The aunt of a missing woman for more than a decade was on the steps of the Manitoba Legislature on Saturday echoing her calls to the province to include Tanya Napinak, 31, in a specific search for Winnipeg’s Brady landfill.
Sue Caribou held an optimistic letter that he wrote to his missing niece after a meeting with Prime Minister Wab Kinew this spring, while others had signs in the legislative building that said: “Look for Tanya Napinak.”
“When they mentioned that they were going to look in Brady’s landfill, they didn’t mention my niece again,” said Napinak through tears. “Why do they keep throwing it under the carpet? It doesn’t matter?”
The Government of the PND announced this week the search for the green meadow to the north of the city that officially ended on July 9, months after the partial remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran, both of Long Plain First Nation, were discovered there in February.
The women were among the four women of the first nations killed by Jeremy Skibicki in 2022. He was sentenced by four first degree murder positions in their deaths last year. Rebecca Contois and Ashlee Shingoose were the other two victims.
The partial remains of Contois were first discovered in a garbage container near the Skibicki apartment in the North Killdonan neighborhood of Winnipeg. More were discovered in Brady’s landfill in June 2022.
There is also where it is believed that some of Shingoose’s remains are, and that is where search engines are expected to continue looking soon.
Brady’s landfill is also where researchers believe that Napinak’s remains were taken after she disappeared.
Napinak, originally from Pine Creek First Nation, has been missing more than 13 years. He was last seen leaving his house on Sherbrook Street in Winnipeg in September 2011.
Shawn Lamb was accused of second degree murder in his death in 2012, although those charges stayed later. Lamb was sentenced by involuntary homicide for the death of Carolyn Sinclair and Lorna Blacksmith.
It was believed that Napinak’s remains were on Brady’s landfill at that time. There was a brief search that wrapped in six days, without success, in 2012.
Caribou has persisted in his search to press the successive leadership of the government to resume the search for the remains of Napinak.
In April, Caribau led a march that ended the legislature before a meeting he had with Kinew.
At that time, he felt a renewed sense of trust.
“Good things happen when you keep moving forward in good sense. Finally chat with the prime minister,” says a line of a letter that Caribau wrote to Napinak after that meeting. “I was very grateful.”
![A woman holds a letter that reads, in part: "Good things happen when you keep moving forward ... we can search and bring [home] Our beautiful Tanya Jane Napinak. I don't give up."](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7589464.1752959324!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/sue-caribou-holds-up-note-she-wrote-to-her-missing-niece-tanya-caribou.jpg?im=)
But that feeling was short.
Napinak said on Saturday that the meetings I hoped to have with the prime minister or the staff were canceled or rescheduled several times in the following months, and an explanation was due to the forest fire season.
Manitoba is in the control of his worst forest fires in 30 years, which have displaced thousands of evacuated, most of them residents of the communities of the north of the first nations.
Many have been put in shelters and hotels in Winnipeg and other places in the south.
Napinak said that he understands how pressing the situation of forest fires is for the province to attend it, but feels that the ads about the next search for Brady’s landfill do not mention their niece, and feel ignored.
She also feels, with thousands of evacuated trapped in Winnipeg currently, that the Manitoba government has an opportunity before.
“This is a perfect time for our people to help each other,” Caribou said, adding that the province should pay the evacuees to find the landfill of their niece.
“Let the evacuees win some money while they are here and do not fall into all kinds of problems. We can all make history and we can all help each other.”
She wants to advance, but is frustrating and angry “when they mention Brady’s landfill and mention Ashlee [Shingoose] But not Tanya. “
“That only breaks my heart,” he said. “Let’s help each other.”
Jennifer Rocchio, a relative of Tanya, said he made a promise to the father of Napinak in his death bed that he would continue to appear for his daughter.
“There must be some responsibility for the community of the first nations,” he said. “We have to take responsibility for them.”
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