http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Mother+renews+plea+help+find+missing+girls/1527465/story.htmlOTTAWA — Laurie Odjick, mother of one of two teen girls missing from the Maniwaki area for almost 8 months, made a renewed plea for help Thursday while announcing that a second co-ordinated search for the girls will take place May 2.
“I am making a plea for anyone to come down to help us with the search,” Odjick said, struggling through tears, at a press conference at a downtown hotel.
Laurie’s daughter Maisy, and her friend Shannon Alexander, were last seen Sept. 5, when Shannon’s father, Brian Alexander, left them together at his Koko Street home — which borders the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation — while he took a bus to Ottawa to help his son paint his apartment.
When Alexander returned the following day, there was no sign of Maisy or Shannon, but their wallets, IDs and clothing were all left behind. Police have said there was no sign of a break-in. When they went missing, Maisy was 16 and Shannon 17, but they’ve both since had birthdays.
The missing persons files are being jointly investigated by the Kitigan Zibi Police Department and the Sûreté du Québec, because Maisy lived on-reserve and Shannon lived off.
A $10,000 reward — made up of donations from friends and supportive organizations — is being offered by the families for any information that leads to Maisy’s and Shannon’s safe return.
For the first few months of the investigation, the KZPD exclusively handled Maisy’s file while the SQ had Shannon’s, but the two police forces have since combined both files.
Odjick has argued that since the girls went missing together, their cases should have been combined from the beginning, and she has criticized the SQ for using the jurisdictional challenges of the case as an excuse for what she calls an inadequate investigation.
Although the two police departments say they are now working closely together, last month the SQ said that while investigators were still technically considering all possibilities, they had reason to believe the girls ran away. The Kitigan Zibi police, on the other hand, said they had no evidence to indicate one way or another what happened to the girls.
A spokesman for the SQ refused to say what evidence was leading them to believe the girls ran away, saying the information was confidential since it is part of an ongoing investigation.
The investigating officer could not be reached for comment Thursday, but a spokesman said there has been no change in the case.
Odjick said she has no idea what evidence the SQ has, but she has repeatedly said it wouldn’t make sense for her daughter to run away without taking her purse and clothes.
“All they had were the clothes on their backs,” she said Thursday.
Odjick accuses both police departments of assuming Maisy and Shannon ran away from the beginning, and, as a result, never undertook a proper investigation.
The police departments have denied this, saying the files are a priority and the lack of developments in the case is not an indication of investigators’ efforts.
“I can understand the families’ frustrations,” Kitigan Zibi Police Chief Gordon McGregor said last month. “We share the same frustrations. But we’re not getting any information that’s really conclusive.”
At Thursday’s press conference, Odjick was joined by Maisy’s aunt, Maria Jacko, as well as Ellen Gabriel, president of Quebec Native Women Inc., and Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, president of the Murdered or Missing Persons' Families’ Association. Kitigan Zibi Band Chief Gilbert Whiteduck and a representative from Amnesty International were also in attendance, but no representatives of the KZPD, the SQ or Shannon’s family attended.
At the press conference, Odjick announced that a large-scale ground search of the Kitigan Zibi area will be conducted on May 2, with the help of the volunteer non-profit group, Search and Rescue Global 1 and the Ottawa Valley Search and Rescue Dog Association.
A previous large-scale search, also organized by the Odjick family and led by Search and Rescue Global 1, was organized in the first week of December; but knee-deep snow in most parts of the heavily wooded reserve made finding any evidence of the teens’ whereabouts almost impossible.
Though she had to fight back tears whenever she spoke, Odjick said she would not stop searching for her daughter and Shannon, and would continue to demand answers from police.
“I’m not going to stop fighting until I hear her voice.”
According to research by the Native Women’s Association of Canada and Amnesty International, more than 500 aboriginal women have disappeared or been murdered in the last 20 years. If that same rate of disappearances and murders was applied to the general female population in Canada, it would be more than 16,000.
bkennedy@thecitizen.canwest.comInformation on how to join the search:
Date: Saturday, May 2
Time: A bus will leave Ottawa at 7 a.m. from Amnesty International’s office at 312 Laurier
Location: Starting point for all volunteers will be the Kitigan Zibi Community Hall on Fafard Street
Amnesty International is donating a bus to transport volunteers from the Ottawa area who wish to join the search. To reserve a seat on the bus, RSVP to Sylvia at
trublewithnormal@gmail.com. For more information about the search and directions to the Kitigan Zibi First Nation visit
www.findmaisyandshannon.com or e-mail
cbenjamin@amnesty.ca.
- Shannon Alexander is five-foot-nine, 145 pounds, with brown eyes and dark brown hair. She has acne and pierced ears, often wears a silver necklace with a feather on it, and has a scar on her left knee.
- Maisy Odjick is six feet tall, 125 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair. She has two piercings in her bottom lip and one in her left nostril, and scars on top of her right eyebrow and left forearm.
Shannon and Maisy are believed to be together. If you have any information about their whereabouts, call the Sûreté du Québec at 819-310-4141 or the Kitigan Zibi Police Department at 819-449-6000. There is a $10,000 reward for information that leads to their safe return.
Topic: Shannon Alexander - September 5, 2008 - Age 17 - Missing - Maniwaki (Read 760 times)
