“Our women are not expendable.”

For the Halifax Media Co-op.

Sixth annual Tanya Brooks memorial walk ends in hope as new information surfaces

KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – The investigation into the murder of 36-year old Tanya Brooks is still ongoing six years after her death. Brooks’ body was found on Mother’s Day in 2009 in the north end of Halifax.The exact details regarding how she died are unclear, and remain unavailable to the public since they are still a part of the investigation. The Halifax Regional Police ask that anyone with any information about Brooks’ death come forward, adding that anonymous tippers are encouraged to contact Crime Stoppers.“We do a release every year to make sure that it’s in people’s minds,” says Superintendent Robin McNeil, who attended the sixth annual Tanya Brooks Memorial Walk on Saturday.

“What we can say confidently is there are people out there who know more about this homicide than they’ve either shared with us or have openly shared with us and we’d really like to speak to them.”

This year, one of Tanya Brooks’ five children, along with her mother, Connie Brooks Adams, led the walk from the Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Centre to the Halifax Regional Police Headquarters on Gottingen Street. The family members led a crowd of about fifty people, holding a banner with Tanya’s name and photo on it.

Dorene Bernard, who is a close friend of the family and one of the organizers of the walk, says that the memorial walks are about raising awareness about Tanya’s case and reminding the public that the investigation into her death is still ongoing.

“She (Adams) wants someone to come forward,” Bernard says. “She also wants to raise awareness about the larger issue of missing and murdered women, and the high incidence of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada.”

More cases that hit close to home

Many Maritimers of aboriginal descent have gone missing or have been murdered in the recent past, Bernard says, referencing a few cases in particular.

She first mentions Virginia Pictou-Noyes, a 26-year-old Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia that went missing in April of 1993. Like Tanya Brooks’ case, Pictou-Noyes’ case remains unsolved.

Next, Bernard mentions Hilary Bonnell, a 16-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted and then murdered by her first cousin in 2009 in northern New Brunswick. In this case, Curtis Bonnell was found guilty of first degree murder, and is currently behind bars.

Bernard then mentions Christopher Metallic, a third-year university student of aboriginal descent who was just 20-years-old when he went missing in 2012. Last seen in Sackville, New Brunswick, Metallic’s case remains unsolved as well.

Memorial walks are crucial because they help to “raise awareness about the high numbers of our women, and our young men as well, that have been murdered and the cases have not been solved,” Bernard says.

Later, she discussed the connection Brooks’ case had with Loretta Saunders, an Inuk woman from Labrador who was murdered by her roommates in Halifax last year.

Saunders was writing a thesis on missing and murdered indigenous women in the Maritimes when she was murdered.

Her sister Delilah and brother James attended Tanya Brooks’ Memorial Walk, honouring the interest their sister had with Brooks’ case and paying their respects to the Brooks family.

“We walk for Tanya but we walk for all of our Sisters in Spirit,” Bernard says. “We walk for these women (and men) as well.”

Tanya Brooks’ curious case: Why nobody’s talking

As police keep saying, it is widely believed that there are people who have information regarding Brooks’ murder that have refused to come forward.

“We do know that there are people out there who are very aware of what’s happened, and we want to make sure that those people understand that we’re still looking to speak with them,” Supt. McNeil says. “Any lead that anyone has, whether it’s someone who may know specifically something about the case themselves or other information they feel the can share, we’re interested in speaking to those people.”

Recently, reporter Hilary Beaumont did some investigating of her own regarding Brooks’ death. “‘No one talks about what happened to Tanya,’” one woman told her.

“An older resident, who didn’t want to be named, said he heard people had killed her because she testified against someone,” Beaumont reports.

Two others told Beaumont the same story, each of them adding independently that a price of $2,000 was put on Brooks’ head after she had testified against Patrick Segerts, who had beaten her almost to death the year before.

Shortly after Brooks’ body was found, a woman who used to work with her, Karen Dooks, told the CBC that before she died, Brooks had been receiving death threats and felt afraid for her life.

A woman who did not want to be named told Beaumont that Brooks was nervous for the trial.

“‘They did not want her to testify,’” the woman said, adding that after the sentencing, Brooks continued to live in fear.

Segerts ended up pleading guilty to aggravated assault and endangering Brooks’ life, though he was initially charged with attempted murder. He was released in September of 2012 after serving four years in jail.

He was still serving his sentence at the time of Brooks’ death.

“Since his release, no criminal charges have been brought against him, and he hasn’t been convicted of any crime in Nova Scotia,” Beaumont writes.

Connecting cases across the country

According to the RCMP’s 2014 report, there are currently 225 unsolved cases of missing aboriginal women and 120 unsolved homicides that have been reported to the police between 1980 and 2012. In total, there were a total of 1,017 reported homicides within that 32-year span.

“The total indicates that Aboriginal women are over-represented among Canada’s murdered and missing women,” the report says.

It must be noted that in the official RCMP investigation initiative into B.C.’s missing and murdered aboriginal women, E-PANA, no new unsolved cases have been added since 2006.

Aboriginal women make up just 4% of the country’s female population, but have a homicide rate that is “roughly 4.5 times higher than that of all other women in Canada,” according to Amnesty International Canada. Further, a 2011 report states that aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are 5 times more likely to die a violent death than other Canadian women.

Matt Smiley’s documentary Highway of Tears, which focuses on the 18 women who have been murdered or gone missing along a stretch of highway in northern B.C., discusses the issue at length. The revealing film also touches on the connection between domestic violence and the horrors that many aboriginal family members endured when forced to attend residential schools. Several men and women in the documentary talk about how the devastating impact residential schools had on aboriginal persons that is still being lived out to this day.

The film also mentions that over the years, certain individuals have taken it upon themselves to seek out and collect their own data regarding Canada’s missing and murdered aboriginal women.

In 2011, Gladys Radek collected more than 4,200 names of women who have gone missing or who have been murdered. Since then, she has apparently stopped counting because the numbers keep increasing so rapidly each year.

Nevertheless, Radek continues to advocate on behalf of aboriginal rights, ending violence against women, the importance of the federal government recognizing the severity of the problem and the desperate need for a national inquiry.

Recently, the CBC also investigated into the matter. They contacted the families of the 230 missing or murdered aboriginal women from 1951 to present, whose cases are still unsolved.

“Families were asked to rate the quality of the police investigation in each case, on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being excellent. The average rating was 2.8,” the article says.

When it comes to unsolved homicides, without any physical proof or evidence, investigators’ hands are tied; “suspicions and suspects aren’t enough.”

The head of the Highway of Tears task force in B.C., RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Clary, commented on this problem with candour: “I have worked on files in the past, I am not going to say which ones, where we know exactly who did it. […] And we just can’t freakin’ prove it. And it’s frustrating.”

Remembering Tanya Brooks and hoping for answers

This frustration is a familiar sentiment for the friends and family of Tanya Brooks, who still lack answers six years later.

For Adams, these walks help bring her strength on a day when she and Brooks’ five children need it most. They also play key a role in helping her and the community heal.

“(She’s) really hoping it will touch somebody’s heart who is in the community to bring somebody forward who has information on this case to get some closure,” says Bernard.

Aside from raising awareness about the case, bringing the community together, honouring Tanya and other missing or murdered aboriginal women, Bernard says that walks like the Tanya Brooks Memorial Walk also send a very important message: “Our women are not expendable.”

“They are our families, our children–they had five children that are waiting for justice and answers, too.”

In Halifax, despite the lack of progress with Brooks’ case over the past six years, the police are not giving up.

“Walks like this that are organized by the community are very important for us to participate in because we want to make sure that folks in the community understand that we’re not going to forget, that the community is not going to forget, that we’re looking to see some closure,” says Supt. McNeil.

After the walk, Adams released 43 balloons in honour of Tanya’s birthday, which would have been on May 28. She would have been 43 this year.

After the crowd had cleared out of the Mi’kmaq Native Friendship Centre, as I went to say goodbye to Bernard and Adams, Adams had a different expression on her face: she was smiling.

Apparently, two people had come forward with information to the police after the walk that day, which is exactly what she and everyone had been praying for.

“We prayed for someone to come forward and help to solve Tanya’s murder case. We prayed for help for her family to heal,” Bernard says. “It is in the hands of Creator of course but I do believe that every single Memorial Walk for Tanya has helped to put her case out in the public and each time it generates new leads in her case. We will know soon enough and are hopeful for a break in this unsolved murder in Halifax as there are murderers roaming free.”

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