Canadian True Crime - 75 Saskatoon Freezing Deaths

Episode Date: November 1, 2020

SASKATCHEWAN: In 2000, Darrell Night was having a night out with friends, when he was picked up by police. He thought they were going to take him to the drunk tank… but instead, the car went in the opposite direction.More resources on this case:BOOK: Starlight Tour: The Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild by Rob Renaud and Susanne ReberDOCUMENTARY: Two Worlds Colliding directed by Tasha HubbardPODCAST: COMMONS - The PolicePodcast recommendations:COMMONS - current season "The police”Nighttime - the stories of Glen Race and Haunted CanadaThanks for supporting my sponsors!See the special offer codes here AD FREE Exclusive feed - Canadian True Crime supportersAccess ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, and more on Patreon and Supercast Learn moreCredits:Research and writing: Danielle ParadisAdditional research and writing: Kristi LeeAudio editing and production: We Talk of Dreams  Disclaimer voiced by the host of TrueTheme Song: We Talk of DreamsAll credits and information sources can be found on the page for this episode at canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well. Well, about as well as can be expected right now anyway. Before I start, I just wanted to let those interested know that I was on two recent episodes of Night Time. First, I co-hosted with Jordan to tell the story of Glenn Race, a really horrific case that I'd actually never heard of, with a crime spree that started in Canada and ended in the US. And also, to celebrate Halloween, Night Time has released an episode featuring real-life ghost stories. And I have one. I've never actually told it before because I'm not a ghosty kind of person and it sounds a bit ridiculous, but it happened and there was a witness, so I decided that what the hell I'll tell my story.

So if you're interested in the story of Glenn Race or my personal haunted apartment story, head over to Night Time now. And with that, it's on with the show. Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded through advertising and direct donations. The podcast contains course language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. When the body gets cold and starts to lose heat faster than you can make it, you're in a medical emergency called hypothermia. Studies show that any temperature below 10 degrees Celsius or 50 degrees Fahrenheit can lead to the condition. In temperatures

below minus 30 Celsius, a healthy person who isn't properly dressed for the weather can experience hypothermia in as little as 10 minutes. And you can lose 50% of your body warmth just from your head. That's why hats and scarves are so important. When hypothermia first sets in, the first symptoms you'll feel are weakness, confusion, and shivering. Then, as your body's core temperature drops, the shivering becomes almost violent as it tries to generate heat by contracting muscles rapidly. You run steady as you try to balance or walk. Your speech starts to slur. Your judgement is compromised and you display a lack of concern for the predicament you're in. In those temperatures, your fingers

and toes are prone to frostbite as the blood moves away from the skin and the outer extremities to preserve your internal body temperature. Eventually, your arms and legs begin to feel stiff. Your coordination is off and it's difficult for you to hold on to anything. As your core temperature continues to drop, your brain function continues to deteriorate. You're confused and fatigued. You might feel like you want to sit down for a rest, just for a minute. The human body usually has an internal temperature of around 37 degrees Celsius or 98 degrees Fahrenheit. But once hypothermia sets in and your internal temperature drops by 8 to 12 degrees, something unexpected happens. You stop shivering and you suddenly

feel a sensation of burning heat, so hot that you'll want to rip your clothes off. This phenomenon is known as paradoxical undressing. Paradoxical because your body is playing tricks on you. You aren't burning up at all. You have been freezing to death and now you are about to die. There's an old adage about hypothermia. You aren't dead until you're warm and dead. It was a freezing cold night at the end of January 2000 in Saskatoon, the largest city in the province of Saskatchewan. Daryl Knight, a cre-man originally from the Salto First Nation reserve, was out on the town for a social night with friends. The 33-year-old had a few beers while he watched some friends play pool and then the group moved on to a nightclub

called Seaweeds. When the club closed at 3am, they hopped over to a private house party. But at about 5am, a fight broke out between two women and a man. Before too long, another man joined in and the fight snowballed. Someone went to call the police. This party was getting out of hand. Even though Daryl was not involved in the fight, he had been drinking and he had a history of getting into fights while drinking. He had numerous convictions for this and he'd promised family members that he'd be more careful. Tonight, Daryl was determined not to get caught up in whatever was happening and certainly did not want to be there when the cops showed up. It was time for him to leave. It was minus 22 degrees Celsius outside but he was only

wearing a blue jean jacket with a fleece collar, a denim shirt, and jeans, not anywhere near what he needed to keep warm in that weather for any extended period of time. But Daryl was a hefty man who stood over six feet tall and his sister lived close by so he decided to walk the few minutes there across the park to safety. Now Daryl had survived a bout of tuberculosis and meningitis six years earlier which had left him with some vision impairment that required him to wear thick eyeglasses. He usually kept his right eye closed in a squint because leaving it open made him dizzy and likely to fall over. That night as he exited the building his glasses fogged up in the freezing cold and he took them off which caused him to stagger a little. Then he saw a cop car drive

past slowly. Accounts on what happened next differ slightly but according to the book Starlight Tour by Suzanne Reber and Robert Renaud a cop car drove past slowly and Daryl gave them the finger and swore at them. The car stopped and backed up. One of the officers asked Daryl what his problem was and he yelled at them to get inside do their jobs and break up the fight. Instead the two officers must have believed that Daryl was causing trouble and one of them put him in handcuffs fussing around to secure them extra tight. Too tight. It caused Daryl pain. He called them racist bastards who were only doing this because he was indigenous. He was then shoved in the back of the car. He didn't know these cops but Daryl knew exactly where they were going to be

taking him. Despite his best efforts this night was going to end up as it had so many times before. He was going to be taken to the drunk tank the area of the police station where intoxicated people are asked to sleep it off. As they drove Daryl asked them to reconsider. He told them they didn't have to do this he wasn't doing anything he wasn't involved in the fight. He asked them to just let him go but the officers went quiet and the car kept driving. After making a few turns the car went in the opposite direction of the station. As the car started to head south out of Saskatoon Daryl realized that they hadn't asked his name they had no idea who he was or that he had a criminal record and he hadn't seen them log anything into their computer system about their

activities. They just drove in silence. Daryl knew something was wrong and he was beginning to get scared. He started begging them to let him go. Top of his mind were rumors he'd heard about police picking up indigenous men who were considered drunk and rowdy and then dropping them off outside the city so that they could sober up and find their own way home. Everyone referred to the rumors as starlight tours but someone did if they were an urban legend but now Daryl Knight somehow knew he was about to find out. As the car continued out of town and passed the Queen Elizabeth the second power station he dreaded what was to come. It was minus 22 degrees Celsius outside and he wasn't at all dressed for that weather. He worried that he was going to die and the police

would not respond to his pleas for release. About five kilometers out of town the car stopped. Daryl sat still as the police officer on the passenger side got out of the car and opened Daryl's door. Daryl heard him say get out of the car you fucking idiot. He then shoved Daryl to the back of the car so he could remove the handcuffs. Daryl's head slammed against the car but out of his good eye he saw the numbers five and seven. Car number 57 he committed it to memory. Daryl told them you can't leave me here I'll freeze to death. That's your fucking problem. Daryl watched as the cruiser did a u-turn snow crunching under the tyres and then drove off. The field where he was left was flat and desolate. Abandoned just like he was. Daryl Knight thought he was as

good as dead. According to court records when the two police officers started driving back into Saskatoon they entered available into the car's mobile data terminal. Before that as far as dispatch knew the officers had been breaking up a fight at that party. The party they never actually attended because they made the decision to instead drive off with Daryl Knight. They never registered any interaction with him. They had no idea who he was. They didn't even know his name. Outside Daryl was now making a plan to survive the minus 22 degrees Celsius temperature. His fleece jacket wasn't going to help and he had no hat or scarf to keep the heat from escaping from his head. He knew that he was in grave danger now but he had a sense of direction

and his plan was to quickly walk back to the power station. As he walked his eyebrows and eyelashes started to freeze and whiten he started to become confused. The simple act of walking was starting to get difficult but after 20 gruelling minutes he finally made it to the exterior of the power station building. He was acutely aware that he was suddenly not feeling as cold as he did 10 minutes ago. He knew he needed to find a way to get into the building and soon but it was 6 a.m and he didn't know if anyone would be there. He found glass doors and banged on them with his hands. Nothing. After a few minutes he walked around to the back of the building and went from door to door banging hard and the hope that there was someone inside the

building that could hear him. After more than 15 minutes banging he could feel his body starting to warm up rapidly but because he lived in a northern climate all his life he knew exactly what this meant. You aren't dead until you're warm and dead. Inside the power station a security guard was doing the rounds and heard a banging. He wondered who would be out there in the freezing cold at 6 a.m. He opened the door and found Darrell there a solid imposing man pounding on the door. The security guard let him in and called him a cab. As they waited Darrell told him what had happened. The security guard was in disbelief until Darrell rolled up his sleeves and showed him the red marks that had been left by those

tight handcuffs. There was also a bruise developing on his forehead. Darrell got home safely. He survived the ordeal but he now knew that those rumors of the starlight tours were true and he had lived to tell the tale. He told family members what had happened. They were outraged and told him to go to the media but no one mentioned the police. According to the book Starlight Tour the feeling among the indigenous was that quote complaining about police only meant that next time you'd have father to walk. I'm Christy an Australian who's called Canada home for more than a decade and this is my passion project. Join me to hear about some of the most thought provoking and often heartbreaking true crime cases in Canada. Using court documents and news

archives I take you through each story from beginning to end with a look at the way the media covered the crime and the impact it had on the community. This is Canadian true crime. A few days after his ordeal Darrell Knight was riding in a car driven by his uncle Randy. He still hadn't decided what he was going to do about his experience if anything. There was a flash of blue lights behind them. A police car wanted to pull them over. The cops saw that Randy's young son in the back had wriggled free from his seatbelt. As Darrell and Randy were waiting for the officer to write up the ticket something on the radio caught their attention. An announcement was made that the body of a young indigenous man had been found frozen in the snow near the Queen

Elizabeth II power station. That very same power station that Darrell had run to seeking warmth and a phone when he was abandoned by the police just days earlier. Darrell's uncle Randy urged Darrell to tell the officer his story when he came back but Darrell was reluctant. When the officer Sergeant Bruce Aholt came back with the ticket Randy asked him if he knew anything about the death on the radio. Sergeant Aholt said he hadn't heard much and asked them why they were interested. Randy told them Darrell's story from days ago. The sergeant asked if he had filed a report but Darrell said he had not because he didn't think that anybody would believe him. As the sergeant would say in documentary Two Worlds Colliding his first thought was this can't really be happening.

He took pride in his badge and his uniform and if this was true the police standing in the community was damaged. He asked Darrell what he planned to do. Darrell still hadn't decided. Aholt asked Darrell and Randy to be patient as he wanted to report to his chief and begin an investigation but since it involved members of the same police force he wanted to be very careful about what he did next and who he told but before he left he asked for the traffic ticket and ripped it in half. Despite this according to the book Starlight Tours Darrell doubted that anything would actually come of Aholt's promises. His fears weren't unfounded. Critics of policing methods refer to a blue curtain which is sort of unwritten code among police officers.

You might know it as any number of other terms, code of silence, blue wall of silence, the blue code or blue shield but everyone knows it refers to a reluctance among police officers to report the corrupt activities of other police officers including serious errors, corruption and police brutality. The theory first gained prominence in New York in 1970 after police officer Frank Serpico came forward with his personal experiences with corruption abuse and payoffs inside the force. As a result of the publicity the city ordered what would become known as the NAP commission named after its chair Judge Whitman NAP. Hearings were held to determine the extent of corruption in New York City's police department and Serpico gave shocking testimony against fellow officers.

This not only revealed systemic corruption but showed a long-standing issue that got in the way of investigating these abuses that is the fraternal understanding among police officers where testifying against a fellow officer is regarded as a betrayal, that blue curtain. Sergeant Aholt would say that his motivation to report what he'd heard from Darrell came from having pride in his job. If this was some form of corruption he could not personally tolerate it so he requested an emergency meeting with his police chief and an investigator. The two men sat in silence as Aholt told the mystery that sounded almost unbelievable. Police chief Dave Scott issued the order to bring Darrell night in for an official statement by the

end of the day. The Indigenous man found in the snow that Darrell and Randy heard about on the radio was identified as 25-year-old Rodney Neistis from a nearby Cree reserve called Onion Lake. He'd been found by a politician going for her morning run through an industrial park near that same Queen Elizabeth II power station. She suddenly heard someone calling and she saw a man motioning for her to come over pointing to the ground. There lay the body of Rodney Neistis. All he had on were running shoes and black sweatpants. Nearby lay his camouflage jacket and t-shirt. Not much is publicly known about Rodney to this day. After his family were informed of his death

they hired a lawyer to represent them but they've never spoken publicly about his death in any interviews. A later inquest by the RCMP would conclude that Rodney simply wandered off after a party. There was no record of any interaction with police that evening. Just like with Darrell night. The night Rodney Neistis was found another Indigenous man in Saskatoon was recovering from a stressful day. 29-year-old Lawrence Wagner had been living in a group home but he'd recently been kicked out for raiding the locked drug cabinet. He was now staying at the apartment of an acquaintance and his girlfriend who fought constantly verbally and physically. Lawrence was a student at the First Nations University studying to be a social worker

like his mother. He was from the Salto First Nation like Darrell night although the two didn't know each other. According to the book Starlight Tours Lawrence had told his mom he loved listening to the stories his elders told about Indigenous history and he wanted to stand up for his people and help them. Lawrence was bright and curious and always asking questions but he also had depression and anxiety which affected every aspect of his life from his social interactions to his ability to cope with the stress of his studies. To cope he turned to drugs marijuana and morphine. That day his roommates had been arguing and got into another physical altercation and Lawrence had to call the police. He was not happy with his situation. He felt guilty.

He felt like he'd ruined his life and let everybody down. He shut himself in his bedroom and smoked a large amount of hash that's a potent drug made from the resin of the cannabis plant. He hoped that it would make him feel better but it only served to heighten his anxiety and make him paranoid. Lawrence had to get out of that apartment. He took off without even putting on shoes or a winter coat. He knew his mother's cousin lived nearby so his plan was to just go there. At that house Lawrence's mother's cousin Eliza had been watching TV at midnight while her daughter Jennifer got ready for bed. Jennifer heard a knock at the door and went to the window to see who it was. There was a man standing there who looked like he was either drunk or high. Jennifer

didn't recognise that it was her second cousin. She didn't know Lawrence very well. Eliza would have recognised him but she didn't go to the window so she didn't see him. In any event, whoever he was, Jennifer saw that he was only wearing a t-shirt and jeans and while she didn't know him she also didn't want him to freeze to death in the freezing cold late January weather. She called 911. As she was on the phone she told the dispatcher that she could see the man, Lawrence, walking down the road toward the hospital. The dispatcher said they'd already received a complaint and that they were looking into it. Two of Lawrence's acquaintances from school were driving in the area close to the hospital. They slowly drove by an idling Saskatoon

police service car that was parked with its rear end angling out to the curb. They were surprised to see Lawrence next to the car and saw that he only had a white t-shirt and jeans on and no shoes. They asked each other what he was doing out there dressed so poorly for the weather and clearly in some kind of trouble. Getting roughed up and in trouble with the police wasn't like Lawrence. They watched him stumble into the police car and joked that when they saw him next at school they were going to tease him about it. At around the same time a man called Albert was driving past too. He noticed the thin indigenous man scantily clad with a white t-shirt and no shoes on get into the car with the police. That was early in the morning on January 31st 2000.

Lawrence Wegner would never be seen alive again. Sergeant A-Holt finally located Darrell at his uncle's house to see if he would come in to give a statement. But Darrell was still reluctant. He did not want to speak with any police officers. According to the documentary Two Worlds Colliding A-Holt said to him, quote, remember when you were telling me that no one would believe you? I believe you. Darrell was shocked. He had expected his story to be brushed off. Well it seemed counter-intuitive to be getting back into a cop car after what had happened to him only days ago. His uncle Randy talked him into going in and giving a statement. At the station Darrell recounted the events of that

evening and told the officers that he'd seen the number on the cop car number 57. It didn't take long to locate the officers in that car. They both flatly denied that they had even met Darrell, let alone driven him out of town and dumped him in the cold snow. On the orders of the police chief both men were sent home. But Darrell had made a mistake. As you'll remember he saw the number as he was being shoved up against the car and handcuffed. But he had actually misread the first number. It wasn't 57, it was actually 27. And now word was starting to spread among the ranks of the police force. Sergeant Aholt's proactive initiative in following up with Darrell had caused a division.

There were those who felt that Darrell should be bringing the issue forward himself and Aholt should have stayed out of it. And yet others thought Aholt was doing the right thing by ensuring that it wasn't buried. The two men in car 27, the correct car, were having a dilemma. Middle-aged constables Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson remembered that they had picked up a man, but they didn't know who he was. Remember they never asked Darrell for his name. According to the book Starlight Tours, Dan Hatchin had been in the police service for 16 years. His partner of six years Ken Munson was originally from the UK and soon after he became a police officer in Saskatoon he received a decoration for talking

an indigenous man who was holding a baby from jumping from a third floor balcony window. But now they were watching two of their colleagues taking heat for what they had done. Eventually the men came forward and admitted that it was them who had driven Darrell Knight out of town, but they claimed they hadn't done anything wrong. Darrell had asked to be let out of the car. The second part at least was true. Darrell had asked to be let out, but not at the power station. He'd been asking to be released since he was first picked up outside the party. While all this was happening, the body of 29 year old Lawrence Wegner was found frozen to death in the snow near the Queen Elizabeth II power station. He was wearing the exact outfit he'd

last been seen in, a white t-shirt and pants and no shoes. There was a blood smear on the back of his t-shirt and even though Lawrence had no shoes, he was found with two pairs of socks on and the outer pair of socks were not worn or dirty. The autopsy report determined Lawrence's cause of death to be hypothermia. There was also a very large bruise under his left eye and hemorrhaging under his scalp, almost as though he'd received a beating. But the Saskatoon police didn't think there was anything suspicious about Lawrence's death and concluded that he had simply walked to the spot that he was found. Lawrence's family asked to see his body, but were denied. But they were allowed to collect the clothing that he'd been wearing. The police

didn't bother keeping it as evidence. Lawrence's father looked at the clothing and found it strange that his son did not have shoes, but yet his socks were not worn. If the police were correct and he'd walked there himself with just socks on, wouldn't they look dirty and worn? So, in the freezing cold Saskatoon winter in the year 2000, near the Queen Elizabeth power station, two indigenous men had been found frozen to death within days of each other. And a third man, Daryl Knight, had come forward to say he had been abandoned there too in the same week, but had lived to tell the tale. After years of rumors, the actions of the Saskatoon police service were starting to come into sharp focus. And there was more to come.

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to fit your needs. And you can even browse the category of your business to see examples of what others have done. I used the built-in blogging tools to create a new page for each episode, and there are so many intuitive options from embedding an audio player so listeners can stream episodes to scheduling posts to be published on a certain date, an easily moderated comment section and automatically displaying recent episodes on the homepage. Every Squarespace website and online store includes SEO tools to help you maximize your visibility in search engines. And I love the powerful insights I can get from the analytics tools, helping me better understand who's visiting the site, where they came from and how they're interacting with it. Do you have a passion

project or business idea or something to sell? Go to squarespace.com slash ctc for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code CTC to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash ctc with offer code CTC and get your passion project off the ground today. Journalist Dan Zekreski at the Star Phoenix newspaper had been making inquiries to the police about the two men found in the snow. Originally reports on their deaths consisted of just a few lines of basic facts. But Dan decided to start digging deeper and looked for people close to the case that he could speak to, including Lawrence Wegner's relative Eliza, whose daughter Jennifer didn't recognize him when he showed up at their door. Dan Zekreski also interviewed

Saskatoon police chief Dave Scott about rumors he'd heard that there was an indigenous man who had survived being dropped off outside the city. All the chief would do is confirm the rumors and give Dan the name of the lawyer representing the survivor. That lawyer, Don Worm, would not release the name of his client. The media had a tendency to portray indigenous people in a negative light, focusing on their past and criminal histories, and he didn't want this to happen to his client. So for now, he gave the reporter the names of the two police officers who were involved. The Star Phoenix broke the story and sparked a debate about the treatment of indigenous people and other racialized groups across the country. Saskatoon has the largest urban population of

indigenous people in Canada, which is perhaps why the city experiences a racial divide between indigenous people and the white population in a way that's difficult to ignore. The reporting brought a lot of that racial tension to the forefront. Everyone had an opinion. On one hand, members of the public predictably pointed to the past and criminal histories of the three men as a rationale for why this might have happened to them. On the other hand, concerned community groups were not happy with this focus and rightly stated that no person deserves to be picked up by police and dropped off outside town in freezing cold weather and left to die, criminal history or not. It was simply inhumane. There were community calls for an independent inquiry.

Two weeks later, after increasing pressure, police chief Dave Scott held a morning press conference and announced that the two officers involved with Daryl Knight's incident had come forward and had been suspended without pay. But he added that there was no evidence that those two officers had anything to do with the deaths of Lawrence Wegner and Rodney Nastas. He announced that Saskatoon police would conduct their own internal investigation into the issues. The community was outraged. But just hours later, Justice Minister Chris Axworthy gave his own statement to the press saying that the police chief had changed his mind and the file had been given to the RCMP Major Crimes Division in Regina, the capital city of Saskatchewan. Two local groups,

the Saskatchewan Coalition Against Racism and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, were particularly vocal, pointing out that what this still amounted to was the police looking into the police. Quote, it's still in the brotherhood. This was about as far away from a public inquiry as you can get. As you'll remember, the family of Rodney Nastas dealt with their grief privately and didn't speak to the press. But Lawrence Wegner's family were outraged, both at what was happening and at the fact that media reports had focused so heavily on Lawrence's struggle with drugs that it overshadowed his humanity. His mother, Mary, was quoted in the Two Worlds colliding documentary. Quote, it feels like we are not human beings, we're Indians.

400 people, both indigenous and not, joined them in a march to police headquarters. They believed the Saskatoon police were not telling the truth and were fed up with their apathy, as they had been for decades when it came to mistreatment and policing of indigenous people. After all, the RCMP's iconic reputation as friendly Canadian Mounties ended up being a convenient cover for the fact that the original purpose behind the force's creation in the late 19th century was to assert sovereignty over indigenous people, to control them, displace them and take over the land that had sustained them, which they did. Indigenous people suffered under the Racist Indian Act, which aimed to assimilate and erase them. Residential

schools took the children from their parents and stripped them of their culture and language. The 60s group saw more children forcibly taken from their families and fostered or adopted out to primarily white middle-class families. It shouldn't be any surprise that the historical legacy of all this trauma is evident, particularly in Saskatchewan, where indigenous people account for 65% of the total prison population, twice as high as the national average of 30%. A young indigenous man in the province is more likely to be incarcerated than he is to graduate high school. The RCMP assembled their task force consisting of 19 members to investigate the cases of Rodney Nastas, Lawrence Wagner and Daryl Knight. And soon more cases would be added to the list.

According to the book Starlight Tours, two weeks before Daryl Knight's experience, 53-year-old Lloyd Joseph Dustyhorn was brought into the police station for intoxication. He was kept for a few hours in observation and then in the early hours of the morning he was released, despite obvious signs that he was experiencing hallucinations. He was driven home by police and left on his doorstep. He never actually made it inside. He froze to death on his doorstep, wearing only a shirt, jeans, socks and boots. And just weeks after that, in February of 2000, 33-year-old Darcy Dean Ironchild had been taken in by Saskatoon police for public intoxication early in the evening. He was kept under observation in cells until around midnight

when he was released and sent home in a taxi. He made it inside his house but was found dead just hours later. Journalist Dan Zekresky and a colleague at the Star Phoenix, Leslie Perot, were continuing to dig for more information. Leslie decided to search the news archives to see if there were any other reports of bodies found frozen in the snow outside Saskatoon. After two days searching, Leslie found something that sounded familiar. It was a new story from 10 years beforehand and the headline was Family Suspects Foul Play. Police say every avenue investigated. In late November of 1990, two construction workers discovered the frozen

body of a young indigenous male in a field in the northwest section of the city of Saskatoon. The body was identified as 17-year-old Neil Stonechild from the Salto First Nations. A photo of Neil's body was taken, a photo that would later become a chilling symbol of the times. In it is a snow-covered field with the body of a boy lying face down wearing a jacket and jeans. Neil's head was buried in the snow. The two reporters from the Star Phoenix tracked down Neil's mother, Stella Bignell. According to J-Source, when they called and introduced themselves she said, I've been waiting for you to call, I've been expecting you. She told them all she knew about that night and about her son. Neil was known as a friendly, outgoing and caring young man.

He was popular and had a good sense of humour. In his youth, he loved being active with wrestling, baseball and army cadets. At around the age of 15, he began to rebel, as many teenagers tend to do. He started engaging in negative and criminal pursuits. But he was surrounded by supportive family members, youth workers and counsellors, all dedicated to helping him get past this difficult phase of his life. Neil's stone child's future was by no means bleak. His mother, Stella, said that Neil had a conviction for breaking and entering earlier that year and his sentence included living in a group home for young offenders. She was worried at the time, but one of the women who ran the home told her that many of the youth she dealt with had similar issues at that age and she could

see how much potential Neil had. But earlier in the week before his last night, he had run away from the group home for some reason and had a warrant out for his arrest. That November night was freezing cold, minus 28 degrees Celsius. 17-year-old Neil wasn't really dressed for the weather, but he planned to be mostly indoors anyway. The only jacket he had on was a fleece letterman jacket that his brother Chris had given him. The two shared a love of wrestling and had reconnected after spending years in the foster care system. Chris would describe his brother as fun loving and very caring. Neil always loved that jacket and Chris gave it to him before he left for a trip. It was a sentimental and treasured item for Neil. Neil's mother,

Stella, went on to tell the reporters that the night 17-year-old Neil went missing, he was drinking with a friend, Jason Roy, who was the same age. And Jason had a story to tell. Stella passed on Jason's contact details and urged the reporters to contact him. Jason was willing to talk, but he was still frightened of the police, so he asked not to be named at the time. Both Jason and Neil had been in trouble with the police and had juvenile criminal records. At the time, both teens were wanted by the police. That night, after they'd been drinking, Neil and Jason wanted to go and visit their friend at an apartment building where they knew she was babysitting. But they didn't know what apartment she was in or couldn't remember,

so they started ringing apartment buzzers hoping to find her that way. It was after midnight and two disgruntled neighbours called the police to report a disturbance. Finally, the two teenagers found the apartment, but their friend saw they were drunk and she was babysitting anyway, she didn't let them in. By this time, Jason was tired and felt that his night was over. But Neil wanted to continue on, so the two separated and Jason said he'd walk to another friend's house and stay there. Minutes later, as Jason was walking down the road, he saw a police car emerge from an alley. There were two officers in the front. In the back of the car, he saw Neil, with blood on his face, screaming Jason's name and asking for help. One of the officers asked Jason for his full name

and asked if he knew the teen in the back. Because Jason was wanted by police at the time too, he was in a real bind. If he confirmed that he knew Neil, he might end up in the car too. In fact, he was confident he would. So, he denied it. And instead of giving his real name, he gave them the name of a relative instead, a relative he knew did not have a criminal record. The police seemed to believe him and the car drove off, with Neil Stonechild swearing and screaming from the back seat, they're going to kill me. Five days later, his body was found, frozen solid in an industrial area north of Saskatoon. He was still wearing his brother's letterman jacket, he only had on one shoe.

An autopsy confirmed he died from hypothermia. His body showed no signs of a struggle, except for what police described as several scratches across his nose. Photos released later showed those scratches clearly, but they were more than just scratches. They were two deep parallel gashes across his nose. And photos of his hands clearly showed indentation from tight handcuffs. The police said they had investigated and had come to the conclusion that 17-year-old Neil must have been walking to turn himself in at an adult correctional centre for those warrants out for his arrest. To those who knew him, it made no sense. He was 17 and had no affiliation with the adult correctional centre,

and he chose to turn himself in there while he was drunk in minus 28 degree weather that he was not dressed for. That was 10 years beforehand. Had the Saskatoon Police Service been doing this for that long? Saskatoon police officials had maintained they weren't aware of the rumours of those starlight tours. Everything that was coming out was surprising to them, they said. But those claims were now starting to look outright ridiculous. And within days of the Neil Stonechild story being reported, something else would be unearthed that would intensify that feeling. It was an old column from the Saskatoon Sun newspaper. The column was called Tales from the Blue Lagoon, and this particular version had the headline, Bolligerent Drunk Gets Ride

to the Highest Power in Land. In it, a short story is told of two young police officers named Hawk and Gumby who were out on patrol on a warm summer night. They were described as being eager for the excitement that they felt came with policing. They received a call to help another patrol car with a drunk man who was not cooperating. They left him in their car, purportedly to take him home, although the column says they had trouble understanding his directions. As they kept driving, the police remained silent in the front while the passenger mouthed off, yelled, threatened them, and told them violent stories. The last part of the column reads, quote, the tirade continued until they passed the last streetlight and entered the darkened

countryside. An uneasy silence had overcome the man in the back, sensing that this wasn't the way home. The drunk began to demand he be taken to the highest power of the land. A few quick turns and the car came to an abrupt stop in front of the Queen Elizabeth power station. Climbing out and opening the rear door, Hawk yelled for the man to get out, advising him that this was the place he'd asked to go to. Quickly gathering his wits, the drunk scrambled out of the car and into the thickets along the riverbank, disappearing from view. The final sentence of the column was, one less guest for breakfast. This column was written in 1997, seven years after Neil Stonechild's body was found and three years before Daryl Knight survived his own

Starlight tour. People were quick to point out the many similarities between this newspaper column and Daryl Knight's account, right down to the drop-off point being that same power station. The only differences were that the column didn't identify the race of the man, and it was of course in July in the middle of summer. But while it was not a situation where hypothermia could occur, other dangers may still have been present. If the surfacing of this column wasn't evidence enough that the police knew of the widespread rumors of the Starlight tours, what was even more notable was this. The author of the column was a man called Brian Traynor, and the byline revealed he was a veteran Saskatoon police officer. Constable Brian Traynor.

Tales from the Blue Lagoon was his column that he'd written for three years to give the public a supposedly semi-humorous look into the daily experiences of police officers. This caused public uproar. The Saskatoon police service were quick to defend themselves. The officer was writing the column in his own time. His opinions did not represent those of the Saskatoon police service. He'd stopped writing the column a while ago, and besides no one knew if it was fact or fiction, and not everyone reads that newspaper anyway. The media went to Constable Brian Traynor's house for comment. The person who opened the door said that Traynor did not want to speak with them. The RCMP task force, looking into the deaths of Lawrence Wegner and Rodney

Nastas, determined that there was not enough evidence to press charges, and cleared the two officers of these deaths. Later, a coroner's inquest would rule the deaths of Rodney and Lawrence as undetermined. The task force had a similar finding in the deaths of Lloyd Dustyhorn and Darcy Ionchild. But the bubble had burst. According to the Human Rights Watch's submission to several government initiatives on the police abuse of Indigenous women in Saskatchewan, Indigenous leaders reported receiving over 250 phone calls, reporting incidents of starlight tours across the province of Saskatchewan. People who had once remained silent were now emboldened to come forward. The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations decided to do their

own investigation alongside the RCMP task force. They brought in Oliver Williams, a retired RCMP officer who came from British Columbia, to be a part of the investigation. He investigated the deaths of Rodney and Lawrence and the abandonment of Daryl Knight. According to the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, he took more than 2,500 calls in the first few months. The people he spoke to were previously afraid to come forward. They didn't trust the police. In the case of Daryl Knight, the RCMP task force determined that there was enough evidence to lay charges. Officers Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson were charged with unlawful confinement and assault. As for the death of Neil Stonechild, the task force would continue to investigate.

Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson's trial for their treatment of Daryl Knight started on September 11, 2001. That morning, Daryl's lawyer Don Worm watched in shock as footage on CNN showed the two planes crashing into the towers. The judge was concerned that the jury would be emotionally distracted due to the events unfolding on September 11, but the jury remained steadfast in their commitment to see the trial through. Daryl testified at the trial, describing his arrest and drop-off by the two officers. He told the courtroom about his terrifying walk to the Queen Elizabeth Power Station in the freezing cold, how he banged on the doors of the power station,

knowing that he was close to dying from hypothermia. He spoke about the traffic stop with Sergeant Bruce Aholt and how he'd been convinced to come forward with his story. Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson stuck to their version of events. Yes, it was minus 22 degrees Celsius outside and they had dropped Daryl off outside, but he had asked them to drop him off there. Even though he was not dressed for the cold and he had been drinking, they told the court that they were confident that Daryl was able to take care of himself. In fact, Dan Hatchin claimed to have only been worried about Daryl's well-being after he heard about the body of Lawrence Wegner being found two days later.

Since the officers had not asked Daryl for his name, they didn't know what had happened to him and were worried that Lawrence may have been the same man. Despite claiming it was Daryl's idea, the two men professed shame for what they had done, although their angle was that their behaviour wasn't criminal, just misguided. It was not a crime, just an error of judgement. But as Daryl's lawyer Don Worm would argue, the only reason they came forward was that Daryl incorrectly remembered the police car number and two innocent officers were going down for it. If Daryl hadn't taken down any number, Hatchin and Munson likely would have stayed silent and no

one would have been any the wiser. In fact, the similarities between the deaths of Rodney Nastas and Lawrence Wegner offered a harrowing look into what would have happened had Daryl not survived his own starlight tour. Like both men, Daryl had been drinking. A toxicology report would have shown that there had been alcohol consumption. There was no record of the police having doubt with him at all that night, so the brews he received on his forehead from being slammed against the cop car when the officers were trying to take off his handcuffs might well have been attributed to a drunken fall in the snow. If Daryl hadn't survived, he would have been considered just another dead drunk person on the outskirts of town. The jury found both police officers

guilty of the first charge of unlawful confinement but not guilty of assault. The two officers were fired from the Saskatoon Police Service immediately. At their sentencing hearing, the two officers further inflamed tensions in the Indigenous community when they requested to participate in a traditional sentencing circle. A sentencing circle is an alternative approach to justice within the Canadian court system and is usually reserved for Indigenous offenders. Here's how it works. The court invites members of the community to join the judge, lawyers for both sides, police, social service providers and community elders along with the offender, the victim of the crime and both of their families and support networks.

Together they have an honest conversation about what happened, searching for an understanding of why it happened with the goal to reach an agreement on the steps necessary to assist all parties to heal as well as sentencing options and ways to reintegrate the offender back into the community. The goal of sentencing circles is to promote healing, provide an opportunity for the offender to make amends and to empower the victim. These circles are a multi-step process and include healing circles held for both the offender and the victim. But sentencing circles are not considered appropriate for all offenders. When determining whether a case is appropriate for the process, key factors considered include the input of victims and on the offender's side,

their connection to the community, their sincerity and the dedication of their support group are all factors considered. In this case the community was highly offended by the request. Not only had the two former constables, Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson, not admitted any wrongdoing in court but they'd also announced that they were going to appeal the conviction. Darrell Knight was not interested in participating in a sentencing circle with them. Judge Eugene Shribill ruled on this request defending Darrell's viewpoint, quote, who could fault him for not participating in what he sees as a sham, one lacking in sincerity, one lacking in true remorse and one where those who have inflicted the wrong accept no responsibility for their actions.

In that situation, what possible benefit could there be in holding a sentencing circle? There can be no healing, only an opening of old wounds. The request for a traditional sentencing circle was denied. When sentencing the officers, Judge Shribill told the court that it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that racism was the motivation for the crime. He said he had also taken into account that the two men had lost both their jobs and their pensions. Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson were sentenced to eight months in a low-security correctional facility. In the meantime, the RCMP task force had turned their investigation to focus on the death of Neil Stonechild. This wasn't the first time Neil's death had been

investigated, though. At the time his body was found, back in 1990, the Saskatoon Police Service conducted their own investigation, led by Sergeant Keith Jarvis. He spoke to Neil's friend Jason Roy, who told him that he'd seen Neil with the Saskatoon Police Service. But Jarvis didn't record this important lead in his notebook. No follow-up, no attempts were made to verify this information. The case was closed within days, with the Saskatoon Police concluding that there was no foul play involved with Neil's death, although they provided no explanation about what happened to him. Neil's family were outraged. Even though the SPS insisted that the investigation had been thorough, the Stonechild family had serious doubts about both their conclusion and the way the

investigation had been conducted. Several investigative journalists thought the same, and joined Neil's family in repeatedly expressing concerns over the next few years. But senior officials at the Saskatoon Police continued to rebuff them. Eventually, Neil's family gave up and hoped that one day the tide would turn. And 10 years after Neil died, it did, when those Star Phoenix journalists were going through archives and dug up the old news report. And now, the RCMP Task Force were reinvestigating the case more thoroughly this time. A key issue was the lack of notes or the investigation file. The lead on this case, Sergeant Jarvis, said he'd destroyed his own notes after he retired. And the investigation

file had been purged after seven years, as was the policy. But that changed when retired police constable Ernie Looted, or Indian Ernie as he was known, found a copy that he had saved of the file in his basement. According to Ernie, at the time he'd saved a copy because something about the investigation into Neil Stonechild's death seemed wrong to him, it bugged him. He'd forgotten that the copy of the file was in the basement and had come across it quite by accident when looking for something else. The report showed just how badly the Saskatoon Police had stuffed up the investigation. It didn't take the RCMP Task Force long to progress the investigation, even though it was more than 10 years later. A simple inquiry to headquarters informed them

that the police car Neil was seen in was operated by two officers called Larry Hartwig and Brad Singer. Records showed the car had been dispatched to investigate the complaints by neighbors of the apartment building Neil and his friend Jason had been knocking on. And there was also a log of them searching for Jason's relative's name, that fake name he gave to the police. And all that is known is after that, Neil's frozen body was found days later. Both officers claimed they couldn't recall any incident that night. Forensic analysis comparing the marks on Neil's wrists to the handcuffs used by Saskatoon Police showed a possible match. And those scratches across his nose as described by the Saskatoon Police were actually deeper gashes. And in an

image overlay, the parallel gashes matched up with the markings on the handcuffs. It was clear that Neil had received some kind of beating. When it came to Jason Roy's story, many elements of his story were substantiated by other people and of course by police computer records. But some witness testimony also contradicted some of his claims, something that the two constables and the Saskatoon Police Service would latch on to. The RCMP investigations into the deaths of Lawrence, Rodney and Neil did not result in any charges, as they felt it would be too hard to prove. They hadn't been able to determine what exactly had happened between the time Neil was driven off with officers Hartwig and Senga and

when his body was discovered days later. As a result of community outrage, there were several inquests held into Neil's death. An inquest allows a jury to determine the cause of death, but not to assign blame. Many Indigenous community members felt this was a cop out, a way of avoiding a full blown public inquiry. As a result of a buildup of public pressure, a commission of inquiry into the death of Neil Stonechild was established. The goal would be to look into all aspects of the circumstances that resulted in his death, as well as the conduct of the investigation and determine what happened and what went wrong. With racial tensions and community outrage flaring, Jason Roy, the sole witness to seeing

Neil Stonechild in the police car, was in a highly stressful position. In fact, he had been for years. Ever since that night when he saw Neil yelling his name from the police car begging him to help. But because Jason believed he'd be put in the car too, he told police that he didn't know Neil. He always carried enormous guilt for what he believed was a betrayal of his friend. And on top of that, he was going to testify at the commission of inquiry and he knew that the Saskatoon police service wasn't going to like it. He was terrified of possible recrimination. According to the Star Phoenix, the RCMP helped him move into a Saskatoon hotel to hide out, but Jason still felt unsafe. A local church rector then let him live in an unused rectory for a while.

Eventually, Jason was placed in a full witness protection program, where he would stay for 10 months. He stashed a gun under the bed and would say that he worried every time he heard the slightest noise. In the lead up to the inquiry, a CBC news reporter pushed the new Saskatoon chief of police for information on how common the freezing deaths or drop offs had been. As you'll recall, the previous chief denied any knowledge and said Darryl Knight's experience was an isolated case. That chief, Dave Scott, had since been fired and the new chief, Russell Sabo, surprised CBC with his reply. He revealed that a police officer had been disciplined in 1976 for taking an Indigenous woman to the edge of the city and dropping her off there.

Quote, we had indicated, as I understand, that we didn't have any other incidents of this nature. In fact, we have. And that's come to my attention and I think we have to take ownership of things that have transpired. It happened more than once and we fully admit that, and in fact, on behalf of the police department, I want to apologise to those people who we'd said it was a one-of-a-kind incident. The commission of inquiry went for six weeks and heard testimony from more than 60 people about Neil Stonechild's experience, Jason Roy's testimony, and the errors in the investigation. Officer Larry Hartwig flat out denied that Neil Stonechild was in his custody that night. He also denied any possibility that he had someone in custody

but didn't know that it was Neil. After his testimony, he was shown on the documentary Two Worlds Colliding, returning to the back of the courtroom with what appeared to be a satisfied look on his face, which didn't go unnoticed by those there to see justice for Neil. He would later tell the Saskatoon staff Phoenix that he was just relieved and he thought his nightmare was over. When Jason Roy testified about his experience, he answered questions about where his account of what happened differed. On the stand, he wasn't able to clearly remember some details at the peripheral of his core testimony that he'd seen Neil in the police car. He provided the explanation that he was scared

and intimidated, but he also made a shocking allegation that he initially told the police that he had seen Neil in custody, but he was intimidated into giving a second statement that was false that did not implicate police. Jason added, I lied for my life. The inquiry heard about some of the errors police made in the investigation, like the fact that when Neil's body was removed from the scene, the canine unit was brought in for a quick search of the field and then the investigation was closed. They hadn't even received the coroner's report, they hadn't received the toxicology report and they hadn't interviewed everyone close to the case. No one bothered to search the parking lot or the properties close to the scene.

No one had bothered to try and figure out how a 17-year-old boy wound up dead in a snow-covered field in the middle of nowhere, wearing just jeans, a light jacket and one shoe. Neil's mother, Stella, testified about her experiences. The lawyer for the family asked her how she felt about the media and others describing her 17-year-old son as an Aboriginal man. According to the book Starlight Tour, she had tears streaming down her face as she said, he isn't a man, he was a boy. He was only 17, they never gave him that chance to become a man and have a family of his own. Jason Roy made it to the end of the inquiry, but as they were waiting for the judge's report,

he fell into a deep depression. He convinced himself that Justice David Wright would never believe his story over the two police officers who denied it. He would tell the staff Phoenix that he felt his story was worthless, his life was worthless. Jason attempted suicide and spent several weeks in hospital recovering. The Commissioner Justice David Wright released his decision. He concluded that late in the evening of November 24, 1990, Neil Stonechild was last seen in the custody of Constable's Larry Hartwig and Bradley Sanger. His finding was that Neil died of exposure and that the injuries and marks on his body were likely caused by handcuffs. In reference to Jason Roy's testimony, Justice Wright said, quote,

I have found that the core of Mr Roy's testimony that he observed Neil Stonechild in the backseat of a police car to be credible and corroborated by other evidence. He went on to commend Jason for his tenacity in pursuing this matter over many years. Jason would tell the staff Phoenix that this restored his faith in the justice system, quote, I feel so relieved if I was to die today, I'd die knowing that I tried to make things right. When it came to the rest of the report, the Commissioner found that the Saskatoon Police Service had not conducted a proper investigation into Neil Stonechild's death. Instead, they had exhibited self-protective and defensive attitudes, and the investigation they conducted was described as superficial and totally inadequate.

Important information had been dismissed, important leads had been ignored and not recorded, and in the years that followed, the Chiefs and Deputy Chiefs of the Saskatoon Police Service rejected or ignored requests from Neil's family members and reporters from the Saskatoon staff Phoenix. The report noted that these attitudes were still evident, even as the RCMP Task Force conducted their own investigation more than 10 years later. The report came with eight recommendations which included increasing the number of Indigenous police officers, better training for police officers in race relations and anger management, and improving the public's ability to file complaints against the police. Neil's mother, Stella Bignol, called upon the police to apologise

to her family. She told CBC News that it was clear they didn't want to deal with her son's death, quote, all they told me was that it was an accident that he went out there by himself, probably, but in the bottom of my heart, I knew he didn't. Saskatoon's Chief of Police Russell Sabo responded, with a public apology to the Stone Child family, saying that the Saskatoon Police had accepted the findings of the Commission of Inquiry. But the two who didn't were the two officers, Larry Hartwig and Brad Senga. They were never charged with anything, but two weeks after the report was released, they were both fired from their jobs. The Indigenous community applauded this action, but the two men were incensed. They joined forces with the Saskatoon City Police

Association and asked the Saskatoon Court of Appeal to request that the report be set aside or dropped. They argued that the findings were not supported by evidence and that the report, in effect, convicted the two former officers, even though they had never had their day in court and were never charged with anything. The Court of Appeal did not agree, the appeal was dismissed. The case was then taken to the Supreme Court and that was also dismissed. The men were released after serving just over half of their eight-month sentence. The two men continued to proclaim their innocence, with most of their issues centering around Jason Roy's account of seeing Neil in the back of the police car that night. The former officers also claimed that it was only after the

RCMP Task Force came to Jason 10 years later in 2000 that he added the part about seeing Neil in the police car with blood on his face, screaming, they're gonna kill me. But those who knew Jason in the Indigenous community knew that he had been talking casually about what he'd seen for 10 years before the RCMP Task Force came knocking. A writer would join the two officers in their crusade. Candice McClain had previously written a long-form article for the Western Standard in December of 2004 after the inquiry report was released and the two officers were fired. She was sympathetic towards them. A key quote from the article refers to Saskatoon cops being fearful that they too could also be taken down by, quote, the testimony of someone like Roy, someone with a lengthy

criminal record, a history of substance abuse, and a testimony full of contradictions and fabrications. Another part of the article refers to the judge's findings at the Commission of Inquiry, quote, why would the judge trust Roy's version of events over two officers that a retired police chaplain called two of the cleanest people in lifestyle and attitudes that I've ever had the privilege of working with. The article also focused on rumors of an alternate suspect, a man that Neil reportedly had a falling out with who supposedly then beat him to death and dumped his body. The book Starlight Tours reported that the man was originally considered a suspect, but he was investigated, passed a polygraph test, and ruled out.

But two journalists were working on a different book about the case, with exclusive cooperation from the Stone Child family, their lawyer Don Warm and other key players. Starlight Tours, the last lonely night of Neil Stone Child by Suzanne Rieber and Robert Renaud was released in 2005, described as an engrossing portrait of rogue cops, racism, obstruction of justice and justice denied, not only to a boy and his family, but to an entire nation. The book was released to much fanfare, with Time Canada describing it as the suspenseful and meticulous account of a very real and dark chapter in Canada's modern history. Two years later, on the other side, Candice MacLean released a documentary called

When Police Become Prey, with the goal of clearing the names of the officers involved with Daryl Knight's experience, Dan Hatchin and Ken Munson. According to CBC News, she said there was a lot of evidence ignored that could have vindicated them. And even though their original story was that Daryl had asked to be let out at the power station, MacLean told CBC News that the officers meant him no harm and were in fact dropping him off within walking distance of where his sister lived. But as you'll remember, when Daryl left the party after the fight broke out, his plan was to walk the short distance to his sister's house just across the park. He did not need the police to drop him there, and if they were dropping him there,

as MacLean stated, why did he end up in the opposite direction, outside town, past the power station? Daryl had no reason to go there and put his own life at risk. Regardless, former officer Dan Hatchin told CBC News that he hoped the documentary could open the door to him returning to policing. It didn't. Eight years later, in 2015, MacLean released a follow-up book called, When Police Become Prey, The Cold Hard Facts of Neil Stonechild's Freezing Death. This time, it focused on the former officers Larry Hartwig and Brad Singer. The book continued to make the case that the officers were the victims. Candice MacLean's documentary and book portrayed an unsympathetic, intolerant view of the Indigenous community and the struggles they

faced as a result of colonisation, that is, having their land being aggressively taken off them and their culture decimated. There was a lot of controversy around the release of the book. The Saskatoon Coalition Against Racism was vocal that they were going to stage a formal protest, stating MacLean's views about Neil Stonechild's death were not welcome, and she was attempting to downplay the history of the Starlight Tours. As a result of the outrage, four venues that were supposed to hold book signing events cancelled them. The latest Saskatoon police chief, Clive Wayhill, was asked by CBC for comment on the book. He would only say, quote, As the chief of police, we distance ourselves away from any of the past controversy on that.

The book that has been written has nothing to do with the Saskatoon Police Service and we've implemented the recommendations from the Stonechild Inquiry and we've moved ahead. The next year, 2016, a university student working on a project about police brutality was reading the Saskatoon Police Commission's Wikipedia page and discovered that information about the Starlight Tours had been deleted and the IP address of the computer that made the change was registered with the commission. The finding made explosive headlines and after an internal investigation, police would only admit that someone using a police computer edited the Wikipedia entry but wouldn't say anything further other than insisting again to CBC News that all the

recommendations from the inquiry had been implemented. Starlight Tours could not be erased from the internet and they certainly won't be erased from the memory of indigenous people around the country. At the time, McLean's magazine spoke to Robert Henry, a lecturer on indigenous studies at the University of Saskatchewan, who said that the city needed to make sure that the training in race relations wasn't just cultural education but actual anti-oppressive training that challenges people's own prejudices. At the end of 2019, the Star Phoenix reported on the 15th anniversary of the Stonechild Inquiry and former chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, Lawrence Joseph said that the implementation of the recommendations has

significantly changed the way policing occurs in Saskatchewan but he said there was more work to be done, particularly in the case of who polices the police. Indigenous leaders were still pushing for the creation of an independent civilian oversight body. Saskatchewan is one of the minority of provinces in Canada that doesn't have one. In June of this year, the infamous 2020, an estimated 4,000 people protested in Saskatoon against racial injustice. The protest was sparked by the viral video of George Floyd's final moments being suffocated under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. That event had brought up the same issues of racism, police brutality and unequal justice in Saskatoon. In response, the Saskatoon government introduced the Police

Amendment Act, calling it the first step to improve police oversight. While another step in the right direction, critics pointed out that the new legislation was a half measure and still allowed for police to investigate themselves. November 25th 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Neil Stonechild. The chilling image of his body lying in a frozen field still haunts the prairies. Last year, an ice sculpture to commemorate Neil was installed outside the Ramay Modern Gallery in Saskatoon. Called Frees Stonechild Memorial by Ashinabe artist Rebecca Belmore, the sculpture consists of large ice blocks that spell out Stonechild. The artist said that over time, as the winter comes

to an end, the ice will melt and disappear. But the sculpture didn't last that long. The memorial had to be removed after it was vandalized. Neil's family, as well as the families of Rodney Nastis and Lawrence Wegner, still have no idea what happened in the final moments of their loved one's lives. This year is also the 20th anniversary of Daryl Knight's encounter with police, which was the catalyst for blowing the rumours of the Starlight Tours wide open. According to McLean's magazine, as of 2016, Daryl had never received an apology from the police or the two officers responsible for what happened. Daryl's family lives on a reserve outside the city. His mother Rosa said that even though Saskatoon is her home, she won't return. Quote,

I don't trust the cops, period. Daryl himself moved to British Columbia, where he says that even though he prefers the peace of the mountains, he continues to be plagued by his experience when he tries to sleep. He said he plans to stay away from the province of Saskatchewan. Thanks for listening and special thanks to Danielle Parody for research and writing. If you wanted to look into the case further, here's three resources. There's the definitive book Starlight Tours, the last lonely night of Neil Stonechild by Suzanne Reber and Robert Renaud, which was revised and updated in 2019. You can also watch the 2004 documentary Two Worlds Colliding and Don't Miss Commons, the Canadian

investigative podcast which is currently releasing a new series called The Police, telling stories about the power that the police wield in Canada and the lengths they're willing to go to to hold on to it. Listen to this. The RCMP is like no other police force in the entire world. Every mountain must be more than an expert policeman. His moral turpitude must evolve from the fact that he is a God-faring man and a solid citizen too, with a deep respect for the public he is sworn to protect. In a new season of commons, we'll bring you stories about the police. From the RCMP's early days as a paramilitary force, they murdered people, to the so-called Starlight Tours in Saskatchewan. They're saying, Jay, help me. These guys are going to kill me. Commons, the police

will delve into the power that police wield in this country and uncover the lengths they're willing to go to hold on to it. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd love for you to tell a friend or leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. For as little as a few dollars a month, supporters get ad-free versions of every episode before they're released to the public. There's also a few bonus episodes as well as a monthly debrief episode where I take you behind the scenes. Visit canadiantruecrime.ca slash support to learn more. A portion of Proceeds is donated regularly to Canadian charitable organisations related to helping victims and survivors of injustice. Thanks to the host of True for voicing the disclaimer and also to We Talk of Dreams who

compose the theme song. I'll be back soon with another Canadian True Crime story. See you then. you