home in Whitehorse.

At day one of the hearings, Neumann shared evidence, including three pictures of Johns, her eldest brother Peter's wife. She remembered the Northern Tatchone mom as bubbly and a loving mother who enjoyed the outdoors.

"She was so full of life, and she had a laugh that was infectious," Neumann said during the public hearing in Whitehorse, the town where Johns became part of Neumann's tight-knit family.

Searching for Mary

Johns lost her way when her second child died of crib death, Neumann said.

"She was running away from a broken heart because of losing her son, and that's when she left for Vancouver."

Johns briefly returned in 1980 with a new baby, but she looked worn out and older than her age, Neumann said. That was the last time she heard from Johns.

Neumann and her family scoured the streets of Lower Mainland B.C. for years, until 1988, when she found out through a newspaper article that Johns had died in 1982.

"It was very hard. We looked for many years for Mary, my brother and I. He had terminal cancer and he only lasted 12 months after I notified him of her death," she said.

Johns' niece Tracy Camilleri said while not everyone has had a good experience with the national inquiry so far, for her family, it's been positive.

"We wouldn't do this if we didn't have hope for change," she said in a phone interview.

Camilleri said in her testimony, she wanted to share the intergenerational impacts of residential school and of violence against Indigenous women.

Mary Johns attended the Yukon Hall Residential School but never talked about it to family or friends.

"To have the effects of your grandparents' anguish and pain and suffering, that trauma passes to the children and unfolds in substantial issues," Camilleri said.

When Johns left for Vancouver, her first son Charlie Johns was only four, so Neumann's mother raised him. When he was 14, his grandmother died and his life took a terrible turn, Camilleri said.

"He was devastated, and he never really got over the turmoil of also losing his mom."

Charlie Johns got in trouble with the law and then, while looking for information about his mom's death, ended up in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. In 1994, when he was 22, he died of an overdose.

"He was like a brother to me and we never judged him for his experience. We loved him," she said.

'Last piece of the puzzle'

No one in the family has ever met Mary Johns' youngest son, whom they only know by his first name, Billy.

"Through the inquiry [process], we've found some resources about how we may be able to locate him in the system," Camilleri said.

Her family believes Billy may have been in the child-care system, and since the inquiry started, family members have reached out to the Yukon government for support.

"It's a missing link to this 35-year journey — it's the last piece of the puzzle," Camilleri said.

Neumann hopes the inquiry will help solve the mystery surrounding the hundreds of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.

"This should answer some of the families' worries and let go of it now," Neumann said.

"It's been a tough road but now we know what happened, and now the world is watching and expecting the government to step up to the plate."

The hearings in Whitehorse wrap up on Thursday.