C.J. Julian, left, consoles Loretta Saunder’s mom at the people’s gathering at Carleton University Friday.
Kenneth Jackson
APTN National News
A women reaches over and grabs an unopened box of tissues and pulls a single sheet to wipe the tears from her eyes.
Violet Parnell from Haida Nation just heard a story of a murdered woman from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and it triggered her own painful memories.
Parnell was at the Peoples’ Gathering for missing and murdered Indigenous women at Carleton University but the pain of her own brother’s murder comes back to the surface.
“My brother was murdered and it was never solved,” said Parnell of her brother Jerome who she said was found murdered in Victoria in the 1990s. “It happens to men too. It didn’t hit home until she mentioned what happened to her.”
Her name is C.J. Julian from Vancouver and her story gripped the room.
Julian detailed the last day she saw her sister Norma George in September 1992.
She remembers her sister’s last words to her. “Go home baby girl,” George told Julian. “Go home baby girl. Go home baby girl.”
Julian said had she known it’d be the last time she’d see her sister she said she never would have let her go.
Later police arrived at her door. George was dead.
Julian fell into drugs and ended up on the Downtown Eastside. Women were going missing while she was there. She’d see the pictures of all her missing friends posted at shelters.
“They were all found on (Robert) Pickton’s farm,” she told the crowd of about 200 people.
She said police didn’t care about them.
“We were drug addicted. We were prostitutes. We were Native,” Julian said, adding she now works in the DTES to help the people there. “I want to give back to my brothers and sisters because they matter. It doesn’t matter if they’re Native or non-Native they deserved to be loved.”
Julian is one of the four ceremonial witnesses at the people’s gathering, including Loretta Saunders’ mom, Miriam.
She fought tears as she spoke of her daughter and her fight for MMIW.
“I want you people to help me, lead me and make sure this is prevented,” she said.
Doreen Morrisseau also spoke of her sister Glenda who was murdered in 1991 and her niece Kelly Morrisseau who was murdered in Gatineau, Que. Dec. 10, 2006.
Both cases remained unsolved.
“We keep waiting and waiting for answers,” she said.
But they don’t come.
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