Charlotte Morrit-JacobsAPTN NewsIt’s been 418 days since Nathan Keadjuk lost any hope of finding his mother alive.He got news through social media.“I feel better knowing she didn’t abandoned me, but it would be nice to know if she was murdered or died by herself,” he said.Mary Rose Keadjuk, of Kugluktuk, Nunavut was 24-years-old, pregnant with her second child and living at the Gold Range Hotel in Yellowknife when she vanished without a trace in June, 1990.Nathan was four years-old when his mum went missing.He had been left in the care of his grandparents in Kugluktuk while Mary Rose attended second year studies in social work at Aurora College in Yellowknife.Thirteen years later, in 2003, a bone fragment was found near Con Mine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.It was sent to a University of Alberta lab for DNA analysis, but at the time technicians were unable to extract DNA.Another 15 years later, Feb. 2018, Nathan logged onto Facebook and was shocked at what he saw.“To be honest nobody even told me that my Mum’s DNA had been found. I found out on Facebook. I saw people from home share the CBC news clip,” Nathan said.The bone fragment had been examined at the International Commission on Missing Persons in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.It was confirmed, the bone belonged to Mary Rose Keadjuk.“The RCMP told my uncle. But about three or four years ago they finally asked me for some DNA. It was the only time they ever talked to me till that point,” Nathan said.He told APTN News he was the only one out of his family who gave a DNA sample.“I asked if they ever found anything out could I be the first one to be notified,” he said.Nathan said he had hoped to be contacted for a historical cases unit that was announced just before the breakthrough in information about his mother.“I have been trying to contact them for a while but I haven’t heard anything from them about the new unit. They told my uncle that we should be happy now she is found and we can close the case,” Nathan said.In Feb. 2018 the NWT. government pledged $304,000 to create the new three member RCMP unit which would organize, catalogue and investigate cases of suspicious deaths, unsolved homicides, missing persons and unidentified human remains.Mary Rose Keadjuk is one of 71 unsolved historical cases in the NWT which is currently the responsibility of the major crimes unit.In an email from November 2018 RCMP media relations officer Marie York-Condon, responded to APTN National News requests for information about the historical case unit.“The Historical Case Unit is still in the selection process members. We are unable to provide a timeline for how long this process will take,” she said.When the members are selected Nathan said he’ll be ready with questions.“Why couldn’t they have found her any sooner when she was that close in town. I know she didn’t go out there on her own. She left her glasses at the hotel and she was blind as a bat she couldn’t even see five feet in front of her,” he said.APTN News has requested information on the unit on several occasions but the RCMP has either refused, or not returned calls on the issue.No interviews have been granted by the RCMP.Until more details are known on how Mary Rose Keadjuk’s case will be involved in the unit, Nathan said he wants to remember his mum as a happy person.
