Canadian True Crime - Amber Tuccaro: In Her Defence

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Amber Tuccaro was 20 years old when she left her infant son with a friend at a motel on the outskirts of Edmonton, and got into a vehicle with an unknown man.She was never seen alive again.But Amber left an important clue: A chilling recording of what appear to be the final moments of her life — and the voice of the man who may be her killer.  In this special episode, Kristi Lee is in studio with Jana G. Pruden, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Globe and Mail who spent seven months investigating Amber’s case for season two of her hit narrative podcast In Her Defence. In Her Defence: 50th Street explores the flawed police investigation into Amber’s disappearance and death, and asks serious questions about her unsolved murder. Is a serial killer still out there? LISTEN to In Her Defence: 50th Street at Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.READ Who killed Amber Tuccaro? Jana’s long-form feature article about the case.Do you have information about Amber’s murder? Contact Jana Pruden at [e-mail] or by phone/ text at 780-265-5262* Support for families impacted by Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is available through the Indian Residential School Survivors Society. Please join Canadian True Crime in donating if you can.Special thanks to Jana G. Pruden and Kasia Mychajlowycz of the Globe and Mail.CREDITS:In Her Defence: 50th Street: Portrait of Amber Tuccaro on the show's artwork is by Lauren Crazybull. Theme song is “No Surrender” by Ms.PAN!K.Canadian True Crime:Senior producer: Lindsay EldridgeResearcher, narrator, sound design: Kristi LeeTheme songs: We Talk of DreamsAll other music from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot SessionsLearn more about Canadian True Crime at www.canadiantruecrime.ca Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A-Cast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Scare yourself silly this Halloween with these comedy podcasts. This paranormal life. All he knew is he had just had an encounter with the legendary El Cadejo. It's just a goat. It's not a goat. That is literally a goat. It's got, it has got the horns of a goat. The Gossip Games. I am sad to say that Danny Beard has been mysteriously murdered.

It's down to you and me to find out who done it. Who killed Danny Beard? Drunk women solving crime. Was Fraser just conned by an 80 year old? You make it that long? You deserve it. Oh, people would do anything for me. Wait a minute.

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Google Pixel powered by Gemini I have a personal built-in AI assistant that's always ready to help me get things done faster and easier. Google gifted me a Google Pixel 9 and to summon Gemini I just hold the power button then start talking or typing. No more sifting through all my emails to find what I need because Gemini catches me up quickly in a fraction of the time. Can you look into my Gmail and give me the details for Lauren's birthday dinner? Lauren's birthday dinner? Lauren's birthday dinner will be held on Saturday, September 7th at 8pm at

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from my house to the restaurant? It should take about 15 minutes by car. You can see the directions here. I just realized I forgot to get the cake. Where can I get one near the restaurant? Sure. You can pick up a cake at Cupcake Boots. Honestly, I'd need hours to cover everything Gemini on Google Pixel can do.

Learn more about Google Pixel at store.google.com. Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon Music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon, and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening. That's the voice of Amber Tuckeroe, a 20-year-old woman from Alberta. The other voice belongs to the driver of the vehicle she was travelling in. Amber disappeared that day in 2010.

This man is the last known person to see her alive. This man is the last known person to see her alive. Two years later, the police took the unusual step of releasing the recording to the public. What you just heard is from the first part of the 60 second clip. The final few seconds depict what are likely the last moments of Amber's life. Hi Jana, it is lovely to have you join me today. Thanks, it's so nice to be here and talking to you. This is the voice of Jana G Pruden, an award-winning investigative journalist and feature writer at The Globe and Mail. You've heard her reporting and investigative work mentioned quite a few times in our episodes, like the Klaus family murders and the Marathorpe tragedy. I'm a huge fan

of Jana's work. Our mutual friend Danielle Parity describes her as a dogged crime reporter. And that's why we're here today. I was working for the Edmonton Journal in 2012. I was the crime bureau chief and I attended a press conference where the RCMP released this audio tape of Amber Tuckeroe in a vehicle with a man that she didn't know and who was clearly taking her somewhere that she didn't want to go. And I remember that press conference so clearly. I had been to a lot of police press conferences before and since and I've never been to one like that. That I was so struck by the

the tape. All of us in the room were so struck by the tape. It really, you know, it's the kind of thing, it sounds cliche, but it makes your blood run cold. And so I covered that at the time and through the years a little bit about Amber's story, but it was a case I always wanted to come back to. It's a case that's been in my head all those years since. Every time I drove near 50th Street or someone said something about Beaumont, I would just

hear this man's voice in my head. Shortly after that recording was released, Amber Tuckero's remains were found. It appears she might have been the victim of a suspected serial killer, or killers. And while her loved ones have fought very hard for answers, the case remains unsolved. So in the last year or so, Jana Pruden and her team from the Globe have been investigating Amber's case. They spent seven months retracing the final days of her life. They journeyed to the far northwest corner of Alberta to her home in the indigenous community of Fort Chippewaun

to hear what those who knew and loved her had to say. They explored the flawed police investigation into Amber's disappearance and death and consulted with audio forensic experts, a geographical profiler and others. Their work culminated in the second season of the Globe's hit narrative podcast, In Her Defense, a compelling, brilliantly done six-part series that launched earlier this month. It asks serious questions about Amber's unsolved murder and reveals new suspects and information.

I was really struck by it so I reached out to the team and here we are today. I'm Janna Pruden. From the Globe and Mail, this is In Her Defense, 50th Street. Amber Tuckero is from Miksu Cree Nation in Fort Chippewan, Alberta, a small hamlet in the provinces far north. In 2010 she was living in Fort McMurray with her mother Tootsie and young son Jacob who was 14 months old. In August of that year she and Jacob, along with a friend, decided to go on a trip. Jenna, it seems like it's a pretty mysterious trip. Can you tell me what is known about it and Amber's friend and what happened once they got there?

Yeah, what we know is that Amber was a young woman. She'd also a somewhat strange thing, why they would stay just outside of the city at this, let's call it a modest motel. And on the night of August 18th, they decided to go to Edmonton. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did.

And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did. And they did.'s call it a modest motel. And on the night of August 18th, 2010, Amber leaves the motel and she gets into a vehicle with an unknown man and she is never seen again. I read in one of the earlier news stories that Amber was too excited that night and decided to hitchhike into Edmonton, but I couldn't find any more information about that. Is that true? I would say there's been a lot of extrapolation through the years about exactly what was going on, and we really don't know that she was hitchhiking either. That word gets tossed around and there is really nothing to say that she was hitchhiking either. That word gets tossed around, and there is really nothing to say that she was hitchhiking.

What we know is that there's this recording, and the police have given us more context to it that has not been known in the past, that this recording begins when she is in a vehicle with an unknown man. So could that be hitchhiking? Yes, could that be someone she met at the gas station next door? Yes. Could it be a cab driver, a bus driver? We just, we don't

exactly know. We know that there's a recording that begins when she's in a vehicle. Why she was going to Edmonton? Well, there's some theories about that too. And I would say that we don't know, we don't know conclusively, although we know she's a young woman, she's visiting the city, they're staying just out of town. I think a lot of 20 year olds, if they're staying in a motel outside the city, might like to go into Edmonton and, I don't know, see friends, go hang out somewhere, go to a bar or a club. And it's funny, one of the things that I really see with Amber's case is people bringing, I think, a different kind of judgment to what she may or may not have been doing.

I think that's not unusual with young women and also specifically with young indigenous women that having covered all kinds of murder cases that there is sometimes a greater level of judgment of well was she doing something that was unsafe was she doing something that was putting herself at risk and the simple fact is we don't necessarily know exactly what we what she was doing, but that she did want to go into the city and she needed a ride into the city. When did Amber's family first learn that she'd gone missing? Yeah, so it was very, very quickly

that the friend she was with calls Amber's mother, Tootsie, and says, Amber took off during the night and come get Jacob, the baby. So very, very quickly, it's unusual that she hasn't come back. The family knows she hasn't come back. And the family really knows something's wrong. You know, this is another thing that we see over and over again in a lot of, uh, cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women,

that even if people may sometimes be out of contact or maybe they go out or something, that families really know what the habits are. They know what the pattern of communication is. And Tootsie and Amber, they didn't always get along as mothers and daughters sometimes have their ups and downs, but they talked all the time, they texted all the time. And so Tootsie very, very quickly knew that there was something wrong.

Amber wasn't just out having fun. The fact that she hadn't come back, that Jacob was there with this friend, Tootsie was immediately concerned. So she filed a missing persons report with the RCMP the following day. How did they react to it? We know that the RCMP did not take it seriously immediately. And Tootsie tells us that they told her, oh, Amber's probably off partying.

Just give it a few days and she'll be back. And this is something that came up again and again in numerous missing and murdered indigenous women cases, including that the families of the victims of the serial killer And again and again in numerous missing and murdered indigenous women cases, including that the families of the victims of the serial killer Robert Picton said was this sort of assumption, oh, she's off partying, there's nothing wrong, she'll be back. And we know that the RCMP didn't take it seriously, not just because the family tells us that, but because ultimately there was a complaint and an investigation that

showed that there were very serious missteps at the beginning of this investigation. We'll get into that complaint later, but perhaps one of the most glaring police missteps is that RCMP investigators didn't immediately interview Evangeline McLean, the friend that Amber was staying with at the motel. We know that the next morning, Evangeline contacted Amber's mother Tootsie, then left Amber's son Jacob with the authorities and took off. She also left Amber's suitcase at the motel. I'm obviously not an investigator, but I would think that the first thing an investigator might do is locate

this woman and interview her, but they didn't. And by the time they did, the situation had changed. What can you tell us about that? Yeah. So I think the impression that we get from this report that was done about the investigation is that an officer touched base with her very casually and she was somewhat cooperative, but they didn't really interview her. And then when they went back to interview her, she was very not cooperative. Her mood had changed in regard to what she would tell the RCMP.

And one of the officers that did speak to us, you know, he'd said that's essentially investigation 101, talking to the last known person to see someone alive, but there was a number of other missteps that reflect really not taking this seriously, uh, including not picking up Amber's suitcase from the motel. It wasn't collected for weeks or even months. And then when it was, the contents were photographed, but then it was destroyed. Also not getting, say, CCTV or security footage from the area, not interviewing people nearby.

That's a very, that's a community. It's near the airport, lots of people coming and going, lots of workers passing through all the time. And we can think about, we know that the first 24, 48 hours are so important. There's even a show called The First 48 about how crucial that window is. And so when you think about all of these things not happening for weeks, even months, and how that sets the investigation back, perhaps forever, Evangeline is one part of that where the police now tell us they did eventually speak to her after this changed from a missing person case

to a homicide investigation. And they say she has now been cleared and that she's considered not to have anything to do with the investigation. But you wonder, even a well-meaning witness, could their memory be different weeks or months after versus if they were questioned right at the time? There's been a lot of public speculation about Evangeline and why an innocent person would not want to cooperate with police if it could help the investigation. What do you make of that? What I see is that, you know, this happens and then she says she's been threatened, harassed,

it's been a really hard thing in her life. That may be true. I don't know. She ultimately never would speak with me. But definitely in my dealings with her, I spent months trying to speak with her, messaging her on various platforms, and we did go back and forth quite a bit. One night she said she'd speak to me if I drove her from Toronto to Cape Breton, which is a 20-hour car ride. And you know, we wouldn't do that for a

number of reasons. We don't pay people for interviews and ethically and giving someone a ride that distance that has a value to it that feels unethical and it just obviously that's not something that we were going to do. But I think she was living in a women's shelter when she met Amber and I don't know what her life is like but I can see from the outside that she may have a lot going on. And yeah she came very close she said that she would speak to me and we were literally just figuring out a time and how it was gonna happen and then she blocked me.

And so I don't have a lot of insight into her and I wish I had, I wish I had been able to tell her side of the story because there's a lot of suspicion on her and a lot of people have a lot of thoughts about where Evangeline is in all this. We know that the police now say she's not involved, but I do wish that she could have told us more about what was happening in those days

and what it was like in those final hours before Amber left the motel. We know that the police failed to immediately interview Evangeline McLean and failed to properly handle the potential evidence of Amber Tuckero's suitcase left behind at the motel. There's also very little evidence that anything was done to notify the public about Amber's disappearance or to raise awareness. There was almost no media attention. Then, just a few weeks later, the RCMP suddenly announced they had no reason to believe that Amber was in danger. They closed her missing persons file

and removed her from a national missing persons database. Why did they do this? One of the things was that someone reported seeing her, someone who didn't know, just a guy at a gas station reported seeing her and she was removed from the missing persons list for that reason. And then her mother, Tootsie, spent weeks fighting to have her put back on the list. And I think that it is an example of some wrong assumptions and sloppy police work that was done in really not taking it seriously.

At that point, it does change later. Life never seems to slow down but with Google Pixel powered by Gemini, I have a personal built-in AI assistant that's always ready to help me get things done faster and easier. Google gifted me a Google Pixel 9 and to summon Gemini I just hold the power button then start talking or typing. No more sifting through all my emails to find what I need because Gemini catches me up quickly in a fraction of the time. Can you look into my Gmail and give me the details for Lauren's birthday dinner? Lauren's birthday dinner will be held on Saturday, September 7th at 8pm at

Pullman Pine Restaurant. The theme for the dinner is Lumberjack Chic. Lumberjack Chic? Uh, can you suggest something that I could wear? The Lumberjack Chic style aims for a balance between rugged and refined. Outfit suggestions, flannel shirt, jeans and boots. Instant inspiration. Brainstorming ideas is easy with Gemini built in on Pixel. It also helps with planning and organizing all in one place and it just so happens that I need a lot of help. So how long will it take me to get from my house to the restaurant? It should take about 15 minutes by car. You can see the directions here.

I just realized I forgot to get the cake. Where can I get one near the restaurant? Sure, you can pick up a cake at Cupcake Boots. Honestly, I'd need hours to cover everything Gemini on Google Pixel can do. Learn more about Google Pixel at store.google.com. Adulting is hard. Between work, family and everything else, finding time to take care of you seems impossible. That's where Peloton can help.

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All he knew is he had just had an encounter with the legendary El Cadejo. It's just a goat. It's not a goat. That is literally a goat! It's got, it has got the horns of a goat. The Gossip Games! I am sad to say that Danny Beard has been mysteriously murdered! It's down to you and me to find out who done it. Who killed Danny Beard?

Drunk women solving crime! Was Fraser just conned by an 80 year old? You make it that long? You deserve it. Oh, people would do anything for you. Wait a minute. Oh my god, they were working together! They're working together!

Listen to these Acast shows wherever you get your podcasts. Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. It's now a year after Amber Tuckero's disappearance and the police failed to make any progress in the investigation. At this point, a special task force takes over and everything changes.

Project CARE was formed really in the wake of the Robert Picton serial killer situation. There was this reckoning that happened around the country where people realized, you know, there'd been this massive number of women missing and being murdered around Vancouver, the Lower East Side, all linked to this one serial killer, and that that could be happening in a lot of other places and not being taken seriously.

In Edmonton, there was a very large number of missing and murdered women, many of whom were indigenous, many of whom were involved in the sex trade, what was then called, quote unquote, high risk. I prefer to say vulnerable or preyed upon. So they started looking and they identified between 70 and 90 cases of people being killed around Edmonton, women being killed around Edmonton, that could be the work of a serial killer or serial killers, more likely multiple serial killers, and then maybe some individual killers. That review was going on, that task force working to identify

who those serial offenders might be, working to try to protect women that were on the streets at the time, or might be vulnerable to those predators at the time. And so at some point they take over Amber's case. And what we were told by a project care officer is that it's not because she was believed to have some of those, what were then called risk factors that the other women had, but that they suspected that she could be the victim of a serial killer. So they took over her investigation and

things obviously changed quite significantly in terms of how her missing persons case was being treated around that point. treated around that point. The members of Task Force Project Care quickly realised that they're at a massive disadvantage because the evidence that could have been collected in that crucial early window after Amber Tuckero disappeared was not. But suddenly, out of nowhere it it seemed there was a breakthrough with the recording, the phone call. And that's another part of this case that's a bit mysterious. Do you think that recording would have ever been discovered had Project Care not taken over? Yeah, that's a good question. We don't quite know the mechanism of how it is discovered.

Again, you know, I know you have a very big listenership. I think a lot of people are outside of the country and even people within the country are sometimes surprised at how little Canadian police release. In the United States, you can get someone's mugshot shortly after they're arrested. You get all of this information about how they came to be arrested, the police report. In Canada, we get almost none of that. Mugshot is not released publicly unless someone's still on the run and there's a real reason, a public safety reason to release a mugshot.

We don't get any evidence about what happened really until a case goes to court. And even then it comes out through the court, not the police. So unusual to release this recording and not at all unusual to give us almost no information about where it came from, how they got it. And this has really been for years, some of the contextual information we were able to find in the making of the podcast, I had never known before. I've spent years wondering, but what was this call from? Was it on a wire tap? Was she talking to someone whose phone was tapped? So we don't know the exact method by which police know to look for it.

What we do know is that there's Project CARE and one day there's this buzz amongst the investigators and they have this recording. And it's truly remarkable, chilling piece of audio that we now know is recorded because she was speaking to her biological brother who was in jail at the time. So it's recorded like all jail calls are and stored on some server somewhere by the jail telephone company and the police are able to get it. And so here's this recording. The full call is 15 minutes long. What they release is an excerpted version of that little pieces from throughout the tape in which we can hear at the beginning, Amber talking to the person on the phone, who we now know as her biological brother, sort of passing along where they are. But then we can hear her getting more and more concerned

that they're not going into the city, which is where she wants to go. And she tells him, you know, you better not be taking me somewhere. I don't want to go. I want to go into the city. And we can hear him. He's assuring her, yes, we're going into the city. Yes, we are. He's assuring her, yes, we're going into the city. Yes, we are. And by the end of the recording, to me, I can hear the terror in her voice and that she knows that she's in a very dangerous situation. And that's the point at which the call ends.

It's cut off. And that is the ending that we hear in what was released by police. That is the true ending of the call, which is the call being dropped and lost. We'll now play that 60 second clip released by the police in its entirety. Please note some listeners may find it distressing. Where are we by? We're just half south of Beaumont.

We're north of Beaumont. We're heading north to Beaumont. Yo, where are we going? No, this is a... Are you fucking kidding me? Just a minute, I can't see. You better not take me anywhere. I don't want to go.

I want to go into the city. I don't want to go. I want to go into the city. I don't want to go into the city. Yo, we're not going into the city, are we? Are we going? No, we're not. Then where the fuck are these roads going to? 50th Street. 50th Street. Are you sure?

Absolutely. Yo, where are we going? 50th Street. 50th Street. 50th Street? 50th Street. East, right? East. You're overcounting.

I'm sorry. Sorry. Jenna, there was a lot of speculation about why the police only released 60 seconds of the phone call, not the full 15 minutes. But it seems pretty clear to me that it's primarily Amber speaking with her brother on the phone. But at various points, the phone call also captured her in-person side conversation with the man driving the car that she was in. And those were the parts that the police chose to release. Is that correct? And did you ever wonder what was on the rest of that call?

Yeah, like a lot of people, I want nothing more than to hear the rest of the phone call. In fact, I asked the police whether I could hear the whole thing. I asked them if I could hear two more seconds of it, literally two more seconds. And they said no to both of those things. I think there's a couple of elements here. One is that it is so rare for the police in Canada to release anything. So in this case, there was a couple of reasons that they haven't released the whole thing. One is that it is a private conversation between Amber and her brother. And the second

reason and this is the reason why it's actually been heard by almost no one, including almost no police officers, despite the fact there's been dozens and dozens of officers who've worked on the case over the years, is that by preserving the details of that conversation, give police something really powerful if and when they find someone who's a potential suspect. And that right now the only person who knows what really took place in that conversation is the man who was in the vehicle. So this is what police sometimes call hold back evidence and could be a really powerful thing if and when they're ever able to interrogate someone and you know, they hope one day to lay charges and have this go to trial. And obviously it's highly important that if that happens, the case isn't compromised.

So when the police released those excerpts to the public, what was the reaction? Yeah, it was like my own reaction. It was very profound. The police specifically asked that if you know this voice, come forward. And a lot of people came forward before that I think there had been like a handful of tips in almost two years of investigation and suddenly there's all of these tips coming in and People thinking that they recognize the voice whether it's someone they know whether it's I talked to people who you know, they'd hear someone

whether it's someone they know, whether it's... I talked to people who, you know, they'd hear someone beside them in line at Tim Horton say a word like absolutely and they think that's the voice. So it had a really huge effect at the time and has continued to. That recording has circulated over and over. People continue to come forward with tips and that voice continues to, I think really to connect people with Amber's story and with this case. There's so many people I've talked to that have really been haunted by that recording through the years, just as I was. Not long after that recording of Amber Tuckeroe and the Unknown Man was released to the public,

there was a tragic discovery confirmed through dental record comparison. Two years after she disappears, police released this recording and then within days, some youth horseback riders come upon something in the grass and it is Amber's remains, Amber's skull. And this is something that I always wondered about all these years. The timing of this seems so unusual that you could have after all this time, the recording is released and then in such a short period in a forested area field outside of Edmonton that her remains are found. And I always wondered, did the guy on the tape hear his voice? And then he went and, you know, left her remains somewhere because the tape had come out.

The police say it was it was purely a coincidence this timing. We say it was purely a coincidence this timing, but Amber's remains were found and confirmed what the family and what police had feared for a long time, which in fact appears to be what's happening on the recording, which is that Amber was the victim of a homicide. So the police might believe there was no connection between the recording and the discovery of Amber's remains, but her family told you they have a different perspective. Yeah. We attempted to bring a really different decolonial approach to this reporting, an approach that's not always done in Indigenous communities or with Indigenous stories. And we did that in a number of ways. And one of those ways was also being open

to different ways of thinking. And so there's two understandings of how why her remains are found so quickly. One is, as I told you, the police, it's a coincidence. He was there at the scene processing the scene. He says it was evident to him that they had been there the whole time. But the second is April Eve Weiber evident to him that they had been there the whole time.

But the second is April Eve Weiberg, something that she told us. We went to the scene with her. She's a close friend of the Tuckaro family. And is that Amber's mother, Tootsie, after the audio was released, that she did a sweat lodge and that she specifically asked for Amber's remains to be found.

And that after that sweat lodge took place, they were found. And those are two different ways of understanding that. And I think I give a lot of credence to that way of understanding it as well. I love that. And I love how you explained it as two different ways of understanding. It's very clear that a lot of care has been taken with this podcast from the way that you conducted the interviews to the way that it's been mixed together.

So we're now approaching the field where Amber's remains were found. The days are long in the summer in Edmonton, and in August, the sun doesn't set until past nine. As Amber was being taken down these roads, it would have still been light out. I also noticed that a lot of care and attention was put into the indigenous angle and the fact that you were heading up into the territory

of Fort Chippewa where, you know, I don't think you're indigenous. Are you? I am a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta. But, yeah. Sorry. Oh no. Is that off the like? No, it's, yeah, it's that's an interesting thing.

I am Metis, but it really hasn't been part of my lived experience in any way. So Kasia is laughing on the other side of the wall. Kasia Mihailovich is the show's producer. And despite my clumsy foot and mouth moment, Jana was happy to of the wall. Kasia Mihailovic is the show's producer. And despite my clumsy foot and mouth moment, Jana was happy to answer the question and we've left this part in. You know, this is something that we talked about how to deal with because it's something

I haven't ever really been very public about or haven't talked about publicly. I think it's something, because it isn't my lived experience. I'm, my family is a family where colonialism really worked, right? So that was really not part of my family, not part of my, it's a space that I've never wanted to take up too much space in, I guess, because that wasn't my lived experience. But I do think that it's part of the interest I have in Indigenous stories and trying to

tell Indigenous stories. I loved it. I thought it was incredible. There's ties to Indigeneity all throughout, including, you know, that even the episode titles, how they're presented in English and in Cree and you've had a translator. One thing that really struck me was, you know, you guys went up to Fort Chippewa and you were speaking with Amber's loved ones and you mentioned an approach that is different to how journalism usually works.

The various things that you chose to do as kind of signs of respect, things that journalists wouldn't typically do. Can you tell me a little bit about those things? Yeah, you know, I think there's often been an idea of journalists and especially journalists going telling indigenous stories as being storytakers and that's very extractive. And in this podcast, as we're looking at the way the police behave, and sometimes the public has not

had much regard for missing and murdered Indigenous women, but the media is part of that too. And we haven't always told these stories well or respectfully. And so we did really think quite carefully about how could we approach this in a different way? How could we tell this story in a good way? And so part of that is protocol and for people who may not know what protocol is, that's offering tobacco and we bought ceremonial tobacco and we would wrap it in bits of cotton and we used red cotton for MMIW

and tied with ribbon and it's not only something that you're presenting say as a as a gift or something but it really signifies a different intent that you are I would think about this as I made the bundles and that when we offer it to people we're truly asking them humbly to consider sharing their knowledge, sharing their experience with us. And that's a different kind of approach sometimes as maybe feeling entitled to a story or, you know, that people should tell us their story because we're so important and we're going to do something good with it.

And with the exception of one case, we did this all off mic. It wasn't intended to be performative. It was meant to be extremely heartfelt. And we did it once with the recording running and also with consent of the person because we thought it was an opportunity to show people what we were doing and explain it and why. The Cree language was actually another really big part of it for me.

Language restoration is a key part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It's really important. And I liked from the beginning the idea of having Cree episode titles. And what I found as we were having the titles translated is that not only was it just a different word, there's a worldview, there's a lesson that comes

with many of those translations. So we ended up including them in the credits, a little moment of language. Our episode titles were translated into Cree by Dorothy Thunder. Our episode today was called into Cree by Dorothy Fender. Our episode today was called What the Trees Know. What the trees know? So, kigwai mitusakke kiskei tagik. That one's going to be a challenge.

So, kigwai is the what? Mitusakke is the trees. And kigwai e kiskei tagik, what they know. Kiskei does to know something. And the trees talk to each other and they can hear you. Right? Everything to us has a spirit. And the trees too, you're not alone out there. Right? The trees are there with you. The land is there.

So everything, having that living spirit gives you that feeling that's safe-ness, it's supposed to be safe. I've had a very good response to that, people find it really meaningful, and something that I myself have found really meaningful and I've thought about some of those lessons quite a bit actually. And then I think that that aspect that we were talking about earlier of thinking about different ways of seeing the world, different ways of understanding the world. So there is, you know, a moment that I have with a bird that in a regular print piece in a more traditional

journalistic approach, I likely wouldn't have done anything with that as it was. That was something I went to speak to an elder about and that I included a little bit of it because I did, I personally found it very meaningful and very moving and approaching it with somewhat different eyes, like a decolonial lens to that kind of storytelling. It felt like it had a place in the story. Right there.

I've never seen a raven anywhere around my house before or since, and it looked at me for a moment then flew away, so close I could hear the rustle of its wings through the glass. I thought about this a lot after it happened. When I talked to an elder about it, she told me to smudge with sweetgrass and thank the raven for coming to me. She said it could have been sent by Amber, or could even be Amber. But be careful, she told me. Ravens are tricksters. Things aren't always how they appear. The geographical location where Amber Tuckaro's remains were found suggests she was the victim of a suspected serial killer. There's been a lot of wild public speculation about this, but how much of it is based in

fact? And what happened with all those tips that the police received after releasing that recording? That's coming up next. Life never seems to slow down, but with Google Pixel powered by Gemini, I have a personal built-in AI assistant that's always ready to help me get things done faster and easier. Google gifted me a Google Pixel 9 and to summon Gemini I just hold the power button, then start talking or typing, no more sifting through all my emails to find what I need because

Gemini catches me up quickly in a fraction of the time. Can you look into my Gmail and give me the details for Lauren's birthday dinner? Lauren's birthday dinner will be held on Saturday September 7th at 8 p.m. at Pullman Pine Restaurant. The theme for the dinner is lumberjack chic. Lumberjack chic? Can you suggest something that I could wear? The lumberjack chic style aims for a balance between rugged and refined. Outfit suggestions, flannel shirt, jeans and boots. Instant inspiration.

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Sure, you can pick up a cake at Cupcake Boots. Honestly, I'd need hours to cover everything Gemini on Google Pixel can do. Learn more about Google Pixel at store.google.com. One of the many threads in the case of Amber Tuckeroe is widespread speculation that she was the victim of an active serial killer in the Edmonton area, perhaps the one known as the Leduc County killer. There's also been mention of another convicted Edmonton murderer.

The reason for all this speculation is the significance of the geographical location where Amber's remains were found. She wasn't the only woman found in that area. Jana Pruden and her team looked in to whether Amber's case might be related to the others, and if they all might be the victim of a serial killer. Amber is one of five women who are found within five miles, or eight kilometers, and in a very unusual area

outside the city, specific area outside the city, all of the other victims disappeared before her but two were found after her. So they had gone missing before. And I'm not a geographic profiler so I called one up Kim Rosmoe who's one of the world's top geographic profilers. He worked on the Picton investigation and based on his expertise, he saw some very clear possibility for them to be connected. And part of that is just the chances of these remains being found in this close proximity. The other four women outside of Amber all had, they all disappeared from very similar areas and they had similar things going on in terms of their lifestyles at the time making them vulnerable. Amber is a bit of an outlier both in the

circumstances of her life and also that she's outside of the time frame. But she is found very, very close to where two other women's remains are found. And the chances of that being a coincidence, of course, it may indeed be a coincidence, but it does raise some really serious questions to the geographic profiler and to us as well. Whether or not all five of them are related, five women are found in this very small amount of space and yet it's not really something that's very well publicized there. April Eve Weiburg, one of the things she asked is you know where where's the billboards that say who is the Leduc County killer and I think a big part of that is because of who the women were and how their deaths were being considered.

If you had five nurses found within five kilometers in that area, I think it would be a much bigger deal, a much more highly publicized. In the podcast, you debunk the rumors surrounding Edmonton convicted murderer Thomas Weckler. Can you tell me about that? Yeah, Thomas Weckler is quite a disturbing character in Edmonton crime history. And I think he was ultimately tried for the murders of two women. He was convicted of one and acquitted of the other. But at the time, police actually said that he was a suspect in a lot of other homicides and then implied that maybe homicides would stop

because he was in custody. But he's never been charged with any other homicides other than those two that he went to trial for. And there's a line that we quote in the podcast by Paula Simons, who's now a senator, and she was a columnist at the Edmonton Journal when I worked there and around the time that a lot of these homicides were happening about the idea that it would be really comforting to make Svecla. I think she calls him, you know, an all purpose boogeyman and to say that he committed all these homicides and now he's in custody and so you know the killer has been caught even if he's never been charged but Thomas Fechla was already in custody at the time that Amber disappeared so we know that he did not kill Amber and if she's related to the other women the other cases found

around her then obviously Thomas Fechla did not kill them because he didn't kill her. And I think it begs a very real question of, you know, if he did kill all these other women, how come there's never been any other charges laid against him? So we might think, oh, he was a serial killer operating at the time and so he committed all of these, But all of the police that we've talked to think it's likely that there were multiple serial killers operating around Edmonton in those days. So the voice on the recording, the voice that belongs to the unknown man that Amber was in the car with that day in

2010. The last known person to see her alive. The person who was likely responsible for her death. When Project Care released that 60 second clip two years after Amber's disappearance, there was a flood of public interest and attention. People saying they knew that voice. Jenna, can you tell me about how the police dealt with these tips?

When the police made this really unprecedented decision to release the voice, they thought what a lot of us would also think, which is you release this recording, someone recognizes the voice and you match it up with a person and then you can charge that person. A lot of people came forward very confidently that they knew the voice. All different kinds of people. There's a man out there that has gotten a lot of attention that very firmly believes it's his father. I get emails now, I'm gonna say every two days

from someone who is very confident they know the voice. So the police spent a lot of time gathering voice samples. When they would get a tip, they would see, does this person meet some criteria? Were they in Alberta at the time? Would there be some reasons why we can reasonably believe they could be a suspect? Gathered all these voice recordings, sent dozens of them away for analysis, and ultimately discovered that they will not actually be able to match up the voice in that way. So there's two pieces of it, one of which is

that just cannot happen forensically with the technology that we have now, and we have experts explain that a little bit in the show. So the one hand, that the technology is not there to do that matching, and on the other hand, that there's a lot of science behind how someone might truly think they recognize the voice and they're just wrong. You know, there's the odd prankster in there and

some malicious pranksters in there, but the people I'm talking to, they're very heartfelt. And in many cases, you know, it's a dangerous man. They're talking about a man that hurt them or that they think hurt other people. And they feel so confident that they recognize the voice. But a lot of people are having this experience and so far that we know of these people are all wrong. A lot of people have been have been ruled out even when someone feels really confidently. And one aspect of that is that there simply is not enough of a voice sample to be able to match. And one word I think that's really interesting is the word absolutely. And that's the word that everybody keys on and people when they write to me, when they send me a tip about it, it's this word absolutely.

I used to work with this guy and he was a creep and he said that word just like that, absolutely. Are you sure? Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So there's a lot of people hearing it, but they may be really like, really sure, but also they may be wrong. So is it even worth the police investigating these voice comparisons or is it just a case of wait until the technology improves or there's more methods to analyze

it? Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that at this point, they do not believe that it's enough to match a voice. And there's a number of factors in there that are really interesting. We had an audio expert talk about these things you can hear in the recording, where a window may be up or a window might be down. And something that I had never even thought of, which is, you know, you would have to also,

it's not someone's voice now compared with this tape from 14 years ago. If you did think you recognized the voice, you would have to have a recording of them from 14 years ago because voices change, microphones change, environments change, and even then they wouldn't be able to match it up. The family said they were told that the tape is essentially

worthless now. The audio is worthless. The RCMP, the head of historical homicide that we spoke to, he doesn't think that it's worthless. He thinks that it does have value in a number of different ways. It still is this exceptional piece of evidence, but it's not going to be the thing that leads to someone being charged.

It's just not. You mentioned a specific word a couple of times, solvable. What does that mean to you? Yeah, I mean, the head of the historic homicide unit for the RCMP, he says he's an optimist and that he believes or at least hopes one day to see someone charged in Amber's death. Earlier this year, I covered a press conference where a man from the United States was identified as someone who had killed four women in Calgary in the 1970s, 50 years ago. So it does happen. And it increasingly happens as technology changes

at the time of those homicides, two of which were barely even considered homicides at the time, that, you know, DNA didn't exist, but the evidence was gathered carefully. And all these years later, the police were able to identify a killer. And even though he was dead, they were able to close a chapter. And also to prove to families who had thought that maybe their loved ones had been the victims of a drug poisoning or something,

that actually it was a homicide. So the RCMP said they keep files, I think he said, 100 years. And there is active investigation going on in the sense that if a tip is received tomorrow, they will investigate it. And even though it seems more and more unlikely as time passes, I think you obviously can't ever count it out. And someone might come forward, some evidence is discovered.

And I think that would be a really amazing thing. You know, Tootsie has always said that she wants someone charged before she dies. And I think we all would like that to be the case. Amber Tuckero's family filed a complaint with the Commission for Public Complaints against the RCMP, alleging that the investigation into Amber's disappearance was racist and biased. The commission provided a response, 120 pages, finding that the Leduc RCMP's investigation was quote, wholly inadequate and recommended they apologize to Amber's family.

But the blame was placed almost entirely on individual RCMP members for not receiving proper training or for failing to comply with training and abide by proper procedure. The commission's investigation, quote, does not support the allegation of conscious racial bias of any members during the conduct of the missing person investigation. In 2019, the RCMP held a press conference to apologize to the family of Amber Tuckeroe. But after the apology, as Amber's mother Tutsi and brother Paul was speaking, an RCMP spokesperson suddenly interrupted them.

I'm sorry, but we're out of time. We're over time in fact. Amber's family watched as the deputy police commissioner got up from the table and walked behind them to attend another appointment. Here's what Tutsi had to say. to attend another appointment. Here's what Tutsi had to say. I mean, they're the ones apologizing, but yet they can get up and walk away. What does that say? It was really, really evident that a lot of thought

went into every aspect of this podcast. And there's a lot of meaningful pauses and like silences that aren't filled with music, which I personally would struggle with because I'm more of a maximalist. I have to have music under everything. And I found these pauses to be really compelling because it really made you stop and think. The field recordings were amazing. I loved your conversations with Tootsie. Amber's mother, her voice is like ASMR. And then what was Amber like as a kid? What kind of little girl was she?

Spoiled. By you? By everyone. And she was a backward baby. She would stay up most of the night and sleep in the daytime. Used to call her a special baby. Take a listen to the trailer. And then I've got one final question for Jana. Yo, we're not going in the city, are we? No, we're not. question for Jana.

This is the missing person's case of Amber Tuckeroe, a 21-year-old female who went missing in August of 2010. Amber Tuckeroe was never seen alive again. But she left a recording of what seemed to be the final moments of her life. And the voice of the girls disappear with no clues. I'm Jana Pruden, a reporter with The Globe and Mail. I first heard this recording when it was released by the police. And like a lot of people, I've been thinking about Amber and about that voice ever since.

But often when I'm out here, like I'll look, like that man just came out of the store, that man that just got up, got out of this pickup truck. Like I look at these men, like, is that the man? Is that the voice? Does he know what happened to Amber? I went to Amber's home in the isolated Northern Alberta community of Fort Chippewa. Now this used to be the old church area right here

in the residential school right in this area. That was a rough place. And followed her journey to the field outside Edmonton where her remains were found, looking for the truth of that night. And that's the thing, like, I've always been very cautious coming out here because again, we don't know who's responsible.

I want to know why Amber's killer has never been caught, if a botched police investigation is to blame. On behalf of the RCMP, I am truly sorry. And whether Amber is the victim of a serial killer who's still out there. I just hope he's caught that that's my thing because for all we know he's still out there murdering. Well nothing stopped him I'm sure there's what 13 14 years later 13 years later how many have he killed How many more women has he taken? I think it's because we're Indians, First Nation people.

They don't give a shit about us. We're stereotyping. Even to this day, how many years later, we're still facing it. Join me for In Her Defense, 50th Street. Coming this fall from the Globe and Mail. Yo, where are we going? 50th Street. 50th Street. 50th Street.

Do you need to drive? Please. I actually learned a lot about audio journalism and the creative ways that everything was woven together, all the interview clips and field recordings and music with the narrative. It was masterful. Jenna, congratulations to you and the team on such incredible work and I hope that a lot of people listen to this and that it resonates with them the way that it's resonated with me.

I'm just going to jump in here quickly. Thank you so much for all of that. I really, I appreciate so much those kind words and you know I'm a big fan of yours. So it really means a lot coming from you. Just when you were talking about, you know, the sound production and the pauses, I really just need to tell people about Kasha Mohailovich, the show's producer, and David Crosby, who did the mixing, and Amber Bracken, who did photos and sound recording. Really, I can't take any credit for that kind of sound design, but it was so amazing to work with this team that really saw this vision

and that we wanted this to be beautiful. We wanted it to have these moments that are soft, that are special, that are quiet, that are joyful. Some people might find it a little bit surprising. We start actually the whole series with a party, with this really beautiful night, the Fort Chippewa Winter Fair. Jana, where are we? We're at the 2024 Fort Chippewa Winter Carnival.

A jigging competition. That was really important to all of us that these elements were in what is at his heart such a tragic story, but it also has so many beautiful elements to it, including the family and how hard they have fought for Amber and how they continue to persevere in their fight for justice for her and for other women. What would you most like people to know about Amber Tocque-Roe? I asked that question to Judy Ann Cardinal, who was sort of like a second mother to Amber.

So that's Amber's brother Paul's partner, so sort of her sister-in-law, but really almost like a second mother. And Judy Ann said that she would want people to know that Amber was human. And I found that such a devastating answer in some ways, but also such a telling answer that certain victims, we have to fight to make people care about them. We have to fight to make people not judge them. We have to fight for the police to investigate. We have to fight for people to care and to see their humanity. And so that's a really key thing to me. I can't imagine what that must be like.

I work with so many families that have experienced homicide and I truly believe it's one of the worst things that a family can ever go through. And to have that and to know that so many people don't care because of your race, because of your life, because of whatever it is that they see in you that they think your life has less value. And so this is very much a story about Amber, about her case, about holding police accountable. But it's also about fighting for the humanity of all women. And so I hope people will listen and will care. I think she's worthy of care, like we all are. And I hope that people will listen to her story.

Janna, thank you so much for joining me today. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Janna, thank you so much for hosting me at the Globe and Mail Studios today. I've really, really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you so much for meeting me here. I'm normally based in Edmonton, so I feel like I'm kind of being hosted here as well, but it's just such a pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you for this thoughtful interview. Our sincerest condolences to Amber Tuckero's loved ones. We hope they'll receive answers soon. Special thanks to Jana G. Pruden for her time and Takasha Mihailovich for making it all happen. You can find In Her Defense 50th Street on your favorite podcast player and please see the show notes for more information about the podcast and Amber Tuckeroe. I also recommend season one of In Her Defense about Helen Nasland, an Alberta woman who was sentenced to 18 years in jail after she shot and killed her abusive husband while

he was sleeping. Another riveting investigation. Canadian True Crime donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month we have donated to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society, who provide essential services including support for families impacted by missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Visit irsss.ca for more information. I'll be back soon with another Canadian true crime story. See you then. Adulting is hard. Between work, family and everything else, finding time to take care of you seems impossible.

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