252: The Viral TikTok of a Stalker & Family Massacre... Now She's Telling It All | Fallon Farinacci

At just nine years old, Fallon Farinacci survived the unthinkable—being held hostage by her mother’s stalker and witnessing her parents' murder. Torn from her Métis community and denied the care she needed, she’s now speaking out about survival, systemic failures, and the fight for justice. Tune in as Fallon joins Annie in this week's episode to tell her story, discuss resilience, advocacy, and where she stands now after that horrific night. Follow Fallon:IG: https://www.instagram.com/fallonfarinacci?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fallonfarinacci?_t=ZT-8um67gEp4gg&_r=1Go Fund Me: https://tr.ee/3MUJadjWWVJoin our True Crime Club for access to BTS, Bonus Content, Our Private Group Chat, Giveaways and More! Shop Our True Crime MerchFollow the podcast on: IG, Facebook and TikTokFor Business Inquiries: [email protected] AnnieToday’s Sponsors:Fum: Head to tryfum.com and use code SERIAL to claim this limited-time offer today. Mint Mobile: Grab 3 months of service for just $15 a month at Mintmobile.com/AE. O Positiv: Take proactive care of your health and head to OPositiv.com/AE or enter AE at checkout for 25% off your first purchase.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Annie Elise?

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• 1:39Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Sleep.

• 2:02Annie Elise?

  Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistically with me, Annie Elise. I hope you are ready for a deep dive today, but I also want to give you a little bit of a warning, it's going to be an emotional one. Now, this episode isn't the same format as our normal deep dives. It is definitely going to be a long episode, but we have a very special guest joining us for this episode today, and here's the reason why. Let me backtrack a little bit and let you know why I chose this case that we're talking about today. As you know, I get a lot of case recommendations, case requests, suggestions, all of that, whether it's through our website, through email, DM, comments, whatever it may be. Well, a couple of weeks ago, when I tell you the amount of times that I was tagged

• 2:46Annie Elise?

  in this TikTok video, I'm talking like well into over 1,000 times. My notifications were just going crazy, and I'm like, what is going on? So I go to this video that I keep being tagged in.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Today marks 31 years since my family and I were held hostage by my mother's stalker, and we witnessed him take both of my parents' lives before he took his own. One of the RCMP constables that was alerted that we were being held hostage accidentally fell back asleep after receiving the initial call. The first 911 call went in at 2:30 in the morning, and the RCMP didn't enter our home until after 8:30 in the morning, and by then, it was too late. My younger brother and I sat just feet away from both of our parents for several hours before the RCMP finally entered our home. It goes without saying, my brothers and I endured a lot of trauma, and unfortunately,

• 3:40Speaker 02

  we never received proper post-traumatic care, and as a result of this, both of my brothers have since taken both of their lives.

• 3:49Annie Elise?

  The moment I saw this, I was immediately moved, because not only what this girl had to endure, and watching her mother and father die and be killed by a stalker who was also a family friend of sorts. This guy grew up with her father, they were best friends, they were childhood friends. So then to have that level of betrayal on top of it and being a young child and being frightened and then sitting with your deceased parents for hours waiting for the police to show up. The amount of trauma that somebody would endure after that. She has done so much advocacy work. She is so incredibly brave. She was really trying to use her experience to platform better causes and champion other people. So when I saw this video, I was, as I said, immediately moved.

• 4:33Annie Elise?

  I contacted her immediately and basically said, oh, my gosh, your story is so powerful. I am so sorry for what you've had to go through, what your family endured. I would love to talk with you. I would love to give you the opportunity to share your story on my platform where you hopefully will reach a wider audience, where you can affect change, where all of these goals and things that you want to accomplish can be had. And so we had been talking back and forth for a little bit and she is here now. We flew her out from Canada. She is here with me in Orange County in studio today. And I really want you to hear this case from her point of view. It would be so easy for me to share it with you. I have researched it and I have all of the details, but it's not as impactful in my opinion

• 5:18Annie Elise?

  unless you hear it directly from her, from her firsthand experience. So I am very excited because today I have Fallon Farinacci joining me. And she is going to talk us through that horrific night, the events that led up to it, and what unfortunately happened even after that nightmare that she and her siblings had to endure. So without further ado, let's bring in Fallon. Hi Fallon, thank you so much for joining me today. I am really excited to have you here. I already mentioned in the intro, I saw the viral TikTok. I'm not even kidding, I haven't even told you this yet. I think I was tagged over a thousand times in this.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 5:55Annie Elise?

  And so I was incredibly moved the second I saw it and I'm just so excited to speak with you in person. I'm so happy you're here. Thank you for coming out. Thank you. Um, I'm gonna cry right away. Don't do that.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  It just means a lot. Thank you.

• 6:10Annie Elise?

  No, I'm so glad you're here. And I'm glad you're having a good time and away from the cold weather. So that's good. So what I would love to do is just start at the beginning a little bit. I want you to feel as though you can be the one in charge of this, telling your story, sharing what you're comfortable with. And I would love to start more of just your childhood. If you could tell me about that, and then we can just slowly move in to the times of what happened.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Okay, absolutely. So I grew up in a tiny predominantly indigenous community in Manitoba. So in Canada, this community has approximately 300 people. It's still holding strong at 300 people.

• 6:47Annie Elise?

  Still?

• 6:48Speaker 02

  Still, yeah. I go home a lot. So for people who are listening and watching, I talk about two homes. So not to confuse people, I will try to make it clear. Manitoba is my soul's home. It's where I was born and raised. My parents, my father is Métis. So in Canada, there are some Métis in the States. However, here, they're not recognized as Métis. I believe they would just be under the category of Native Americans in the States. And I am Métis, and so was my father. My dad was the reason and is the reason why I'm so proud.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  He was a very proud indigenous man. And I'm forever grateful for that, because I don't think if he was the way he was, then I wouldn't, you know, have that instilled in me at such a young age. So we lived a, you know, what you would consider, and I hate saying this, like a normal life, right? Like I had both my parents, we lived in our family home. I had an older brother and a younger brother. So my parents' names are Morris and Cherry Paul. My older brother's name was Carson, and my younger brother's name was Clinton. And so we grew up there around community, culture.

• 8:06Annie Elise?

  What is it like growing up with such a small community? I would imagine I grew up in what I thought was a small community. It certainly doesn't compare to the size of yours. So I always thought everybody knew everything about me, that I knew everything about everybody else. What was that like growing up in a community of 300 people?

• 8:21Speaker 02

  That's exactly what it was. Everyone knows everyone's business to fault sometimes. And but it's also nice because it's that community feeling. It genuinely feels like home. That's just where my, my father had grown up as well. My mom is non indigenous. She grew up in St. Catharines, which is the place I call home now. And that's in Ontario, just a little bit outside of Toronto. They met and then they decided to settle in our little Saint-Eustache community.

• 8:54Annie Elise?

  Okay, great. Well, so then to walk me through, so you're young, you're growing up there. What you had described as, you know, a normal childhood, a normal life. When, what age were you when you were first introduced to your mother's stalker? As a family friend even before you knew he was dangerous?

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Probably you're like younger than I can even remember. So he was a part of the community. Um, so he himself was also raised there. And oh, I want to also mention, when I say normal, I also say that to kind of get people to question what they think. When something bad happens to someone, does it really matter? If they lived in quote, a normal life?

• 9:36Annie Elise?

  That's a great point.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Because I think so many people think, oh, that was deserving. Oh, that was like part of their, their social like group of people. And they don't question sometimes it, it happens to everyone. So my mom's stalker, I honestly, I feel like I, there was in a time that I don't really remember him. He was in our life to a certain degree. Like I remember my, um, people telling me afterwards that my mom's stalker. Uh, at one point, because it is a Métis community, they are mostly Catholic communities. And so we were raised Catholic in this community and my father was as well. And That my parents had had the priest over even with him one time to try to help him on like

• 10:22Speaker 02

  the straight and narrow. Um, I know that uh, the media also coined him the town bully. Uh, because of how he was within the community. I know a lot of people were scared of him.

• 10:35Annie Elise?

  Now, what was he like? Was he, you say get him on the straight and narrow. Was he a drinker? Was he a drug user? You say bully? What? He was just kind of?

• 10:43Speaker 02

  He was, he was a drinker. He was definitely an alcoholic. He was violent. A lot of, he had other prior convictions and I believe that most of them were all from drinking and driving. There were DUIs. Drugs, I've only heard, I don't know for sure, like what it was that he was, he was using drugs wise. He would come over. I remember one instance, I was outside. It was the summertime and my dad was working on our deck actually, and he had come over and he was just standing outside and drinking, um, or sorry, not drinking, smoking. And my dad was building the deck and I just kind of remember him there. I don't actually have any memories

• 11:26Speaker 02

  of him inside my home. Like even that dinner that was mentioned, I don't recall that dinner of him with the priest, like having him in our house. He was there. Now, it's not to say that he wasn't, but I also remember another time, um, he had given me, I want to say it was for my birthday. So it makes me think that this had happened, um, right before, uh, the year before all of this went down, that he had given me a, a package of temporary tattoos. And I'd found them at some point and I must have found them.

• 12:05Speaker 02

  After he had threatened my mom's life because I found them and I wanted to put them on and I remember walking out and asking her if I could put it on and her her face was just in shock. She was like, where did you get those? And I was like, from your closet. Cause I remember I was like in her closet, you know, my mom had all she was like the fashion one. So I like all her shoes, her high heels and everything and and she was like, no, give me those. And she took them away. And I remember like that feeling of like, oh, I did something wrong. But not understanding it either. And it's wild because the whole tattoo thing trickled into

• 12:48Speaker 02

  uh, my two youngest, I don't know, or my two oldest, I don't know if you could ever find a temporary tattoo on them.

• 12:55Annie Elise?

  Really?

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Oh, and they were younger. Uh-uh. No. And I realized that only after when I started, you know, really thinking about my family's story. My youngest, however, he is um, covered constantly. But it's funny how those things.

• 13:12Annie Elise?

  They just have a way of sticking.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it might not be related, but I mean, who knows with trauma, right?

• 13:19Annie Elise?

  Yeah. So your, so your mother's stalker was a family friend, a childhood friend of your father's, correct? So but not a close enough family friend that you would ever say he was like an uncle to us or he was close. He was just around. It was a tight knit community, came to dinner every now and then, but no core memories or big things that stand out.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  I don't like, I wouldn't even say he came to dinner. Like, that's how little, uh, yeah. And I would say that I tried to use the term loosely with him being friends with my dad because I wouldn't say that he was friends with him, but it's one of those community things that, I don't know, maybe one person thought he was friends with him at one point, right?

• 13:56Annie Elise?

  It's just so small and tight knit that of course you're going to be friendly and know everybody.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:02Annie Elise?

  So at what point to your knowledge, did things then start transitioning? He, of course, was an alcoholic, as you're saying, he was a bit of a bully in the town and you know, had to get back on the straight and narrow. But when was the behavior shift where it went from him being friendly to people to then becoming fixated on your mother?

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Right. So he had, before he even became fixated on my mother, um, I know that there was a case where he had held a woman hostage. Yeah.

• 14:32Annie Elise?

  Wait, what?

• 14:33Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 14:33Annie Elise?

  And he wasn't ever arrested or held in jail or?

• 14:37Speaker 02

  No.

• 14:37Annie Elise?

  Okay, tell me about that.

• 14:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think he was, I believe for that case, he was arrested and then they, the RCMP, there is a case that they had fought bail in nineteen ninety for him, saying that he was a danger to the community if he was released out on bail. And I believe that that is when he had held the woman hostage, but that news article doesn't mention that he had held a woman hostage in that one. So I don't know what the case was specifically. And so it was now, fast forward to nineteen ninety two, and this is for my memory of when things started to shift, was I'm going to assume that before that, he had done things

• 15:20Speaker 02

  to make my mom feel uncomfortable to put up the boundary she did this day.

• 15:25Annie Elise?

  Mm hmm.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Because we, and I remember this, we got ready, it was just my dad, my mom and I, and we were heading to Winnipeg. My mom worked at a hospital in Winnipeg, and it was one of the physician's birthdays who she was friends with. So the three of us were going to this birthday party. I got really sick in the car and they had to turn the car around. And then I stayed home with my dad. I remember my dad saying like, no, no, you go to Winnipeg and I'll stay home with Fallon. And so we stayed at home. And then it must have been the very next day, because it coincides, my mom's stalker and this physician had the same birthday. And so then the next day, he called and said, you know, where were you?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  And he must have got wind that my parents and I, or whatever, my mom at least, were going to this party. And he got upset about it. And he said, where's my birthday cake? And my mom said, I threw it in the garbage. I have to go. Our community had a, a kids bingo that night. Um, and she's like, I have to go. We have the kids bingo and I threw it in the garbage and hung up the phone. And then he called back and she answered and he, that was when he told my mom that uh, she wouldn't live to see her next birthday and that he wouldn't live to see his. My mom never made a cake, like that wasn't. It was a way of like,

• 16:52Annie Elise?

  Getting rid of him.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  I need to get you off the phone.

• 16:54Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, like I threw it in the garbage. I have to go.

• 16:57Annie Elise?

  Now, what had been happening up until this catalyst of events of the birthday? Do you, are you familiar or do you know, looking back, or have you heard any information about what that dynamic was like? Had he been just fixated on her? Did, was there altercations with your dad trying to be like, hey, you need to back off? Like, and I know your mom was setting boundaries. What did that look like?

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Nothing. Like, they were, they were just, you know, they were a part of the community. And I don't know if it just started for him that it was getting a little more. Nothing that I know of that, you know, he was touching or, and that my dad had to like step in. It was never anything like that. It literally felt like it went from that extreme right away.

• 17:37Annie Elise?

  Just that he felt like entitled to your mom's attention and affection.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that, and that was it for him. He was offended by what she said. And he, he made the threat and then right away, that's when my mom called the RCMP. Because she was taking it quite seriously, especially someone like that. And who knows, like, I think back, maybe she knew what had happened with that other woman being held hostage. Or maybe there were other things that kind of had led up to it that made her feel uncomfortable. So she called the RCMP. My dad brought us to the hall still. So me and my younger brother went to that bingo. But my mom had called the RCMP and I'm, I'm, this is me assuming that she stayed at home.

• 18:25Speaker 02

  Because my dad made a phone call while we were at the hall. And he couldn't have called the house that you would assume, because they didn't have a phone line. So what had happened was my dad brought my brother and I to the town hall. He was there with me. And then he shifted us over in the middle of the bingo and put us with Ken and Debbie Bowden. And so those are my parents' best friends. That's my best friend's parents. And so we sat with them and I remember, uh, like just my memory is that he got us to move really quickly while the bingo was going on.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  And everyone was there, right? From the community. And so we then, my dad didn't say like, you know, you're gonna stay with them. Okay. So then my dad went and he called my mom. Um, and I had always thought when I was younger that my mom had went straight over to my aunt's house that night. But she couldn't have because that aunt didn't have a, a house line. So she had to have stayed there in order for my dad to have called and he called to say, he's here.

• 19:32Annie Elise?

  He was at bingo?

• 19:32Speaker 02

  He went to the bingo later to find out that he had actually entered the bingo with a twenty-two caliber sawed off rifle under his coat.

• 19:41Annie Elise?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  So he was, he was serious, like immediately serious. So that's when my mom then went over to my aunt's house because that's where the RCMP had taken her statement. Based off of my memory of what had followed after that. Eventually I go to my aunt's house while the statements are being taken. But it's not unusual in a tiny community like that. I didn't feel fear because the, it's unusual, obviously to call the RCMP, but it's not unusual to see them. Cause one day they're community members and the next they're not. You know what I mean? So I wasn't scared by it. No adults made me feel anything to be worried about that night.

• 20:22Annie Elise?

  Yeah, you're young. I would imagine they're protecting you and what you're exposed to. And a nine-year-old isn't going to know something is dangerous or sketchy or that something bad is happening unless they're made aware of that. And I would imagine they weren't making you aware of that, of course.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was never like a fear for us. Maybe my older brother, obviously he would have probably known the details. I think if God forbid, something like that hap- happened. I would think that my older child would be aware of what was happening, but who knows, right? And so then I don't like, I have no memories of anything kind of afterwards. It's more all just court documents for the next month because I'm not made aware of it as a nine-year-old. And so what happened was he was arrested that night and he was brought before a judge. Now, what happened was the judge failed to, with the threat of life, he failed to order

• 21:23Speaker 02

  a seizure of any weapons. And those officers never told the judge that my mom and dad's initial worry was that he had a 22 caliber rifle. They were aware of this, like, like I said, it's a hunting community. You just know, like, my dad would have known what kind of weapons he would have had, right? Like, just like my dad's best friend would know what my dad has because it's like-

• 21:50Annie Elise?

  And why weren't the weapons seized? Was it because it's a hunting community and it wasn't a threat? Like, they just did not act on it?

• 21:57Speaker 02

  They didn't even mention it when he went before the judge that night. And there's, there's, again, it's like, human error is, like, a lot of stuff was kind of blamed on human error. So those RCMP officers never did anything about it. He didn't have a seizure of weapons. He didn't have a search of his home. And he was released on bail, even though the same RCMP, you know, dispatcher, whatever, station had fought bail in 1990 saying he was a danger to the community.

• 22:28Annie Elise?

  But because he was never formally charged with that or convicted, they probably couldn't use that to then further bolster this case, I would imagine.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:37Annie Elise?

  And just for all of our US listeners, RCMP, and you might know more about this, but from my preliminary research, it's basically your federal government that also does sometime act locally. So for us, it would be like our FBI, however, they occasionally will act locally as well because it's a small town. So that's how it works with you guys.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, they have their, so my community doesn't have its own policing. They have the RCMP, where Winnipeg, I believe, now has Winnipeg Police, but they also have RCMP. All little rural communities have our CMP, especially westward and I believe eastward of Ontario, but then Ontario, we have OPP. So that's our provincial police, plus our like local cities and community policing.

• 23:28Annie Elise?

  Okay.

• 23:28Speaker 02

  And also the, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were put into place to control Indigenous people. That was like the very premise of this policing ever existing in the first place. So now it's, I mean, it's still there and it does, you know, like I said, provincial and then community policing as well. So.

• 23:51Annie Elise?

  Okay.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:52Annie Elise?

  So he's released on bail. They don't seize his weapons and he's basically effectively just out to continue to wreak havoc and stalk whomever he wants, make threats and not having any sort of reprimand to that.

• 24:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it wasn't technically a restraining order. I forget what the, with the wording is, but there was a, something like a restraining order put into place.

• 24:16Annie Elise?

  A piece of paper saying, stay back, stay away, which we know those are not always the most useful tool. It's great to have it documented, but the only reason it's good to have it documented is for when something severe happens. It doesn't prevent the something severe from ever happening.

• 24:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, like my grandma, my mom's mom has always said, a piece of paper is not going to protect you.

• 24:36Annie Elise?

  No, of course not. Of course not. You would hope that law enforcement would be the ones to step in and take those precautionary measures such as seizing the weapons, doing something, keeping him locked up. And I would imagine too, even if there was a restraining order in place or whatever that was, you were in such a small community. So how does somebody even abide by that? Because he lived very close to you as well, correct?

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that's like a point, a great point, because I make that all the time with people is you think of such a small community. If you just went a little down my street, especially even, I think to this day, because it hasn't built up that much. There's new homes and everything. But you could stand on my street and you could look across. There would be one street in between us and you could see where he lived.

• 25:24Annie Elise?

  Oh, yeah. So there's just by living proximity alone, he'd be violating whatever restraining order was in place.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. And there was no restraining order put on to stay away from my father. And there was no restraining order put on us kids either. Um, because the judge said like he didn't threaten uh us kids. And the judge didn't feel that we were in any kind of danger from him at all. Um, so like there's parts of that I understand, but then at the same time I don't.

• 25:56Annie Elise?

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• 27:03Speaker 02

  So then he's released out on bail and he's, you know, free to be in our community. And because it is such a small community, community members can, like, they remembered him saying he was gonna kill her, he couldn't live without her, he was gonna kill my dad, he didn't want to go on if he couldn't be with my mom. Like, it was this whole thing.

• 27:26Annie Elise?

  And what was the community saying to that? I mean, that would be, I would imagine, I would be fearful if I ever heard somebody say that. And I would, of course, go to your mother, to your father, and warn them. But again, I understand that even if you go to the police with that, it's idle threats. It's nothing that is tangible to arrest somebody. But what was the community's response to that?

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Well, I think a lot of people were scared. From what I have read, like, through news articles, is that people were kind of like, what were we supposed to do? When we were, like, I'm scared of him, myself, right? And I didn't know this about my dad, because, you know, I, it was been my story for so long that I knew certain parts. I knew the way it, you know, had kind of all, you know, A to Z kind of happened. But there was parts I didn't know in between. And not until an adult, you start to reflect on it. And I remember asking my dad's friend to say, like, how did my, how was my dad? Like, did he think this was gonna happen? And he said he remembered my dad being genuinely scared. He's like, I could see it in his face.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  He was scared that he was going to go through with what he had been threatening. And I mean, it shows my parents, at that point, had started to kind of get their affairs in order. My mom had life insurance money through her work, and they were, you know, starting to sort that out. At some point in December of 1992, my parents had heard, I don't know from who, that they, he had a revolver handgun. I'm, forgive me, I'm not very, I don't know what, but I just know it's a handgun.

• 29:04Annie Elise?

  A gun, yeah, okay.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Another gun they were concerned about. And so my mom wrote the RCMP a letter.

• 29:11Annie Elise?

  And this is after he's on bail? And so she's hearing, he still has a weapon? Okay, so, and so she responds to our RCMP, she writes them?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  She writes them a letter, and she tells them that she's concerned that he has a handgun. And um, nothing is ever done with the letter. And a lot of people have asked me like, why do you think your mom wrote a letter? I don't know. Was it because it was the nineties? And you like picking up and calling? Did she try to pick up and call and no one? Like the, we would never know that now. Um, and or was she wanting it to have it in writing?

• 29:48Annie Elise?

  Yeah, it could just be she wanted to add it to the file to make the case even stronger for whatever was going to hopefully not, but come to fruition.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and nothing happened. And then somewhere along the way, my parents' case lands on the desk of a Crown attorney for family. He is not related.

• 30:06Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 02

  This is not a family matter. No idea. And as far as I know from documents that I saw was that was, again, it was a human error. And that the Crown got the, the case and then just move forward with it. That there was no rhyme or reason as to why. Um, maybe there was, but nothing that I've seen for documents or that I can make sense of at least anyway. So, um, he continued on and the next steps were mediation. And mediation was not something that my parents were willing to do and.

• 30:42Annie Elise?

  What would the goal of mediation even be in that moment of like, oh, let's all come together and agree that he's gonna stop stalking her and go on his merry way?

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Right. Cause you come together.

• 30:53Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  To, to resolve.

• 30:55Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  The issue. And so I just, I never understood. And it was one of those things, again, human error that it happened that way. And so what happened at one point was there was a clerk that was in a temp position that had to mail out documents. What documents? I don't know. I'd love to know. And she accidentally mailed my mother her stalker's documents. And my mother's stalker got my mom's. What specific documents, I don't know, but I just know that they received something that the other shouldn't have. And then that was at the beginning of January. So now we're in January nineteen ninety-three. And we're going around the twenty-sixth of January. They're supposed to have a mediation.

• 31:41Speaker 02

  And my mom had decided, um, earlier that week, there was a woman in Winnipeg that was shot and killed outside of the Mississauga Hospital, and that's where my mom worked. And my mom's first instincts were to run outside and see the woman's color of her hair. And my grandma is the one who had told me this because obviously my mom was confiding in my grandma and telling her these things. And the fact that that was her instinct because she thought her stalker mistaken this woman.

• 32:14Annie Elise?

  Oh, so she wanted to see, did this woman look like her? Was he there to kill her?

• 32:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, but in fact, it was this woman's stalker. And earlier that same week, another woman was killed by her stalker in Manitoba. There was, and again, I'm not like a legal expert, but there were laws that were in place, but not enacted at that time to help protect women. And so I do know that after that, that they did move forward with that, whether that has saved.

• 32:47Annie Elise?

  Well, I would hope so. Yeah, it sounds like stalking was a clear problem if two people were killed in the same week.

• 32:52Speaker 02

  Right, three.

• 32:53Annie Elise?

  Three, well, yes.

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:54Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  So, um, so now my mom was terrified. And she, that was enough for her to say, no, I'm not going to this mediation. For years, I didn't know why. I've told people, I don't know why. I think it was maybe she was scared. She thought, like, what was the point? My grandmother, the same thing, was kind of always saying, like, she always thought, like, what was the point? That was the reasoning was she had seen what had happened and was like, there's no point to a mediation. They've failed at them so many times up to that point. So it was like, maybe if I don't go, they can't. If she didn't go to the mediation, then she could proceed with criminal, um, charges.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  And that was her intention, um, but he was released from jail on the twenty sixth.

• 33:41Annie Elise?

  So why was he back in jail?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Jail, I think, you know, when you go to court and then you have to stand before a judge. So you're not like arrested, but then you're released again. So he was released again after because no one came to the mediation. Um, and he was released, he, this is where I talk about the drugs because I know that he was taking prescription drugs. That day, um, based off of people, um, testifying that he did, that he was taking, um, I don't, I don't even know what. But he was taking painkillers and then he was drinking and very cliche, he had drank a bottle of sherry. Um, my mom's name was Sherry, um, and he drank a bottle of sherry and, uh, then it was just after midnight.

• 34:28Speaker 02

  So from the twenty sixth to the twenty seventh, my older brother was waiting for a friend. They had exams, they were seventeen, um, they had exams and you know that time between you don't have an exam, so it's like free time, right? I have two older teenagers, I've been through that where it's like they don't have, they have a couple of days where they get to just hang out and hang out with their friends. We were all sleeping, including my parents and my brother was waiting for his friend to come over and, uh, he heard a knock at the door. And so he opened up the door, um, and on the other side of the door was my mom's stalker. And he had the same twenty two caliber rifle, uh, that my parents had told the police about.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  And he held it to my brother's stomach and told him not to scream or say anything.

• 35:14Annie Elise?

  And your brother was only seventeen.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then he took my brother into the basement, uh, and he tied him up. Um, and he verbally tortured him with, you know, threats and telling my brother what he was gonna do to my parents. And, uh, at one point he had my brother write him a, a suicide letter, like a will, uh, so to speak. To say, you know, that he was sorry to his family for what he had done and that he couldn't go on anymore. Uh, I've actually never seen the letter.

• 35:47Annie Elise?

  The note was written on, from your brother on behalf of the stalker.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he had my brother write that. I think it goes to show you the state of the mind that he was into, that he was. So confident to take someone into the basement, yet what if my father or mother heard him in the basement? Uh, and they were sleeping the whole time, you know, so um, I don't think someone that was thinking straight would

• 36:15Annie Elise?

  Didn't seem like he was very prepared.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Confidently, you know, like for hours. They were in the basement until just before two thirty in the morning. He had my brother down there for that long.

• 36:26Annie Elise?

  Just the two of them.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Just the two of them.

• 36:28Annie Elise?

  All while you all were still asleep upstairs.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:30Annie Elise?

  And how old were your parents when this was happening?

• 36:32Speaker 02

  So my, my father was just shy of thirty eight and my mom was just shy of thirty seven, so thirty six and, and thirty seven. Um, and so they were uh, upstairs sleeping. I was in my room and eventually he told my brother, I'm gonna go upstairs and do the deed and he left my brother in the basement and my brother heard um, some yelling in French. And then my father was uh, shot immediately and he heard my mom screaming, heard a gunshot go off. And that's when my brother decided he needed to get out and go get help.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Somehow miraculously, he was able to untie himself. Thank God that he was able to do all of that. And he climbed out um, of his bedroom window, which was in the basement. Uh, he could have went up the stairs and out, but a- again, it was probably one of those like, if I go up that door, then he'll know I'm going out that door, right?

• 37:32Annie Elise?

  Right. I would imagine it's like you wanna get out as sneakily as you possibly can.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, so he snuck out and then he did make a stop at my aunt's house. And I had heard different things over the years that he had stopped at my aunt's house to get boots because he didn't have any. And it was January in Manitoba and like Manitoba, just so people know, it's uh, it's colder than, you know, um, Churchill sometimes or the same temperature, which is far north Manitoba. It's freezing there. I just got back from there. It's like, Feels like I it's I don't know if Americans will know, but it is as cold as feels like minus forty eight, sometimes forty.

• 38:10Annie Elise?

  But is that Celsius or Fahrenheit? I need the math.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  So someone told me that they're both the same for minuses. So I don't know.

• 38:18Annie Elise?

  Okay, yeah, but freezing nonetheless. You definitely wouldn't want to be like walking around without boots.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Freezing. So my brother, I had heard that my brother had stopped and got boots and then went straight to Ken and Debbie's house.

• 38:31Annie Elise?

  And those are the same friends from Bingo?

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 38:33Annie Elise?

  The best friends of your parents?

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then my best friend as well.

• 38:36Annie Elise?

  And how close did they live to your house?

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Uh, very close. Like you could from uh my bedroom window, you could see their home. So close enough. And then my aunt was just over as well. This is rural. So you know, it's a lot larger yards. But close enough, right? And so um he then went to their house and the first nine one one call went in. Well, I will say it's not nine one one at that time. It was a seven digit number because it was, you know, the nineties and it was a small community. So they didn't have nine one one out in these communities. And so the first call, emergency call went in. And my brother told them that she he was concerned that um he had entered our home.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  Uh, my mother's stalker and that he heard a gunshot off and that my parents had been in court with them. My brother's words were obviously jumbled in the call. Like he just said, we're in court with them right now or with him right now. And that he had a gun and that he was inside with my mom and my dad and his two siblings. And at the time, my younger brother had just turned six and I had turned nine at that point. And my older brother, um, like I said, he was seventeen. So we're all in the home waiting for this help. I don't even know, like really at that point. So when the gunshot went off, that's what woke me up out of bed.

• 40:04Annie Elise?

  And that was at approximately two thirty AM.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Yes. And when I woke up, I my. My little brother's over here um in the hallway, standing in front of his bedroom door. And my parents' door is like right next door to his and mine was here. So I'd come out and I could see him crying. And so I was like, I didn't know what was going on. And so I tried to push my parents' door open. But it did, it did like, there was resistance. So it did open. It wasn't locked shut.

• 40:35Annie Elise?

  There was something against the door.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I'd imagine that was him on the other side of the door. And so I tried to push. And I can't get open, like I can't get it open. And he's screaming. So like, I think that is what's set off my fight or flight. And so I went running down the hallway and I picked up the phone to call the emergency number. But my brain said, call nine one one. And then it was the dark. So I was dialing zero um one one instead of nine one one. And um and then I could just see a shadow coming, running towards me. And I didn't know who it was.

• 41:13Speaker 02

  But I, my, my brain just said, like, run. And so I dropped the phone and I went around the corner and I ran downstairs and I hid

• 41:22Annie Elise?

  To the basement.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  And at that point, it was my mom's stalker who had run towards me. And eventually they come downstairs. It feels like it took them forever to come downstairs. Long enough that I was standing behind, I didn't do a good job of hiding. I was standing behind my brother's bedroom door. And he had a, a dresser with a mirror on it. And I'm just looking at myself in the mirror thinking, wh- what is happening? What is happening? Like, I couldn't, I couldn't even think of what was happening. Cause I mean, I had never, ever been exposed to any kind of violence.

• 41:57Annie Elise?

  No, when you're nine years old, how could you even start to calibrate in your mind what the situation is and what's going on? And where was your younger brother at this time?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  Upstairs still.

• 42:06Annie Elise?

  Okay.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  And so they come down eventually and I could hear him, like, find her, find her, find out where she is, find her where she is. Then he started getting mad and I could hear him say, where is he? And I'm sure he was like swearing and everything else, but I don't remember. Cause now he realizes my brother isn't in the basement either. And he is like livid. And so eventually my, it was my younger brother who found me. And I remember him pulling on my arm and I'm like, I'm like, no, please, no, no. Don't, don't say I'm here, don't say I'm here. And he's pulling me out. And then eventually I must go or they must hear obviously us saying these things.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  And he pulls me out and we're now we're at the bottom of the stairs and he's losing his mind. And, and um, I remember he tells my mom. Um, you better find him. If you don't find him, you're gonna, you're gonna have to pick which um, which one I kill between me and my younger brother. And I remember being like, I'll look for him. I'll look for him because I'm like, I don't want to die. Like he's threatening if he can't find my brother, he's gonna kill me or my brother. And my mom's like screaming at this point, like she's not gonna pick who he's gonna kill between the two of us. I remember looking behind the couch and. And when I looked behind the couch, he followed me to look behind the couch because it was like on um, one of them was like on an angle.

• 43:29Speaker 02

  And so he walked behind it with me because he probably didn't trust because I was like, no, he's not back there. Um, and he didn't trust me. So he, he did, he looked. And then at one point I walked into the storage room and I like kind of looked and I think he kind of had given up at that point.

• 43:46Annie Elise?

  How mu- how long do you think, and I would imagine time, of course, felt like it stood still and took a lot longer. How long do you think you were actively looking?

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Oh, maybe ten minutes, like if that, like if anything, it took that long because he was looking, he would follow and look behind us.

• 44:03Annie Elise?

  And where was your mother during this?

• 44:04Speaker 02

  The with us the whole.

• 44:05Annie Elise?

  So you were all just kind of moving from area to area.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  The four of us, just like searching. And uh, so then eventually he's like, he's getting mad. And so that's when he, whatever he's doing. Uh, he must have been in like kind of in the storage room, like it was, it was open. Because I'm just thinking, where was he enough time that it gave my mom to whisper to me, stay downstairs and call for help. Call the police. And she whispered it to me and she said she loved me. And then she was like, let's go upstairs to him. And she was trying to separate him from us at that point. I don't know what she said to get him to go upstairs, but he agreed to it and that we could stay downstairs.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Um, and so I went to pick up the phone and it uh, had been ripped out of the wall. And I thought if I plugged it in, I would get electrocuted. So I didn't put it in. Cause at that point, I mean, I had never had to plug a phone into the wall. So I just left it. And we stayed down there and eventually I was on my knees. And my younger brother was lying on the bed. And so like my hands were up like this on my brother's bed with my legs on the floor. And I just like looked at him and I remember it was so cold in the room. And that's because the window was open. It was freezing. Yeah, it was freezing down there.

• 45:31Speaker 02

  So he must have realized that my my brother had escaped. And my mom took him upstairs or they he did. They both went upstairs. And we stayed down there and then we fell asleep. This was probably around three thirty now at this point that they finally left us to go upstairs.

• 45:48Annie Elise?

  And how many calls at this point have been put in? There was the one from your brother.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:52Annie Elise?

  Then.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  My attempt.

• 45:54Annie Elise?

  Yep.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Um, and then my brother, uh, they called again. They called at three thirty and they asked, where are you? So the initial call, I'll go back to that at two thirty. What happened and why there's such a big gap is that at two thirty, when that initial call went in, the way the like chain of command goes. So the dispatcher gets the call and then they they relay the call to these officers, the two officers that are on duty. But at the time, the Headingly Police Department, where this what were like they patrol our community. They closed at two thirty. So that call, those officers were already in Winnipeg. So it closed, I believe it closed from two thirty.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  I don't know if it's six thirty or eight thirty, but either way it's closed at that time. And there is another community that's close by. It's called Portage La Prairie. It was actually closer than Headingly. A little bit by a little bit, I believe. And, um, but they don't patrol our community, only Headingly police do. And so those officers receive all the information and then they have to call the constable on duty at his home because he's sleeping. So they call the constable to tell him what is happening. And they say by name, my mom's stalker, because they know him.

• 47:14Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  And they tell him that he has entered the Paul residence, that a gunshot had gun off. Um, and that there was two, like that who was in the house.

• 47:24Annie Elise?

  That there's kids in the house.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  And that the brother had called for help.

• 47:29Annie Elise?

  And this is at two thirty?

• 47:30Speaker 02

  Yes. And that constable, his name was Constable Dunford, he said, go out to the Paul residence and see if you can talk to him, get him to come out, secure the area, and then call me when you get there. And then he hung up the phone and he was a hostage negotiator for that police station. Um, and instead of calling his superiors or sending backup, uh, he hung up the phone and he then accidentally fell back asleep. So he falls asleep and at three thirty, my brother calls again and says like, they're like, where are you? Why is it

• 48:12Speaker 02

  taking so long? And my brother also says, why a seventeen year old is thinking of these things? But he said, don't come down the road with your lights on because he'll see you coming. Do not come down.

• 48:24Annie Elise?

  Yeah, you can impulsively do something.

• 48:25Speaker 02

  Right. And so he, um, says that and they arrived just shortly after that call. They, I, I don't know if anything was said about like what their timeout was, but they do arrive after three thirty in our community.

• 48:39Annie Elise?

  But I guess my question is, where were the people that the constable had said, go out there, check on things, try to lure him out of the house and talk him down and then let me know? Like, what were they doing for the past hour?

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Right. So they were making their way from there because they live in Winnipeg. So it's like, uh, you know, it's January. So let's just say it's forty five minutes to an hour.

• 48:59Annie Elise?

  So they were in, they were in route, but they had to ride.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I don't know if they had to stop at the station first before they could come out to our community, what that all, I don't know if any of that is in any kind of documents. But um, so yeah, so they come out to our community. They do make contact with my mom and at this point, so they call and my mom talks to someone. And they say like, okay, where is he? Are you hurt? And she says, I don't know. Um, is he shot? Or is your husband? Okay. I don't know. Like she's obviously not in a clear mind, but also answering one sided kind of questions. So not to alert him. And again, this goes to show you the state that he was in.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Because who would be calling our house at three thirty in the morning?

• 49:49Annie Elise?

  For him to just allow her to be on this phone call.

• 49:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, like she picked it up and and let her talk. And you could tell she was rushing off on the um, when she's talking. Cause she's like, okay, I have to go now. I have to go call me back in the morning. And I think even the person on the other line was a little um, taken back by it. Just by, I have a bit of the transcript and she was like, and they're like, what do you? What do you mean? Or something like that.

• 50:15Annie Elise?

  Maybe she was speaking in code. She didn't want him to know that she was trying to get help. So she's like, that's fine. We'll talk in the morning, of course.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it took them back so much. Again, like, how are you not?

• 50:26Annie Elise?

  How are you not trained for this?

• 50:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. And so she's says, okay. And the last thing is they say, Sherry, help is on the way.

• 50:34Annie Elise?

  And she's at three thirty.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Yep, call me back in the morning. She hangs up the phone. So my mom thinks that now there's help.

• 50:41Annie Elise?

  They're on their way. It's gonna be over soon.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so um, this all happens. And we're downstairs at that point. It said that um, my mom was flicking the lights on and off in my bedroom to try to signal for help outside and um, that they could see it, that the lights were being flicked on and off. And we're in the basement at this whole time. And then at five thirty, um, we wake up and at the time I, you know, I didn't know what had woken me up and it's only to assume that he had uh, taken his first shot at my mom. And so he shot her in the um, arm.

• 51:19Annie Elise?

  But this is now two hours later.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Two hours later.

• 51:22Annie Elise?

  From when they say Sheri, help is on the way.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:25Annie Elise?

  And there's still no help there.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 51:26Annie Elise?

  So it's two hours after that, three hours in total since the first phone call went out from your brother.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Yes, and my brother still has not been seen by a police officer to take his statement until five thirty. That is when they go over to the, I don't know if they go to the Bodens or where at that point, if they had evacuated the area yet. I don't believe it was evacuated. I think the chain of commands was then they took my brother to finally take his statement. And only I believe it was at six that they started to secure the area around our home. So people were evacuated out that lived near us.

• 52:07Annie Elise?

  Hold on, I wanted to understand, make sure I'm understanding this right. Five hours after he's entered the home now. Their priority is evacuating the streets nearby before even making entry into your home.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 52:20Annie Elise?

  Wow.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  And they start to set up a, a command post. Now this officer who fell back to sleep. They eventually start making, setting up a command post. They don't even make it in our community and they, there's no rhyme or reason as to why. They say it's because the other community had uh, the fire station so that they could set that up.

• 52:41Annie Elise?

  But it doesn't matter, you're not sending anyone anyway.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Right. And as far as I know, the command station wasn't, now again, this was from a community member. That it actually wasn't even set up in the police station, that it was set up in a shop. Someone that I know that their, their family's shop. It was set up there. And my brother, when he got there, he witnessed them. Um, and this might sound like people might think like, oh, like, what is that important? It's just goes to show you the lack of urgency. He was watching them draw a map of the house with a ruler. And. Like it it literally was our our bedrooms. A living room, dining room, kitchen. Like it wasn't, it's not like we had this like elaborate home. It was everyone has.

• 53:26Annie Elise?

  And if you're seeing lights going off and on in a room, you know where they like, you know where the basement is, make entry there. Wow.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so I'm awoken by that sound and I run up the stairs and I run down the hallway again. To go into my bedroom because I can hear that the sound like the arguing and that's coming from my bedroom. My brother's with me the whole time. And so I go to push the door open and I can't and I hear my mom say, why do you have to shoot me? You already shot me in what I think she says is the I. And I remember thinking, oh, my God, I need like, I need to get my mom help now. And so I turn and I go into her bedroom and I pick up the phone and I call nine one one and I'm like, I need an ambulance for um, three people because I don't know where my brother is at this point, or I. No, I think I call nine one one first and I just say that I need help.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  And at some point I call and the nine one one dispatcher hangs up on me or the emergency number.

• 54:22Annie Elise?

  And this is still around six, six thirty.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, this isn't six thirty. Yeah. Yeah. So um, and then I turn and I look and I see my dad. Lying in bed. I don't see him. I just see like the blanket is over him. And I'm like trying to wake him up and I'm like dad, like what like, I remember feeling so like I can feel it in my body. We're so relieved. He is here. Why isn't he waking up and helping us? And I'm just shaking him um, and my younger brother comes around. Uh, and I can tell by my younger brother's reaction that something was wrong with my dad because. He started to cry and scream and that was enough for me to back off and not.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Like I never even looked at my dad any further than what I had at that point. And so I just backed off. And at the same time, it kind of like in my memory is all happening at the same time. And then I'm sitting on the bed and I hear noise. And then my mom falls to the ground, um, cause the bedroom door is open, so I can see her basically like from her waist up. And so she's lying on the floor and she just looks like she's sleeping there and um, I hear a really loud noise. And I think it's a shelf that's knocked over. I had a, a shelf with like, you know, all my stuff as a nine year old on it.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  And I think, oh my God, he's mad. He's mad at my mom right now. Um, so he's knocking things over. So I remember thinking like, we have to be so quiet. I was just frozen on my parents' bed and.

• 56:03Annie Elise?

  You were on top of the bed at this point?

• 56:05Speaker 02

  I was on top of the bed. This was six thirty. And then I eventually, I feel like I must have stayed frozen on that bed for half an hour. Because at seven AM, when my mom's alarm goes off, cause she should have been waking us up at that point for school. And so when the alarm goes off, I was on the bed and I hadn't yet got off the bed to hide. And so I turned it off, cause I think, oh my God, he's gonna be so mad. He's gonna be so mad at us for making noise. I pick up the phone at some point and I call again and I ask for help. I asked for, that's when I asked for three ambulance.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Because we can't find my brother and I know something has happened to my dad and my mom is obviously hurt, cause she's lying there, but.

• 56:51Annie Elise?

  And it's now four hours after the initial call. And nobody has made entry.

• 56:56Speaker 02

  No one has.

• 56:56Annie Elise?

  And how many calls have been made at this point? Several.

• 56:59Speaker 02

  Yes. And um, the noise was him turning the gun on himself. And so he killed himself um, in my childhood bedroom.

• 57:08Annie Elise?

  Oh my gosh.

• 57:08Speaker 02

  On the floor. And I had no idea that he had done that. Otherwise, I could have told people, right, at that point. Um, and so we waited. Eventually, they tried to make contact with the house, but I had taken it off the hook. Because I was worried again that he was gonna come in if he heard the phone ringing. He would, like, you're bringing him to me.

• 57:30Annie Elise?

  Yeah, exactly. You're reminding him that we're in here and, yeah, you're drawing attention to it.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then eventually I do put it back on and, uh, I must have put it back on at eight AM. So they're outside and they're waiting and there's no, I believe SWAT gets to our house only around seven.

• 57:48Annie Elise?

  Now, I, I keep going back to the timeline, I know, but I guess I'm just trying to really understand here and reconcile it. Are there no twenty-four seven emergency services nearby, or is it that things are closed down? Like, how is it taking eight hours at this point from when he first made entry into your home? For anyone to even come and try to enter?

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Right. I do believe that Portage Le Prairie was twenty-four hours. But for whatever reason, from my understanding is that that station would have had to initiated them coming out. Like for backup, right? And because of that constable falling asleep, he wasn't making contact with other people to let them know. And there was no, uh, they, they fought to the end to say that they didn't think that we were in danger. That they didn't know the severity.

• 58:39Annie Elise?

  When you have a nine-year-old calling multiple times saying, we need ambulances, something's wrong with my dad, there's somebody in here with a gun. And when you have a seventeen-year-old also saying that, how do you, how does anybody equate that to children not being in danger? To anybody not being in danger? That makes absolutely no sense.

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

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• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  So.

• 1:00:13Annie Elise?

  Okay, so 8 o'clock SWAT arrives.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:15Annie Elise?

  You're still inside the home now with your mother, your father, your mother's stalker.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:00:21Annie Elise?

  Who are deceased at this point.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Yes, so we are sitting inside for a total of two hours with three dead bodies waiting. Where we do hide on the other, when I say hide, we just put ourselves on the other side of the bed so that if he happens to walk by the door, then he won't see us maybe, you know? And so I put the phone back on the hook. I do talk to my grandpa at one point because he asks like, where are you? Where's your dad? Is he okay? Like, he's asking me all kinds of questions, but I specifically remember him asking about my dad and where I am and where we are. And one officer then at that point asks, can we jump out of the window? Is there any way we can jump out of the window?

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  And just, I was like, no. I'm like, my, I have a broken arm with a cast up to here. I had been, you know, Manitoba with all our snow and I was jumping on a snow hill and I had broken my arm. And so I was in a cast like this and I was stuck like that. And the bedroom, like a lot of those bungalows, like on the outside, the...

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Because of the basement and then the floor and then the windows are a little, they're up higher, not like in a living room, let's say where they're lower. And I was like, no, I can't, I can't get out. Meanwhile, they're trying to outside, see if they could, um, like the idea of, I don't know what they were trying to figure out outside to try to get in. It was told to me only in the last couple of years that the reason why the RCMP came in when they did was because my grandpa had had enough at that point. And they said that he like, he said enough, I'm gonna go in. Um, I, I don't know what it was that made them come in at that point, finally at eight thirty, but they came in.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  And when they came in, they yelled out RCMP, you know, whatever they would have said with like weapons down or whatever. Um, but then following it, they said, this one's gone, this one's gone, this one's gone. And I can hear it like it was yesterday. And then two seconds later, um, like I, I can, I can see the, uh, police officers kind of split and two people come into the room. And then they throw blankets over me and my, my younger brother and they carry us out and it's two of the, uh, EMTs.

• 1:02:50Annie Elise?

  Did they keep you and your brother together or did they separate you?

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  They were not carried out together, but we're carried out like in the, not in the same arms, but we, we go out of the house together. And I remember we got outside and I can feel that it's cold coming up the blanket. And cause I, my gown, like it was a night gown that I had on. And I could hear a voice and I remember, um, like just shifting a little bit in the person's arms. Cause like I wanted to get out of it because I thought, oh, that's Carson. Carson's here, like he's okay. Cause I had no idea yet if my brother was okay or not. And I don't know if he's, if he had killed him somewhere or what, what the problem was, why my brother all of a sudden wasn't there. And so we get into the ambulance and I remember looking at the EMTs and I'm being, I'm like asking, where's Carson?

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Is Carson okay? And they just said to me, um, Uh, we don't know where he is, but we're gonna take you to the Ms. Accordia Hospital. We're gonna bring you to your mom's work. Uh, all her friends wanna see you there. They're gonna bring you there and we're gonna get you checked out. And you know, they're distracting us like we're kids, like kids are, they are, I hate saying it, so resilient because they're distracting us with like, they had like a cool, I remember it would look like a pen, but it was actually a light, uh, like a flashlight. And they're like, you know, looking us over to make sure that we're okay. And they're like, you can have this. And then they had like a pen that was actually like a syringe. And so they're like, you can have this too. And so we're just like, now all of a sudden, you know, I'm asking like, are my, is my mom and dad okay? Are they coming? But like, nothing's

• 1:04:23Annie Elise?

  So nothing has set in that of what had taken place inside that house?

• 1:04:28Speaker 02

  Nothing at all. So we're brought into, um, Winnipeg and the two EMTs were, um, childhood friends of mine's father's.

• 1:04:38Annie Elise?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  And so, you know, we're brought into Winnipeg and we're brought to the hospital. They do examine us to make sure that he hadn't hurt us in any way. Up until my mom, um, died, he had, uh, he, he never sexually assaulted my mom, um, but he had, uh, abused her and hit her. And so I think my mom had, I'll just say a number of contusions all over her body, come to find out with the autopsy. Um, and so they, they wait now. We have family that's coming in from Ontario.

• 1:05:17Speaker 02

  Uh, my aunt, my uncles, and then we have my family, obviously all my dad's sisters. My dad had a very big family and a brother. And they, uh, eventually put us all together. And I remember when I finally saw my brother Carson, like, oh my God, he's here. He's okay.

• 1:05:34Annie Elise?

  What was that moment like?

• 1:05:36Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:05:37Annie Elise?

  The best?

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:41Annie Elise?

  Man, sorry. I can't imagine, I'm very close with my siblings and I think that's why when I heard your story, it just affected me so deeply. Because I can't imagine what you went through and I'm so sorry that you had to experience that.

• 1:05:57Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:05:57Annie Elise?

  You guys were all just so failed as a family.

• 1:06:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was like just worried the whole time what had happened to him.

• 1:06:06Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 06

  Like the excitement when to have just been carried out of the house, but the excitement when I thought I heard his voice and it was an officer or I don't know who outside, I thought, oh my God, that's him. He's okay.

• 1:06:22Speaker 06

  And so we're all put into this room and we're sitting there and my younger brother's sitting on my brother's lap. And I remember looking at my brother and I said, I'm not gonna cry. And his face was just disgusted. I don't know, because he was like, what do you mean? And I don't know if it meant like, or if he was like, why are you saying that? Like, what do you mean? Like what? You're not gonna cry? Maybe he didn't.

• 1:06:55Speaker 06

  He did not know at that point, right? Like he did not know.

• 1:06:58Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Speaker 06

  So, and we weren't told that we were being put in that room to like for anything, but I just something told me to say it or like that that's what was gonna be told to us.

• 1:07:12Speaker 06

  And he's like, what do you mean? And I said, I'm not gonna cry. And then they came in and they said that everyone had, that both my parents had in fact died. And the whole room just

• 1:07:30Speaker 06

  like it's like white noise. It just was screams and cries.

• 1:07:36Annie Elise?

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:07:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, so that was like all of my aunts were in that room except for one from my dad's side of the family. My one aunt was, she was just so, she was very, she's, she is very sensitive and so it just had to be handled in a different way to, to tell her.

• 1:08:00Speaker 07

  And she's like the sweetest soul, so she just had to be told separately. And she didn't know about anything of what was happening. They probably didn't want to tell her, obviously, until they knew what was happening. And then we were brought back to my community eventually, and I, all I kept saying was, I wanna see Sheena. I wanna see Sheena, that was my, my best friend. And eventually, they, they brought her to me that night. And we just cried. Eventually, the RCMP wanted to take my statement. So we were, I was put into my one cousin's room.

• 1:08:42Speaker 07

  And it was like right behind the door, it was so weird now that I think about like where I was put. And he takes my statement, and I get to the point where I say, "My mom said, why do you have to shoot me? You already shot me in the eye." And he stops me and says, "I'm gonna stop you right there, your mom never said that." I said, "Yes, she did."

• 1:09:03Annie Elise?

  No, you weren't there. Hi, we tried to get you to come there and you weren't, so how, how are you gonna tell me right now?

• 1:09:08Speaker 07

  And I remember looking at, I don't know if it was my aunt or my uncle, but there was an adult in the room with me. And I remember looking at them like,

• 1:09:17Speaker 07

  "Why, like, why is he saying this to me?" And I was like, "Yes, she did." He said, "Well, your mom was never shot in the eye, so I don't know why you would say that." And so I just left it at that, and it didn't dawn on me, well, I didn't actually know. My mom was actually shot in the shoulder the second time. And just based off of the type of weapon it is, um, from what I've been told, uh, the bullet spirals, and so it severed her spine and she died.

• 1:09:44Annie Elise?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:09:45Speaker 07

  Instantly, um, and so she was shot in the arm. And so that made sense to me later when I found that out. I never knew my whole life until like adulthood that she was actually shot twice, and...

• 1:10:02Speaker 07

  Then I thought, oh, that's why I heard arm, not I. But it like recently dawned on me that we have authority figures who don't believe us. And make us believe what is, you know, whether it's true or what they want to the storyline to navigate. And I just thought, I remember, you know, sitting there one time and I, I must have been listening to someone speak or, you know, a podcast or something. And I just thought, wow, that's what he did to me. Like it was authority questioning what I had lived through. Yeah. And that happened. Making you doubt your own truth.

• 1:10:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, and it happened so often, so often. So I was just like, yeah, that was like just a, a blow um for so long, my whole life. I believed that I was wrong. I had heard it wrong the whole time, like what had happened. You don't even know what happened, you know? And so eventually we have to move to Ontario. My mom's, uh, when I say eventually is it happened pretty fast. My, my mom's stalker allowed my mom to write a letter that night. And uh, my mom in the letter stated that she wanted us kids to go to her sister in Ontario. And then she also stated she wanted all the insurance money to be left for us as well.

• 1:11:28Speaker 07

  Um, and we had to move to Ontario, unfortunately. Obviously, my family, my dad's side of the family was quite upset about that. Um, but there wasn't really anyone that could take us on or, you know, I'm sure at that point too. It was people are do funny things with death. So it was probably a mix of like, do we fight fa- like their family? Family. Do we put the kids through this? You know, like I don't, I don't know what any of those aunts and uncles thoughts were. But so we had to move there. Um, and we lived with my aunt. I lived with my aunt for about a year with my brother, my younger brother.

• 1:12:11Speaker 07

  My older brother turned eighteen a couple of months after moving to Ontario, a few months after my, my parents' death.

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  And so he aged out, you know, like they're not getting financial support for him anymore. And he also is eighteen, so he can live on his own if he wanted to. Um, and so we lived in a tiny, uh, two-bedroom home. Uh, my brother and I shared it with my older cousin and, and her, her daughter. And, um, we lived there for about a year.

• 1:12:43Speaker 07

  So I didn't like living at my aunt's house. Um, my uncle reminded me a lot of my mom's stalker. He was an alcoholic and he would often sit outside at this shed. And he would just drink and I hated it. I like, I didn't like it at all. It brought so much back for me. Um, and I, I don't remember like that being the deciding factor, but eventually I do move in with my grandma. I never got to really ask my grandma, like, why did I move in with you? I remember I asked her once, I said something like, oh, so how come I did leave Aunt Bonnie's house? And she's like, oh, you didn't like Sid?

• 1:13:27Speaker 07

  And I was like, oh, okay. That was my uncle. And I was like, okay. And then, you know, as time went on, I kind of realized more about it, like the depths of like watching his behavior and it being so close to my, my mom's stalker. Even though it wasn't like I was around my mom's stalker a lot, it just, it, as a kid, there's, it's a trigger, right? And I didn't like it. My brother, though, had to stay there. And I move in with my grandma and she lived just around the corner. My younger brother and I still went to the same elementary school and everything. And, uh, yeah, so I barely got to see my older brother though, cause he didn't live with us, right?

• 1:14:10Speaker 07

  And I mean, I don't know, I've been eighteen too and you know, my younger brother wasn't exactly my priority either to be around. And so when I did get to see my older brother, it was like, it was always that same feeling. When I first saw him at the hospital, it was that same feeling every time. Cause it just like. It was nice to have him around. It's just comfort and safety and happiness. Yeah, so when I got to see him, I feel like I was like, I was probably that really annoying, overbearing little sister. Cause I just wanted to be with him. And I remember like, hugging him and kissing him.

• 1:14:53Speaker 07

  And and him just being like, oh my gosh, like, get off me. But like, I literally was just glued to him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so anytime I could spend with him, I absolutely wanted to. And my younger brother and I. We had fight like normal siblings, like our life went to, you know, normalcy. I had that and. But I always was, always wanted to go home to Manitoba. And so I'm so grateful, cause. You know, my grandma always made a priority for me to be able to go back. And I would spend every summer back in Manitoba. And I always stayed with. Ken and Debbie Bowden. And so I got to spend time with them. And I mean, hi, it was a dream come true. I got to spend my summers with my.

• 1:15:37Speaker 07

  Best friend who we would like, ever since we were little, our parents would buy us like matching outfits. And so we continued to do that as teenagers too. And so that was a lot of fun. Uh, and then eventually, um, when I was fourteen. My, I had come back from Manitoba. My aunt called me and was like, why don't you come over to my other aunt's house? So I went over and she said, do you want to move back to Manitoba? And I was like, yes, let's do this. She was like, okay. You can't tell your grandma. And I was like, okay. And and I didn't know why. She's like, well, because she'll never let you go back. But I'm your guardian, so you can go back if you want to.

• 1:16:21Speaker 07

  So I said, okay. She said, okay, I'm gonna call you and then pick you up. I'm gonna get you a flight and you can move back to Manitoba. Wow. So I moved back to Manitoba. My grandma had no idea. It was like an actual type runaway thing. But my grandma couldn't report me missing because my aunt was my guardian. And she was the one to make the decision. And she got me the ticket and sent me there. So I moved back to Manitoba. Eventually, after some time, I move in with Ken and Debbie. And it's like the best thing because I'm like actually living with my sister, something like we had wanted our whole life. And I live with them and I. You know, I got to finish high school out in Manitoba with all of my friends out there.

• 1:17:04Speaker 07

  Not to say I didn't have the most amazing friends and relationships um in Ontario. Uh, you know, it was, it was hard because like I wanted to be with my friends there and it took me a long time. I actually um spent a few summers in Manitoba and I never came back to Ontario. One summer I thought, okay, I'm gonna come back and I got to, you know, hang out with all my friends again. Um, and I go back to Ontario, I went back to Manitoba. And then I remember like talking with my um, a friend of mine and her just saying like, you know, if your grandpa's not doing well, why don't you move back to Ontario? It doesn't have to be permanent, just move back.

• 1:17:44Speaker 07

  And I said, okay, um, so I do make my way back to Ontario with the intention of that I would eventually move back. Um, and I, I don't, um, I stay and now I, and then I eventually meet in a short period of time, my now husband, um, and we have our, our kids and we raise them and just, I don't know. I live life and I, we started, you know, establishing roots there together. So it, if you had asked anyone in Manitoba if I would be living in Ontario now, they would say, no way, absolutely not, no.

• 1:18:21Annie Elise?

  Well, what was that like? I'm curious, going through your teenage years and dating all the way up to meeting your husband, where, did you look at relationships differently? Did you look for red flags and things because you saw the behavior of your mom's stalker? And how dangerous situations could become? Or do you think that you were so young that you didn't carry the weight of that in regards to intimate relationships with you?

• 1:18:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, I didn't carry it like that at all, um, with me. Um, no, not, it didn't affect anything, yeah.

• 1:18:52Annie Elise?

  That's fantastic, cuz I would imagine. Had you done that, it would maybe, I like, I have my own, for another episode, my own issues with trust issues and things from my childhood that made me definitely struggle with finding a partner and dating the right people. And I think it's so easy and something we don't talk about enough of like, the trauma just lives on and it manifests in different ways and it can impact you in different ways. So to hear that it did not hinder you from meeting your person is, that's such a blessing and all of this.

• 1:19:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it didn't, it didn't affect me like that. And, and I mean, my husband is, he's just amazing partner and so supportive. And he always, he had been since like the beginning of our relationship too, because the whole reason why I had moved back to Ontario was also my grandfather wasn't doing well, but I was turning eighteen. And when I turned eighteen, I would then inherit my parents' life insurance money, right? And so my aunt picked her up and we made our way on my eighteenth birthday to the bank.

• 1:20:03Speaker 07

  And just before we got to the bank, she said, like, she let me drive almost all the way to the bank. And she looked at me and said, I don't know how to tell you this, but there is no money. And we spent it all.

• 1:20:17Annie Elise?

  What? Spent it on what?

• 1:20:21Speaker 07

  Nothing, because they had to claim bankruptcy at that point. She was like living in.

• 1:20:25Annie Elise?

  But because she was the legal guardian, she'd have access to the.

• 1:20:28Speaker 07

  She wasn't supposed to have legal access. She was not, the money was held in trust for us, but a judge in St. Catherine's allowed her to access that money.

• 1:20:41Annie Elise?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 1:20:42Speaker 07

  And she had spent all of it. And I said, what about Clinton's money? She said, all of it. It's all gone. And I just remember. Like blacking out, like looking at her and like, what do I do then? Like, where am I going?

• 1:20:56Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:56Speaker 07

  And she was like, just drive me home. So I drove her home and I had to drive back to my grandma's and I, I remember coming in and I was bawling. I hadn't met my husband yet at this point and I was like just bawling and she was like, what's the matter? And I said, it's all gone. And my grandma looked at me and she's like, can I swear?

• 1:21:15Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:16Speaker 07

  She's like, I fucking knew it. I knew it.

• 1:21:19Annie Elise?

  Well, and they already had a fractured relationship.

• 1:21:22Speaker 07

  The reason they're fracture, come to find out, the only reason my aunt let me move back to Manitoba was not because she gave a shit about how I felt. It was because if I wasn't in the province, my grandma couldn't get legal custody of me. And my aunt would remain my guardian and my grandma would never find out about, well, I don't know what my aunt thought. I was turning eighteen eventually.

• 1:21:45Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:45Speaker 07

  Like, I don't know. She thought she was gonna get some money and she could pay it back or what it was.

• 1:21:50Annie Elise?

  If she, it's all strategy, right? But I would imagine that if she's giving you what you want as a young girl, like, or a young teenager, you can live with your best friend, you can move back there. It's almost that she's getting in your good graces so that you think of her as the best. Like, she would never do anything, or once the shoe drops and you do find out that, like, well, she let me go live with my friend. She loves me. Like, it's all.

• 1:22:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, manipulation.

• 1:22:12Annie Elise?

  Exactly.

• 1:22:12Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Annie Elise?

  Exactly.

• 1:22:13Speaker 07

  So my grandma, you know, come to find out, that's why she didn't want me to leave. She was like, it's not because I didn't want you to go there. I couldn't, you couldn't, I had to be here. You had to be here with me. And, uh, so then that started like a whole thing of another court process. So one thing I didn't mention was there was an inquiry, right, into my parents' death as well and the police misconduct. So we had to, our family had to go through two different, like, kind of court.

• 1:22:46Annie Elise?

  And is that what you would equate to like what we would call a civil suit here?

• 1:22:50Speaker 07

  An inquiry, I'm not, I don't know, because an inquiry is usually, uh, from my understanding, is it something like more in-depth? That they're like looking at all the, I mean, maybe it's a civil suit as well.

• 1:23:02Annie Elise?

  Where they're just like looking into it, they're investigating to figure out if there's, if there was misconduct, if something was done incorrectly along the way.

• 1:23:10Speaker 07

  Right, yeah. And so, and that had happened, that happened way before I had turned eighteen. That happened just shortly after my parents' death. Um, and so in that whole process, you know, they looked at the, if the RCMP had actually not fallen asleep, the one officer, would it have moved things along quickly? Would that have saved my mother's life? My father would have died regardless.

• 1:23:36Speaker 07

  They, you know, uh, they just kind of uh, brought everything to human error with the court documents and the crown attorney with family law and just all of the letter not being filed. It was, it seemed like they just kind of always backed it with that it was human error. And so no one was being, no one, not one person was held accountable at all. The judge, um, the judge for the case came out to our family home. And I think that's because I don't know if it was my uncle or my brother, someone had asked him like, come out, come out and see that they could have taken a clear shot with SWAT that they could have,

• 1:24:18Speaker 07

  a sniper could have shot through the window, but they argued, no, that, um, however, you know, a couple of panes of glass that, and that far of distance, would it have shot like and killed him? And I just think nowadays like that would not fly because like that they would be able to do that. Right? Like, but I understand things were different in the nineties. And, um, had they made it there in time, had, you know, they acted more quickly. What, what if anything could have changed? The judge eventually, um, blames the townspeople. He said that they should have done more to help protect my parents. Um, don't know why it would be townspeople's, uh, land on them to protect our family.

• 1:25:03Speaker 07

  One police officer took the stand and said that only my mother knew the danger she was in. He insinuated that there was more happening between my mom and her stalker, which.

• 1:25:14Annie Elise?

  Like an affair?

• 1:25:15Speaker 07

  I don't know if an affair, but like he, cause he doesn't say that. I don't know how he says it, but he likes, it just insinuates that there was more that. If she was in such danger, then like, why didn't she do more? I, again, I don't know what more.

• 1:25:29Annie Elise?

  Right. Wait, like, how, why are you blaming her? What more could she have done? She wrote the letter. She reached out to them. She was scared.

• 1:25:37Speaker 07

  All of the things. Yeah. And so they, so nothing, nothing was, no one was held accountable at all in our family's case. And I get often asked now, like, why don't you, you know, why don't you take them to court? It's like, one, I couldn't. And two, like what, what could be done? And also now it's so long, nothing could be done because I'm sure a lot of the documents have been. Destroyed and, you know, people aren't serving still as officers, like really who could be held accountable. So.

• 1:26:11Annie Elise?

  Well, but it's also like, the argument could be even if in a perfect scenario, they made entry early on, there weren't all these calls, even if. It couldn't change the outcome of the deaths. It certainly could change the outcome of the trauma that you and your siblings went through.

• 1:26:29Speaker 07

  Absolutely.

• 1:26:30Annie Elise?

  What you witnessed, what you had to sit through, the memories you have, what lives with you for so many years after that. And I don't know what you're comfortable sharing, but I would like to ask you about that because if we're speaking about trauma. Your brothers, of course, carried a great deal of weight with them as well.

• 1:26:47Speaker 07

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:26:48Annie Elise?

  And can you walk me through with your first brother when he passed away? How old were you and what? Whatever events you're comfortable sharing with both of them.

• 1:26:58Speaker 07

  So when, to go back a little to my aunt, when we lived there initially with her. Um, there was a process to bring us to, uh, therapy. It was a child based, a place or a base therapy. And we went and I always, when I speak and I, you know, share my story and advocate, I always, I was always generous. Always generous up until last year. And I would say.

• 1:27:28Speaker 02

  We received one play-based therapy that I remember that was me and my younger brother because um my older brother turned eighteen. So like, there was no criminal compensation. You get criminal compensation because then at the time, like this is my understanding is that what my, my aunt would get it and then that could go towards like our therapy if we, if we needed it. We had to be deemed that we needed it in the first place.

• 1:27:53Annie Elise?

  Should be a standard no matter what. That's ridiculous.

• 1:27:56Speaker 02

  Right. And so we went and I would always say we had one for sure, maybe two. And it was one, come to find out, I was right that it was one because we went to one. And then my aunt got the CPP for us and that check never went to therapy. We were never given any therapy after that.

• 1:28:18Annie Elise?

  Oh my god.

• 1:28:19Speaker 02

  And so like, my older brother, I can't, I can't speak for what either of them went through or felt or any of those things because I always say to people like, yes, we all went through the same like night. We all lost our parents the same way, but we all lived completely different things. And there's gonna be things that had come up for them or me even at different parts of our life. Like I, it wasn't until just a couple of years ago that I got so hard on myself because I thought, why didn't you run up the stairs and go out that door? It was right there. You could have taken your brother out right there and then we would never have had to go upstairs.

• 1:29:02Speaker 02

  My brother wouldn't have had to see my dad, like.

• 1:29:06Annie Elise?

  There's a million what ifs though, and you can't torture yourself.

• 1:29:09Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 1:29:10Annie Elise?

  Because that weight does not fall on you.

• 1:29:12Speaker 02

  No, but it's like, those are the things that I think that people don't always think about like, oh, well, like, how come you're me quote, okay, but maybe they weren't. And it's like, yeah, but it's different. Like, we're all gonna process things differently.

• 1:29:26Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:27Speaker 02

  And so, um.

• 1:29:29Speaker 07

  At the age of twenty nine, my older brother, Carson, um, my, my husband and I were dating at that time. And we had went out, we have a festival in Ontario, in St. Catherine's, and we went to that festival. And I saw one of my brother's friends out. And he said, where's Carson? Where's Carr? And I was like, I don't know. I thought he'd be here with you. Um, my brother didn't like, it's not like I thought I would see him out all the time, but this was a festival that maybe he'd be at. And he was like, no, you should call him. And I was like, yeah. And you know, I kind of left it at that. And then, um, I went back to my husband's house.

• 1:30:13Speaker 07

  And in the morning, I had a million, what feels like a million missed calls. And I looked at my phone and they were only from my grandma's house and from my brother's house. My older brother's house, because my younger brother now lived with my grandma, because of my aunt taking the money. And I said, I looked at my husband and I said, I'm not gonna call them back. And he said, what do you mean? I said, I'm not, I'm not calling them back, bring me back to my apartment. I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna get ready, and then I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to one of their houses. And he was like, my bro- my husband was just like, I feel like he was looking at me like, why don't you call?

• 1:30:57Speaker 07

  And we're sitting in the car and we're driving, he's driving me back to my apartment. And I was like, I don't know who I want to be dead more. My, my grandma or my brother? Because one of them died. And if I call, then I'm gonna know. I was like, I don't wanna know. And so I went back to my place. I think I showered, like I was in definitely a state of shock. And I showered and I got ready. And I went to my brother's house. I chose to go to my brother's.

• 1:31:36Speaker 06

  I don't know why. And I got there and I could just see everyone. My eyes were just scanning. Everyone sitting on the front porch, cuz I was like, who is, who's there and who's not? My grandma wasn't there, but neither was my brother. And I could just see them. They're all looking at me. And it felt like it took me forever to get out of the car. And something said, just get out and go. And I stood on like the front of the yard. And I was like, who is it? And they're just all were looking at me, like. Who's gonna tell her? And I was like, just screaming, who is it?

• 1:32:21Speaker 06

  And finally, my cousin Shane. Who was really close with my brother. He said, Carson.

• 1:32:32Speaker 06

  And that was it. I think I went to leave and I think someone was like, no, no, don't go. And then eventually I go inside.

• 1:32:43Speaker 06

  And I remember my younger brother hugging me and I couldn't hug him back.

• 1:32:50Speaker 06

  I was just like, don't touch me. Do not touch me. And he was hugging me and I just was like dead in his arms and I felt so bad, but I was like.

• 1:33:03Speaker 06

  Can't hug you. Like I just didn't want, I didn't want anyone to touch me. And.

• 1:33:12Speaker 06

  And that's when I found out he had killed himself. And it was just like awful. It was like learning all over again that he had died. And it was just. Like, a lot of people don't ever understand when I say this, but losing my brother.

• 1:33:31Speaker 07

  Was a thousand times harder than what I had to go through with my parents.

• 1:33:36Annie Elise?

  I can understand that.

• 1:33:38Speaker 07

  I had always shared my story, but I wasn't aware that I was sharing my story the way it is obviously now, right? And um, it was in two thousand and seventeen. Um, a cousin of mine had messaged me on Facebook and she said, um, I don't know if you're interested. I know like you share your family's story, but there's a national inquiry for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. And two spirited plus folks and I was like, I remember reading the message and just thinking. I mean, yeah, sure, of course, like I've always shared my, my family's story and so I testified.

• 1:34:21Speaker 07

  I shared my story. I actually went back to Manitoba. It was really important that I be there to testify. Um, Ken and Debbie were with me and um, my best friend and then I actually had some of my childhood friends with me as well when I testified. So I was around um, folks that you know, loved and cared for me and um, and so I testified and I, and I shared my story. Uh, and then it was in, and so I, I went through that process. And it was over the next couple of years that I started hearing other stories that were like eerily similar to mine. And I thought for so long, I believe that that's just my story. That's the way it happened. Like I think that that's,

• 1:35:05Speaker 07

  that's what all of these systems that are in place that, that people go through, they make them believe like that's normal. What you're going through is that's normal. That's just a part of your life. That's who you are, especially people in BIPOC communities. Are people who are BIPOC. It's just like, this is your, your plate. This is what's being served to you and now live with it. Because like, that's kind of the way things are for you. So you, you do get, you start to believe it. Um, and in twenty nineteen, I was asked if I would join the National Family Advisory Circle. It was then that I was like, okay, this is what I want to do. I want to start sharing my story on a larger scale.

• 1:35:46Speaker 07

  If people are gonna listen, then I'm gonna tell the story and I'm gonna, I won't ever, I was always taught by um, uh, like an elder, you don't ever say someone else's story. Like, that's why I can't speak to why my brothers, you know, what they went through because I don't know. And so, but I do know my own story. And so if I can use it and, you know, I'm so grateful that you have this platform that you wanted to share with me to share. And so then I just started sharing and advocating. And that's when I like really started to like piece together more of, you know, what had happened and the injustice that um my family had to go through.

• 1:36:29Speaker 07

  And it was only at the closing ceremonies, and I often share this, that I realized I was sitting there and I thought the whole time, I thought I was an imposter. Like, why am I here? Like, I'm indigenous, but my mom's not indigenous. It was my dad, but this is an inquiry, is not an inquiry for indigenous men, although I will say that indigenous men um are murdered and missing. I believe it's as a higher rate than indigenous women, and there is no inquiry as of yet. I know that people are fighting for one. Um, and so it's, and I'm not taking away from indigenous women or girls, so I hope anyone, you know, doesn't take it that way. Um, but my dad was indigenous and he was murdered.

• 1:37:13Speaker 07

  And so um it was at the closing ceremonies that I grabbed my husband's leg and I whispered to him, I said, "Oh, I get it." And he's like, "You get what?" I was like, "I'm the girl. I should have died. I shouldn't be here. Or I also shouldn't know anything about my culture, my background, or be connected to my community." And so like, that really stuck with me. My younger brother was, he had continued to be in my life and he built a beautiful life with his, his wife and his kids. Um, and I mean, I often think like, I don't know. I think I'm a good mom, but my brother was like,

• 1:37:59Annie Elise?

  A great dad.

• 1:38:01Speaker 06

  Both of them. And in, it's so weird to say, and in twenty twenty three.

• 1:38:13Speaker 06

  I think just, I, again, I can't speculate what was going on with my brother and his own mental health, but, uh, he committed suicide in November of twenty twenty three. Uh, and it was really.

• 1:38:35Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:38:36Annie Elise?

  And how old was he?

• 1:38:38Speaker 06

  Uh, thirty six.

• 1:38:40Annie Elise?

  So.

• 1:38:41Speaker 06

  The day he died, my, I was in my daughter's room and I was cleaning her room. And it's funny how trauma sets with you because we moved in the last year and I refused, refused to clean my daughter's room when we moved, when we got to the new house. We lived at our current house for probably.

• 1:39:05Speaker 06

  It was five months before and I didn't think about it and then it just hit me one day. I was like, oh, that's why I'm not cleaning her room.

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• 1:39:59Speaker 06

  Cause I had, it took me that whole time to even realize it. Cause I was cleaning my daughter's room, her closet, organizing it. And for the first time, I mean, my phone is in my pocket usually, or at the desk all the ti- like it's always around me. And it didn't, it wasn't near me that day. I left it downstairs. My youngest was playing on the main floor. My oldest was in the basement. Um, so I was cleaning my daughter's room and my phone wasn't anywhere near me. It was on the main floor. My youngest was on the main floor just playing and that while I was upstairs and my oldest was in the basement and I had,

• 1:40:42Speaker 06

  didn't think I had anything of it. I went downstairs and I saw some missed calls from a phone number I didn't know. And my husband's cousin and I thought, why is she calling me? You know, like I don't, I'm close with her, but I was like, well, she wouldn't call me. And I didn't know the other phone number, so I just kinda left it. Um, and I took a break and I was standing in my kitchen. And my, my husband walked in and I just saw it immediately, his face.

• 1:41:15Speaker 06

  And I said, who? Who? Who died?

• 1:41:20Speaker 06

  And he just shook his head. And I was like,

• 1:41:26Speaker 06

  no. And I screamed so loud.

• 1:41:34Speaker 06

  And I had like no concept that my youngest was right behind me. And I was just screaming, screaming.

• 1:41:48Speaker 06

  I was like, no, no, I said, no, I said, I said, are are you sure? Like, are they sure? And that's, he's like, yeah, I think so. I think they're sure. And I said, no, no, they have to check him. I think he's okay. And like, I immediately went into denial. I even with my parents' death and my older brother's death. Uh, there's like the type of denial, like, I can't believe they're not here. That time was absolute denial. Like, he is no way. They actually have to check him. Like, he's obviously okay. Like, we'll go to the hospital.

• 1:42:31Speaker 06

  And then he was like, no, he's gone. And so my

• 1:42:36Speaker 06

  little brother committed suicide. And I feel like I just went into instant fight or flight. I had to make all the same phone calls. And I remember calling Debbie and Ken and I called their house and they weren't home and they didn't answer. And I called mom's phone. And then eventually I called Sheena and I was like, I have to tell you something. I don't know where mom is. I have to tell her. And when I told Sheena.

• 1:43:02Annie Elise?

  Did you call her mom?

• 1:43:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I called Debbie and Ken mom and dad.

• 1:43:08Annie Elise?

  That's really sweet.

• 1:43:09Speaker 06

  Yeah. Just cuz like, they've always stared at me like they're old.

• 1:43:13Annie Elise?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:14Speaker 06

  And like, my kids called them a mayor and prepare for grandma and grandpa in French.

• 1:43:19Speaker 06

  And, yeah, we just, I remember lying, literally lying in the grass with a blanket wrapped around me. It was cold, it was November. And just watched the sunset. And I remember thinking, while I was talking to Sheena on the phone. And I remember just thinking, how is the sky so pretty? And I just want to die. Like, this is awful.

• 1:43:47Speaker 06

  And just like immediately, just like with my older brother. When my older brother died, I had like all of my girlfriends around me. I remember laying in my, on my futon couch in my apartment before kids and marriage and they were all around me, just like supporting me. And the same thing with this time. It was the exact same process this time, like immediately, I just had and I'll never be able to repay all those friends for just the way they rallied around me. It was.

• 1:44:23Annie Elise?

  Well, to have such good friends like that and a support system is a testament to you and who you are. Truly, I mean that sincerely.

• 1:44:30Speaker 06

  In November and on November 12th and I had started a fundraiser that had started back before he died. So the year that I was turning thirty-eight, it was gonna be a really hard year. Cause at that time, my younger brother was still alive, but I was officially gonna be the first person in my family to turn thirty-eight. Cause my mom, my dad and my brother all died before. So I started a fundraiser and it was like, it was a crutch for me to like not have to think about it. And I thought if I start a fundraiser and it wasn't for me, to be clear, the fundraiser was a GoFundMe I started.

• 1:45:15Speaker 06

  And it was celebrate Indigenous resilience. I thought I'm gonna celebrate the fact that I'm here, cause I love to self sabotage. Thank you, trauma. Um, and I hated my birthday, like I love my birthday. But I hated it, like it's like a really weird place for me. So I thought if I start this fundraiser and the funds were gonna go to two Indigenous organizations. One is my hometown community, like for the youth, the Indigenous youth there, they could use it for whatever they wanted. No red tape.

• 1:45:46Speaker 07

  No grants, no like writing proposals for funds that they know they need. And then the other money was, half of it was gonna go to Abbey House, which is a transitional home in Santa Stash for indigenous women with or without children. And I thought, can I start this fundraiser? It's gonna be, and we're gonna raise thirty eight hundred dollars, cause I'm turning thirty eight. And I like, didn't wanna press enter. It made me sick to my stomach. I was instantly sick. I was sitting at my desk. I went from setting up a GoFundMe to like, immediate depression. Like, right away, I was like, no one's gonna care. If I'm gonna press enter, no one's cared so far.

• 1:46:30Speaker 07

  The history proves it. Who's gonna donate? I want, and then I'm gonna make these organizations, like, I'm gonna feel bad that I'm gonna promise, like, I'm gonna do this fundraiser, nothing's gonna come about it. Something came over me and I pressed enter. And within twenty four hours, we raised ten thousand dollars. And then it kept going. And to date, I think the GoFundMe has, it's just shy of a hundred and ten thousand dollars.

• 1:46:57Annie Elise?

  Oh, my gosh, that's incredible, and that's amazing.

• 1:47:01Speaker 07

  Yeah, and the goal was to take it down, but people kept donating.

• 1:47:04Annie Elise?

  No, guys, scoop it all, go, don't take it down.

• 1:47:09Speaker 07

  So I did that. And then I started a yearly fundraiser. I love Christmas. Christmas is like my jam. I love it so much. And I started a fundraiser. It was an event that my girlfriends and I had always done. They're called urns. And so, to explain it for people.

• 1:47:28Annie Elise?

  Like, hold on, okay.

• 1:47:29Speaker 07

  It is not an urn of ashes. It's a planter. You know, you walk up to someone's house and they have this like beautiful like planter with all the Christmas and the evergreens all stuffed into it. That's what it is. And so it's a Christmas one. And so we started that. And I started that in two thousand and, well, the fundraiser part of it was in two thousand one. It was the same year of the beginning of the GoFundMe. And then it just grew. And it grew. And so, I had that fundraiser that was supposed to happen two weeks after my brother died. And my friends came to my rescue, like.

• 1:48:13Speaker 06

  Absolute superheroes. They, the first thing they said like, okay, what can we do? What can we do? We're gonna make this fundraiser happen still because I had been putting it on every year. So now it's twenty twenty-three. This is gonna be my, that, that point, I think that was make it my third annual, right? My third annual for this fundraiser. And a lot of money is raised that day. And I mean, my world just came out from under me. And I was like, I mean, I went into fight or flight too, because I said, okay, I'm gonna get out of bed. I'm gonna take a shower. And then we're gonna do this. I always say to people, don't feel bad for me because I'm not without. I have like

• 1:48:56Speaker 06

  the most incredible group of friends um and family around me. So I'm not without. Um, do I wish I could go back and change things? Yes. Can I? No. So it's like one of those things. What am I gonna do now with it?

• 1:49:13Annie Elise?

  Aside from your advocacy work and sharing your story in hopes to evoke change and fundraise and make a difference, have you found it to be any sort of healing for you through sharing it?

• 1:49:27Speaker 06

  Absolutely. I said too, I had said to an elder once, I don't know, I feel really bad. I remember like hugging him after I spoke and, and you know, he thanked me for sharing my story and and my traumas. And I just said, I, I feel bad though. And he said, why? Why do you feel bad? I said, because I'm leaving with like healing. I'm, I'm taking something away and then I'm leaving the story behind. And he was like, no, no. You have to stop thinking that. You are leaving, you're leaving something behind for other people.

• 1:50:01Annie Elise?

  Yeah, I'm just grateful for it. It's, it's amazing that you are resilient enough to continue sharing your story and like dig deep and share what's of course uncomfortable and traumatic, but To echo what you already told, I want you to know too, that when people hear your story, they will learn from it and apply it to their own lives. There will be something, whether it's a small detail or a new value, or something they look at differently in their life, once they hear your story. So aside from just self-healing, it is helping other people, even if it's indirectly. And so I hope you know that, truly. So you're working on a lot of things. You have a lot of stuff going on at any given moment. I know after this, you're going to LA and you've got things going on.

• 1:50:44Annie Elise?

  So what is it? Is there anything you want to leave the listeners with in terms of not only where they can find you on socials to follow all of your projects closely and hear more of your story, but any, any details or any statistics or anything you want them to know?

• 1:50:58Speaker 07

  Yeah. One thing I'm new, I want people to think about is, um, I'm gonna shock some people too, when I say this. He was indigenous as well, and I'm not giving him any kind of, uh, believe me, there is nothing in me that is saying what he did is like, oh, you know, whatever. But think about systems that indigenous people are raised in. Um, you know, the, the justice system, the way that they're looked at, their communities. What made him and his mental health that way as well? For people who are watching and you're looking at me, I'm weight passing.

• 1:51:39Speaker 07

  I'm weight passing and I, I have so much privilege. I know that. And there are people who are not going to be listened to or heard, or even given the same decency that I am because of how I look. And I have to acknowledge that. And if I don't use that, then what's it for? Because I'm saying like my story had used me for so long. And now I'm going to use the shit out of my story. And I am going to use the fact of how I look because people will listen. Would you have listened to me and felt all the same things?

• 1:52:23Speaker 07

  Or would you have skipped on by if I looked a little different?

• 1:52:26Annie Elise?

  Absolutely. I'm very happy that you have found who sounds to be an amazing husband and have good kids and have some happiness in your life. Because I think that that's so incredibly important because. Even just in resharing your story too, you're dealing with the weight of it every single day. So to have that outlet of somebody who is so supportive and just loves you for you and you have a family, I think that is just so incredible and I'm really happy for you.

• 1:52:51Speaker 07

  I'm very lucky. And then for where people can find me and everything. So I had mentioned the inquiry. So if people want to look up the national inquiry, um, as for missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, two spirited LGBTQIA plus folks, you can find that online. And then you can also find the final report. So in the final report, it gives all the findings. It's not this big document. A lot of people think like, oh gosh, I don't want to read that. It's done in such a beautiful way. Um, and it's done in a storytelling way. And I want people to know when they're reading it, you're reading real stories. And there's calls for justice. So there's 231 calls for justice that families and survivors

• 1:53:34Speaker 07

  have, um, asked of the government and folks. And so on in there, there are 13, um, for Canadians. So for any Canadian listeners, there's 13. It's quite simple. Like they're, they're, they are laid out. There's, um, and they can be applied in the States too, because, um, unfortunately, um, MMIW, uh, G doesn't, no borders and it's happening to Indigenous women across the globe. And so there are calls for justice that can easily be implemented. Um, and then people can find me on, um, Instagram and Tik Tok at, um, Fallon Farnochi. You'll have the spelling because.

• 1:54:16Annie Elise?

  Yes, I'll, I'll have all the links, the direct links and the spelling for all of this.

• 1:54:21Speaker 07

  Yeah. Uh, and then I have my website too, FallonFarnochi.com. So people can follow along. And the fundraiser for anyone that wants to donate, it's still there. They could just either Google, um, celebrate Indigenous resilience, uh, GoFundMe in my name, or it's linked in my bio, um.

• 1:54:38Annie Elise?

  We'll link it here in the show too. Just so that it's an easy click.

• 1:54:41Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 1:54:41Annie Elise?

  Of course, of course. Well, I want to thank you again for joining today and for sharing your story. Cause I know it can never, it's never easy each time. So I really appreciate it.

• 1:54:50Speaker 07

  And I want to echo my thanks back because without spaces and platforms like this to share, you know, it's like I just think of myself when I was pressing enter in the GoFundMe like no one cares. And you are, you're honoring myself, my parents and my brothers. So I just want to express to you how grateful I am for this space.

• 1:55:13Annie Elise?

  That means a lot. Well, and thank you to all of you guys for listening. I know it's definitely a longer episode today, but we had so much important stuff to go over. I'll be back with you on Thursday. Thank you guys for tuning in. Check all of the links out below and we'll be back soon. All right. Bye.

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