By Trina Roache
APTN National News
Family and friends of Chrisma Denny are asking a lot of questions about the young Mi’kmaq woman missing for two months.
They wonder where she is.
Is she alive?
They ask themselves what they could’ve done to help her – as family, as a community – and why did it take so long to report her missing?
After all, it was nearly two months before anyone noticed she was gone.
At age 23, it appears Chrisma Joy Denny slipped through the cracks.
She struggled with drug use, poverty, the child welfare system and homelessness. She’s described as “quiet”and “a loner.” She often took off to the nearby city of Sydney and as far as New Brunswick’s Elsipogtog First Nation, sometimes hitchhiking to get there.
Her father Keith Denny says it wasn’t unusual for Chrisma to go away for periods of time.
His other daughter Wasowek started asking around and couldn’t get a straight answer. It was last week, when they realized Chrisma hadn’t picked up any of her welfare cheques since September 11, that they made the call to police.
“I had a gut feeling,” says Keith. “I was worried about her and that’s when we reported her missing.”
Wednesday, close to 40 people from the Eskasoni First Nation gathered to ask the question – what do we do to find her?
“The family is putting up posters and through social media we’re sharing her picture all across Canada,” says Chrisma’s aunt, Elaine Denny. “I just hope that somebody recognizes her, alive, walking around, you know, and calls the police right away.”
“The family is pleading for the public’s help to get her face out there all over the province, and even all over the country,” says Eskasoni’s Chief Leroy Denny. “We’re asking for help from other First Nation communities.”
When Chrisma aged out of foster care at age 18, she had no place to go. Eskasoni is a tight knit community, but, like many First Nations, faces a housing shortage.
“There are apartments, but not enough, especially for young adults,” says Elaine Denny. “She was homeless and on welfare. She’s only 23 and she was on the streets, of course she’d be vulnerable to anything.”
Chrisma Denny, the latest name to appear in social media with the hashtag MMIW, wears all of the statistics that put Aboriginal women at risk.
“We want a public inquiry now. ASAP,” her aunt says. “We don’t want her to be put on the back burner…Aboriginal people are always put on the back burner. She’s a human, just like everybody else and we need her found.”
It’s clear at the meeting in Eskasoni that Chrisma has a large circle of family and friends that care about her.
“She’s a daughter and she’s loved and we don’t need this finger pointing or to be judged at this time,” says Chief Denny. “It’s a life, a human being and we need help from the general public.”
The group sorts through rumours on Facebook and target places to post flyers, calling shelters and friendship centres from Cape Breton to Toronto.
Unable to sit still, Keith and Wasowek Denny get in their car to head out to look for her. They’ll drive around areas of Sydney posting flyers in stores and on lamp posts, hoping to find someone who’s seen her.
The major crime unit of Cape Breton police is working with the RCMP. No one is commenting on the investigation at this time.
Anyone with information can contact Cape Breton Regional Police at 902-563-5151, Eskasoni RCMP at 902-379-2822, or through CrimeStoppers.
