Maxine Wapass
Maxine Wapass
Maxine Wapass was a 23 year-old Cree woman who was very close to her large family. As a little girl, she was raised by her grandfather at Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan. After he died in 1987, when Maxine was eight, she was raised by an aunt.
As a young adult Maxine Wapass stayed with her cousin Marilyn Wapass in Saskatoon but enjoyed returning to Thunderchild First Nation on holidays and whenever the opportunity arose to visit. “All of us tried to be together at Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, whenever we can eat, we all get together,” said Marilyn Wapass.
Maxine Wapass had no children, but was close to her nieces and nephews. She was especially close to Marilyn Wapass’ children; when her cousin was attending university or working, Maxine Wapass would eagerly baby-sit for them. From Marilyn Wapass’ point of view, her cousin helped raise her children.
On 17 May 2002, Maxine Wapass phoned her cousin at work about a trip to the reserve they were planning. Marilyn Wapass told her as soon as she got home from work, they would drive to Thunderchild. Marilyn Wapass recalled that she “wanted to get [Maxine] away from the city” because “she was getting into her drugs pretty bad.”
When Marilyn Wapass got home from work, Maxine Wapass was not there. She did not call and she never returned. Marilyn Wapass was not worried at first. She knew that her cousin had a lot of friends and she could end up anywhere. Maxine Wapass had talked about getting back together with an ex-boyfriend who lived at Little Pine First Nation so she assumed her cousin had gone to his reserve. Two weeks later, however, he phoned, and asked where Maxine Wapass was. Marilyn Wapass went to Thunderchild and told her mother and everyone else there that she had not seen Maxine Wapass in approximately two weeks. Her mother advised her to go to the police.
From the beginning, Marilyn Wapass says she felt that she and the lead investigator did not have a very good relationship. She was calling the police regularly to pass on information about her cousin and to ask for updates. She says she felt that the investigator “was getting tired of me calling and he had told me that this case wasn’t his priority.” When the investigator went on holidays, two other officers became involved. Marilyn Wapass felt more at ease: “I felt like they were really doing the best job that they could and they were going out on the street and they were interviewing people and they really wanted to solve the case.” In August 2002, the two officers did a television interview about Maxine’s disappearance. Shortly after the interview was aired, the lead investigator returned to work and the two other officers did not continue.
Marilyn asked a band councilor from the Thunderchild First Nation, Irma Horse, to be the family’s contact with the police. Ms. Horse in turn contacted the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) at the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN), a provincial Indigenous advocacy organization, for assistance.
The family also took it upon themselves to try to obtain information about Maxine’s disappearance. In the fall of 2002 they raised $5000 for a reward for information, and distributed posters in Saskatoon, throughout Saskatchewan, including reserves, and Alberta. The Thunderchild First Nation paid for newspaper ads in Saskatoon and Edmonton, Alberta.
In November 2002, Maxine Wapass’ remains were found in a rural area 16 kilometres west of Saskatoon. The police confirmed her identity three months later, and informed the family on 6 February 2003. Due to the location of the remains, the RCMP became involved in the investigation. A RCMP representative came to Thunderchild and met with the family after the closed-casket funeral.
The FSIN’s Senior Special Investigator agreed to liaise with the police on the family’s behalf because they felt they were having difficult experiences with the police. He reviewed the file and determined that work was being done, but had not been conveyed to the family. He went to Thunderchild First Nation and met with the family, and later set up meetings between them and the police. He added that, once the family began meeting regularly with the police, some good information came forward from the reserve that the police would not have received if the communication lines had not been opened.
Thunderchild councilor Irma Horse believes that if the FSIN’s Special Investigations Unit had not become involved, the case would not have gone anywhere. “Nothing was being done,” she said.
In June 2003, the RCMP charged Maxine Wapass’s ex-boyfriend with second-degree murder. Following the preliminary hearing, the charges were reduced to manslaughter.
In late 2004, Justice John Klebuc of the Court of Queen’s Bench ruled that while the defendant had viciously assaulted Maxine on the night she died, there was insufficient evidence to determine that he was responsible for her death. The judge also ruled that a videotaped confession was inadmissible in court because police officer’s violated the defendants right to be silent. The defendant was found not guilty in the death of Maxine Wapass [1].
[1] ‘Murder confession was tainted, judge rules’, The Globe and Mail, December 8, 2004, pg. A.13.
Updated: 29 September 2009