Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada's Indifference

Do You Know Where your Children Are?

 Just Another Indian, A Serial Killer and Canada?s Indifference, Warren Goulding?s investigative tour de force, brings into public view the brutal murders of four young Native women from Saskatoon. Their stories were all but ignored by the media and by the local police, even when their families tried to report them missing.

The fact that the Saskatoon police did not want to jeopardize their trap for a suspected rapist-killer who victimized young Aboriginal women not only kept the city from being warned about the killer stalking the downtown "stroll," but also callously put several young Indian women at risk.Police indifference to the plight of Native families is further illustrated by the fact that Goulding learned that between 1990 and 1994, close to 500 Aboriginal women had been reported missing in Canada?s West and little was being done to discover their whereabouts or their fates.

Early in 1994, while the RCMP had the killer, John Crawford, under surveillance, they watched him pick up an inebriated young Native woman and brutally attack her. When she managed to escape from him, bloody and half-naked, the surveillance team of detectives arrested her and let the attacker drive off.Goulding paints a picture of the Saskatoon police and media that is less than flattering, especially in their indifference toward the Aboriginal population.

On the other hand, this fine writer gives the reader a detailed representation of professionals doing an exemplary job identifying evidence, dealing with a cynical media, setting up a cruel killer and using all the tools at their disposal to bring the criminal to justice. Forensic science becomes an exciting discipline as the skimpiest evidence is turned into damning proof and the decomposed bodies of victims are painstakingly identified.

Goulding takes the reader into aspects of Native spirituality and touches on some of the ceremonies, always with respect. He takes us to the desolate reserves in northern Saskatchewan and to a pow wow in Montana with its dancing, music and fried bread. Native life is painted deftly and warmly. The families of the victims become real and their pain articulated. He gives the plight of mourning parents, siblings and offspring a dignity denied by the press, the police and the Canadian public. Four anonymous Indian women are named and remembered.

The court battles, featuring the antics of Crawford?s erstwhile friend turned stool pigeon, the expensive legal team hired by the killer?s doting mother and the subsequent appeal and retrial are compelling, filled with drama and suspense. The coverage is clear and fast-paced. The hard work, the dogged research and the struggle to stay focused and objective are all evident in the quality of the product. But like any good work of art, the artist makes it look so easy.At the end of the trial process, Canada?s most prolific serial killer, a heartless bully who bragged about brutalizing his victims, gets three consecutive life sentences. He is serving his time in the Prince Albert Penitentiary where, fortunately for him, the 85% Aboriginal population knows nothing of the nature of his crimes.

The case, which perhaps under different circumstances would have elicited national outrage, was barely touched on by the media. The question had been asked: If the victims were white women, would the response have been different? 'Warren Goulding, a freelance journalist who lives in Saskatoon, covered the case from the beginning. His articles have appeared in MacLean?s, the Globe and Mail, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix and the other Canadian newspapers.Just Another Indian, A Serial Killer and Canada?s Indifference should be required reading for all North American journalists and for aspiring Native writers.

It should also put Native parents across the country on notice with this chilling question:  Do you know where your children are?