Canadian True Crime - The Murder of Helen Betty Osborne [1]

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

A three-part series — In 1971, Indigenous high school student Helen Betty Osborne was abducted and brutally murdered near The Pas, Manitoba. When Betty’s body was found hours later at nearby Clearwater Lake, it was clear she had been the victim of a heinous crime. But it would take many, many years for the truth of what really happened to Betty to come to light—ultimately exposing the depths of racial injustice in the small town.Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds: available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, this is part one of a three-part series to be released a week apart. So part two will be released to everyone on April 8th and part three on April 15th. If you subscribe to add free premium feeds on Apple Podcasts, Patreon or Supercast, parts two and three are still in production but you'll be notified for early release as soon as they're ready. Before we start, just a quick word about today's case. These episodes have been written based on historic facts established in the 1991 report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba. Links to read the in-depth report are in the show notes. This is a shocking story and at times it may be hard to hear, especially if you're sensitive to graphic details around murder and sexual assault. These episodes also mention residential schools and

include details of Indigenous trauma. If you're a survivor of residential. If you're a survivor of residential schools and you're experiencing pain or distress, please see the show notes for details of a 24-hour crisis line. And with that, it's on with the show. Please take care when listening. Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. The podcast often has coarse language and disturbing content. It's not for everyone. This story takes place in the province of Manitoba, in an expansive, rural area several hundred kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, the province's capital city. It was a cold November morning in 1971 and three people were preparing to go fishing at a place called Clearwater Lake, a beautiful blue

lake so clear that you can see to the bottom, even in the deepest part. Clearwater Lake is also a prime habitat for trout, northern pike and whitefish. And that's exactly what the father and teenage son and the family friend were doing that morning. They arrived between 9 and 10 a.m and parked in a lot on the south shore of the lake, near two notable landmarks, a pump house building and a tiny one-strip airport that served to the local area. After picking a fishing spot nearby, they sat down their gear and waited. After an hour or two with not a lot of action, the teenage boy, 14-year-old Kenneth,

got bored and decided to explore the nearby woods to look for rabbits. He didn't find much excitement there either, so he started walking back. As he approached the parking lot at about 11.30 that morning, something caught his eye. It seemed to be an object sticking out of the bush close to where the pump house was located. It was too thick on that side to explore, so Kenneth walked around to the other side, to approach it that way and see if he could figure out what the object was. He still wasn't able to reach it, but this time he could see that it was a human body.

Shocked, Kenneth ran back to his father and they went to the tiny airport nearby to report it. The RCMP arrived and assessed how they might retrieve the body. It wasn't an easy task because it was so well concealed in the bush, but they soon saw that the body belonged to a young woman who was completely naked except for the boots on her feet. She had fairly short dark hair, but her face had been beaten to the point that she was unrecognizable.

So at that point, no one had any idea who she was or where she was from, nor did anyone know how she had come to be out near a tiny airport beside a lake in rural Manitoba. And while many of the townspeople would soon become aware of who was responsible, it would take many, many years for the shocking truth of this brutal murder to come to light. Clearwater Lake is located about 20 to 30 minutes drive from a town called The Poor, located at a junction where two rivers meet. The Poor only has about 5,000 residents, but it's often referred to as the gateway to northern mainland.

Manitoba, a central hub for the multi-industry region and a major trading post. The young woman's body was transported to the morgue in town at about 4 p.m. that day, and the RCMP started calling local townspeople who had frontline jobs, like taxi drivers, to come in and see if they could identify her, but no one had any idea who she was. From her appearance, the RCMP suspected that the young woman may have been Indigenous, so they also contacted the local Indigenous community, a Pasquiat Cree Nation. But no one there could positively identify her either. Investigators also looked into missing people in the area

and realised that a 19-year-old Indigenous woman had been reported missing just that morning. The RCMP contacted the man who filed the report. His name was William Benson and he and his wife Patricia had been participating in a government initiative that encouraged Indigenous students to further their Western education by moving to town and attending public school. The government would provide accommodation for students with a local host family and that family would be reimbursed for their expenses.

So that's how 19-year-old Betty Osses. was born came to be living with the Bensons. William and Patricia told the RCMP that Betty had gone out with friends the night beforehand, but she never returned home. At this point, she'd only been living with them for two months, but Betty was responsible and serious about her studies. She'd never stayed out all night before, and even though she was 19 and technically an adult, she still asked Patricia for permission to go out that night. So the next morning, as soon as they realised that Betty hadn't come home, William reported her missing to the RCMP. And that night, when they contacted him to tell him they'd found a body that appeared to be a young Indigenous woman,

William went straight to the morgue. But because the woman's face had been so badly beaten, he wasn't even able to tell if it was Betty. So the RCN. So the R.C.'s The CMP suggested that he return home and try and get something that had Betty's fingerprints on it so that they could compare it to the body. So, away he went, promising to return as soon as he had something. To give Betty's story the gravity it deserves, we have to go back to the beginning for just a minute and paint a portrait of the landscape. While the town of the Paw was officially incorporated in 1912, the area had been a gathering point. for local indigenous peoples for thousands of years. And the immediate area was originally home to what was known as the Poor Indian Band of Swampy Cree First Nation,

located just across the Saskatchewan River from where the town would eventually be. But in the 1800s, as white settlers moved in, the colonial government was eyeing the ancestral lands of many indigenous communities, leading to what we now know as the forced relocation of First Nation, Métis and Inuit peoples. One of the ways the government did this was with treaties. The poor Indian band was asked to sign a treaty or contract, surrendering title to their ancestral lands, and in exchange, the government promised to provide them different land to live on.

Land they were told they would still be able to hunt, fish and trap from to sustain themselves. And to sweeten the deal, the band was offered payments and support for their community by way of provisions like farming and agricultural equipment, animals, tools, education, clothing and more. The report from the later inquiry would describe just how important land is to the indigenous. It's part of their identity as people. Quote, the earth was their mother, the animals were their spiritual kin and all were part of the greater whole. which was life. Their culture was grounded in nature. Time was marked by the changing seasons and the rising and setting of the sun, rather than by numbers. And their existence was marked by an acceptance of and respect for their natural surroundings and their place in the scheme of things.

And the report goes on to describe how indigenous peoples think of all things holistically in relation to the whole. Rather than considering themselves as owners of the land, It was a part of them, and it was there to be shared as the source of all life. It gave them sustenance and independence, so being asked to share parcels of it to make room for expanding white settlements was a big decision. Believing the government was offering a decent deal in good faith, the poor Indian band were one of the signatories of Treaty 5, also known as the Winnipeg Treaty. But as the later inquiry would note, they soon realized that,

government's true intentions in negotiating those treaties was, quote, to provide the minimum benefits in return for peace and control of the land. And while the Indigenous considered the treaty an agreement to share the land, they soon realized that the government considered it a transfer of legal title, the complete surrender of that land. And not only that, but Indigenous people soon found themselves in a fight to retain their right to self-determination. the right to their traditional identities, cultures, languages, beliefs and ways of life.

They assumed the right to continue to govern themselves and direct the way in which they allowed Western culture to affect their lives. But they soon realized that the government had other plans. This is obviously an oversimplified explanation of what happened, but it sets a necessary backdrop for the poor. The end result was that, like many Indigenous communities, who signed treaties, the poor Indian band realized that the government wasn't holding up its end of the agreement. The land they received was not the full entitlement they were owed as per the treaty,

and the handling of the treaty agreement was managed poorly. When the town of the poor was incorporated in 1912, the poor Indian band, who'd been there first, changed their name to a Pasquiat Cree Nation. And controversy still surrounds the terms of treaty. to this day, the band maintains they never received the full entitlement of reserve land they were owed. By 1971, when today's story takes place, the poor was still very much a segregated town, with one part for white people and another for the indigenous. And while the two groups were generally observed to be civil towards each other in public,

it was only superficial. The divide was very clear. And this was the landscape that 19-year-old Betty Osborne moved into when she arrived at the paw in September of 1971. She was actually given the name Helen Betty Osborne in 1952 when she was born, but she went by Betty, and she was the eldest of 12 children from a remote community called Norway House, located near the northern end of Lake Winnipeg. Accessed only by ferry, Norway has. houses both a community and a First Nation reserve. And Betty came from the reserve, Kino Seo Cee Cree Nation.

Two years before that, when Betty was 17, she was figuring out what she wanted to do with her life. A century earlier, she would have received the appropriate traditional education in her home community through observation and practice, development of essential skills like hunting, gathering and preparing food, making clothes and child-rearing. Indigenous education practice also includes oral teachings, cultural and spiritual rituals, and family and group socialisation. But in 1969, when Betty was

contemplating her future, the Canadian government was heavily invested in their plan to completely eradicate Indigenous culture and replace it with the Western culture of European settlers. And one of the ways they wanted to do this was through education. In 1883, when Canada's first Prime Minister John A. MacDonald had first proposed their education solution to Parliament, he famously referred to Indigenous people as, quote, savages, and argued that unless Indigenous children were educated outside their home communities, they would end up being the same. He said they needed to be taken away from the influence of their parents and quote, the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought

of white men. And with that, the brutal program known as the Indian residential school system was implemented, which were residential boarding schools for indigenous children, funded by the government and primarily run by churches like the Catholic Church. We know that over the next century until 1996, that's how long the program was active for, there was widespread neglect, abuse and experimentation on the students. The phrase, kill the Indian in the child is well known from this period. The phrase actually originates from an American military officer, but it's often incorrectly attributed to a man called Duncan Campbell Scott,

one of the men who was instrumental in the expansion of residential schools in Canada. And it's easy to see why. While killing off indigenous culture might have been Canada's goal, the reality was that so many actual children died at their own school that authorities weren't able to keep track. School sites around Canada are still uncovering unmarked graves to this day. We know that during that time about 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were forcibly removed from their families and placed in these residential schools.

But force is just one tactic a government can use to achieve its goals. There are other more subtle ways that Indigenous students ended up in residential schools, and Betty Osborne fell into this category. Although in Canada, education is managed at the pre-established. provincial level, when it comes to indigenous people, the federal government was put in charge, and education was often promised as part of the treaty agreements. The indigenous were told that their futures would be brighter if they received a Western education and were able to assimilate with white settlers. Betty Osborne was intelligent and ambitious. She wanted to become a teacher,

but education at her home community was very limited, and the government had to be. not supplied a local teacher or curriculum for high school there. Instead, students were encouraged to move away from their families and their community and voluntarily attend a residential school. With passive strategies like this, the government didn't need to physically remove the students from their homes to get them to attend residential schools. Sometimes they went because they literally had no other option. Betty wasn't overly happy about the same. situation. She didn't want to move away, but she was willing to do it to change things so that no one else from her community would have to. All she had to do was put her head down for a few

years and finish her schooling, and then she planned to go back home and teach her own people there and free them from having to rely on the government. So after considering her very limited options for becoming a teacher, 17-year-old Betty Osborne enrolled herself in the closest residential school, Guy Hill residential school, located near Clearwater Lake. It might have been the closest, but it was still about 430 kilometres by road from Betty's home in Norway House. Trips back home to her family wouldn't be easy, but she was determined and driven to succeed. At the school, all of Betty's fellow students were from indigenous communities, but none of the teachers or administrators were. The students had to wear

uniforms and they all had to keep their hair cut short, as you'll be able to see in photos of Betty Osborne. As was usual practice at residential schools, the students were punished for continuing their cultural practices, including speaking their native languages at the school. Many of the students, including Betty, couldn't speak much English when they arrived, and they weren't able to understand what was expected of them, which led to even more punishment. But Betty also made friends at residential school and they leaned on each other for support. She was known as a serious, hardworking student who was shy but loved to have a laugh. Childhood friend Rita McIver would later tell CBC Winnipeg that Betty was neat, prim and proper

and she always had the sharpest pencils. Rita sat next to Betty at residential school and noted that her friend was, quote, always taking care of herself, how she dressed, how she took care of her work. Betty was concerned about homework, but she was too shy to ask questions to the teacher, so she would ask the other students instead. Another of Betty's childhood friends, Marian Cicinus, recalled trying to run away from the school with Betty twice. In 2019, she would tell David Ridgin of CBC Podcasts,

someone know something, that one time they were warming themselves by a campfire after they'd run away when all of a sudden they heard wolves and had to make a decision about what was worse, the wolves or the residential school they'd just run away from. They decided not to gamble on the wolves. Marion recalled another time when they ran away to an abandoned cabin near Clearwater Lake and they were so hungry that when they found some dry macaroni, they ate it straight. When they returned to the school, they were strapped on their hands

with an object that had metal in the middle. Marion recalled her hands were swollen for days. She reflected on their time together at residential school. There were hard times and a lot of things happened that she didn't want to remember or talk about, but quote, We had our good times and bad times with Helen, you know? Betty lived at that residential school for about two years, and then it was time to move again.

She'd been able to get into a public high school at the nearby town of the Paw. It wasn't a residential school, so she wouldn't be living there, but in these situations where an Indigenous teenager has no choice but to live outside their community to attend a public school, the Department of Indian Affairs would step in to arrange a room and bedroom. board situation with a local family. The local family would then be reimbursed for their expenses. The students would have no say in where they were placed. They just had to accept it. This was an offshoot of the tactics used during what became known as the 60s scoop, an era where the government tried to accelerate the westernization of indigenous children by

taking them from their families and placing them with white Canadian families. The ideal situation in this case was that the host family would treat the student like a member of their extended family, and this would of course contribute to the student's ongoing Western cultural education. But given the fact that the government had gone out of its way to portray indigenous peoples as so-called savages, it's not surprising that the students were often treated more like borders, and not given appropriate care or supervision. This happened with a friend that Betty made named Annalise, who would say that her host family treated her differently to their own biological children.

For example, she wasn't allowed to watch TV with them. In fact, she wasn't even allowed to be anywhere in the house except the bedroom or the kitchen. Now Betty wasn't overly thrilled about the prospect of being placed with a white family for obvious reasons, but she did whatever she had to do. As it turned out, she was placed with William and Patricia Benson, a couple who would later be described as showing a real concern about her welfare. It may have been because William Benson was Métis, the distinct culture and people that resulted from unions between the indigenous and Europeans

during the fur trade era. And while this kindness may have been appreciated by Betty, it didn't negate the fact that settling into school and life at the poverty, was not going to be easy. She started at Margaret Barber Collegiate, a public high school in the Paw that had a mix of white and indigenous students and was still segregated in 1971. The high school cafeteria literally had indigenous people on one side

and white people on the other. It was the same in town. At the movie theater, one side sat on the left and the other on the right. Even at local bars, there were areas that, indigenous people weren't allowed to sit in. With these kind of conditions, the indigenous kids who are away from their home communities, trying to understand the Western world, forged strong bonds with each other. Betty was known to be quiet and serious, but she soon made a few close friends. One of them, Eva Simpson, would later describe the situation they all found themselves in.

Betty was, quote, hardworking in school and she liked to have a good laugh, I guess, and we tried to cover up our feelings because we were lonesome to go home. And yet we knew we had no way to survive if we were in Norway house, so we kind of hung around together. Eva described Betty as a very kind person and a good friend to her. After just two months in the poor, 19-year-old Betty had started school, she'd made some friends and she was living with a border family that seemed fairly decent.

She also had a new boyfriend, 17-year-old Cornelius Biggity, who was in exactly the same situation as she was. He had come from a fairly remote reservation, the Matthias Colom Cree Nation in Pukarro Hagen, and like Betty, he'd come to the poor to go to school, and he was also staying with a white host family. While the solidarity with other Indigenous students was comforting, the hardships that came with being in a place like the poor were many.

They were viewed as disposable, and rumours of white men throwing Indigenous men into the river from a bridge were plentiful. So too were other rumours that they cruised the poor looking for Indigenous girls to pick up, ply with alcohol to the point where they weren't able to consent, and sexually assault them. In a later inquiry into the situation, those rumours were confirmed to be true stories, and the RCMP would be asked why they never did anything about them, or bothered to warn Indigenous girls about the potential for danger.

The response was that it wasn't the RCMP's job to check cars, and besides, the girls were of age and willing. It would later be established that the victims of this practice were as young, as 14 years old. And while the RCMP would say they were aware of the rumours, no one actually ever came to them with a complaint that warranted an investigation. And it's not hard to see why. The history of the RCMP is well known. They were established as the muscle to help the government control the indigenous population. When it came to how policing happened in the poor in 1971, RCMP members would denounce.

deny any knowledge of racial tension or problems between the white and indigenous populations, although they acknowledged that when violence did occur, it was usually a white man who assaulted an indigenous man. And the segregation that happened in schools and movie theatres carried out onto the streets, where it wasn't so overt and presented more as ingrained patterns of behavior of the community. Like carding, where police stop a racialized person on the street for no apparent reason and ask them to explain why they were there. The RCMP would say that it was a common practice in their effort to prevent crime, but as an inquiry would note, the same questions weren't asked of white people. And despite the fact that the rural RCMP detachment outside the

poor covered an area in which 98% of the people were indigenous, it would be found that members never made much of an effort to get to know the community or understand them. They would visit from time to time, but they only stayed as long as it took for them to complete their business. So all in all, living in the poor in 1971 presented a potentially dangerous situation for an indigenous student. But for 19-year-old Betty Osborne, it was the hope of getting her education, becoming a teacher and helping her people that kept her going. Betty Osborne had only been in the poor for two months when she didn't come home that night. The next morning, as soon as her host family realised that she hadn't come home, they reported her missing to the RCMP. Just a few hours after that,

the badly beaten body had been found out near Clearwater Lake, and now William and Patricia Benson were anxiously waiting to see if fingerprints lifted from Betty's schoolbook were a match. They were. Just after midnight, the body was positively identified by fingerprints as belonging to 19-year-old Betty Osborne. The RCMP detachment and the poor had to make the call to Norway House to let Betty's family know.

Her mother would later be asked what was said to her and she couldn't remember. She said that after she heard Betty was dead, she didn't care about anything that was said after that. The autopsy determined that Betty had been severely beaten, with both blunt force and a sharp instrument. Her cause of death was stabbing. There were more than 50 stab wounds found on her body, including a massive number of parts.

puncture wounds to her head. The wound seemed to indicate that a screwdriver may have been used in the vicious attack, but the coroner wasn't able to tell for sure. When it came to the blunt force trauma, Betty's body showed extensive bruising. Her skull, cheekbones and palate were broken. Her lungs and a kidney were damaged. The only clothing she had on were her boots, and there was evidence that they'd been removed and then put back on for some reason. And while the autopsy determined that there was no physical evidence of sexual assault, the RCMP did believe that the attack was sexually motivated. The whole attack would be described as brutal and bizarre,

and it would later be determined that had it not been for a bored teenager taking a walk that cold November morning, Betty's body might not have been found until at least the spring. There was already snow on the ground. Not a lot of people were going to the lake for recreational purposes, and her body had been carefully concealed in the bush. In the meantime, RCP investigators were continuing their work, gathering the evidence, and the whole crime scene area was measured and mapped.

The severe beating to Betty's face was so vicious that they wondered if it was a rage attack, the release of some unimaginable fury. Or perhaps it was more strategic, the perpetrator wanted to make sure Betty was unrecognizable to buy time in the event that she was found. After analysing the crime scene, investigators concluded that Betty's body had rested in two separate spots during the attack near the pump house. The first spot had evidence of partially melted snow where she had been left,

indicating that she was either still alive at that point or her body was still alive. the evidence at the scene indicated that she was then dragged 23 metres into the bush adjacent to the pump house to the almost fully concealed location where she would be found the next morning at this location there was a lack of snow melt which indicated that betty was likely already dead as she was being dragged the autopsy hadn't been able to determine exactly when betty had died so this was helpful information As well as the drag marks, there were footprints and tyre imprints found in the snow that needed to be analysed. At Betty's first resting place, investigators saw drag marks and one set of footprints,

but at her second resting place, investigators saw two sets of footprints, one on each side of the body drag marks. This was an important observation, as it indicated there may have been more than one person involved. A police photographer was called to document the crime scene. He was actually already in the area taking photos of suspected drug traffickers and he made his way over to the pump house but by the time he got there it was dusk. The light was fading fast and he didn't have his flash. He was able to get about 120 photographs of exhibits, footprints and tie imprints found in the snow.

But there were two big issues with the fire. photos. The first was that they weren't very clear because of the light, and some of the photos didn't clearly show key details. For example, the ridge pattern of a shoe could be matched to a suspect, but it just wasn't bright enough or clear enough to make out. The second issue was that not all of the footprints had been photographed. The first set of footprints that led to the place where Betty first lay in the snow were captured, but the same. The same thing that was captured, but the second set of footprints made, as Betty was dragged to her final resting place in the bush, were not captured. So there was no documentation of the observation made by multiple investigators

that there had been two sets of footprints, one set on each side of the drag marks. This would become important later on. Investigators gathered about 36 exhibits at the crime scene, including blood samples and Betty's missing clothes which were found hidden below some rocks on the breakwater at the edge of the lake. While the murder weapon was believed to be at least one screwdriver, investigators didn't find it there or anything else. There was also no obvious source of the blunt force trauma at the scene,

leaving them to believe that Betty's beating likely came from hands and feet. Another part of the investigation involved trying to, to retrace Betty's movements the night she went missing. RCMP investigators had begun reaching out to everyone in her network, her host family, her friends, fellow students and borders, other indigenous people and anyone else who may have been in the downtown area of the poor the night she was seen. One of Betty's good friends was 18-year-old Annalise Dumas,

another indigenous student who moved to the poor for education. Annalise was from the same home community as Betty's boyfriend Cornelius, the Matthias Colom Cree Nation in Pukodawagon, which was reached only by train or ice road. Annalise was also staying with a white host family in the poor. The family mentioned earlier who didn't allow her to be in any part of the house except the bedroom or the kitchen. As part of their efforts to retrace Betty's steps that night,

Two RCMP officers had arrived at Annalisa's host family home and told the 18-year-old that she had to go with them. Annalise had no idea what was going on. She didn't yet know that Betty, her close friend, was dead, and when she asked what was happening and why she had to go with them, the officers wouldn't tell her. Annalise would later testify at an inquiry that she was first taken to the station,

and while she was waiting, she saw a student friend who told her that someone had been found dead. Annalise was then taken back to the police cruiser, and she might have assumed she was being taken back to her host family. But instead, officers drove to the outskirts of town, stopping the cruiser at a secluded spot on the edge of a forest. There, they questioned her about where she was at the time of the day. Betty's death. This was the very first time Annalise had heard that her good friend had died,

and she was obviously shaken up. As she tried to process what was happening, the RCMP officers continued to question her, but because she was so shocked, she struggled to find the words to answer the questions. Rather than showing compassion towards a devastated young woman who'd just learned a close friend had been murdered, the officers were frustrated by her inability to gather her thoughts and answer questions on command. They dragged her out of the car, threw her on the hood, and got the answers to their questions that way. The two officers then apologized for making her cry and drove her back to her host family home. In a later inquiry, the two officers would deny that any of this happened. But other officers testified.

that it was common to take people into the country to question them, and the reason it was done was for privacy to get them away from others who might see them being interviewed. Yet another officer would shed more light on the tactic, testifying that, quote, if we want them to confess, we've got to put a little stress on them. But Annalise wasn't a suspect, she wasn't even a person of interest,

she was merely the friend of the victim. And it wasn't over for her. Those same two officers returned to her home later that night and took her again, this time, to the morgue. There she was made to look at the bloody, battered body of her murdered friend for no apparent reason. Betty had already been identified at that point, so making Annalise look at her body was completely unnecessary at best,

and utterly cruel and mean-spirited at worst. Like Betty's host father, Annalise wasn't able to recognise her friend because her face was so disfigured. Annalise would later say that she saw someone there, but, quote, to me, it wasn't Betty. Not surprisingly, she found the whole ordeal so traumatic

that she dropped out of school and didn't return for four years. And eventually she had to seek counselling, to help her process what had happened. With the information coming from Betty's friends, host family and others, RCMP investigators were able to start piecing together Betty's final movements that Friday night, November 12th, 1971.

Here's what they learned. At about 6pm, Betty was at home, having dinner with her host mother, Patricia Benson. At about 7 p.m., she left to go and visit a friend at the hospital. There, she unexpectedly bumped into an old childhood friend named George Ross. Her family used to visit George's family at Cross Lake First Nation, which was relatively close to Norway House where Betty was from, so seeing him in The Poor was a pleasant surprise.

The two wanted to catch up, so Betty phoned Patricia and asked if it would be okay if she brought George over. After getting permission, the two 19-year-old. old set off, stopping to get some beer on the way to the Benson house. The legal drinking age in Manitoba was and is 18. The two friends chatted and caught up until about 10pm when Patricia Benson told them it was time to start wrapping things up. Betty and George weren't done catching up yet though, so Betty again asked if Patricia was okay with her leaving again to head into town with George. She was 19, legally an adult, but she had a decent relationship with her host family and asked as a courtesy.

Patricia told her that was fine, so at about 10.30, George and Betty headed out again. As they were walking down the street past the Cambrian Hotel, Betty glanced in and spotted her boyfriend, 17-year-old Cornelius Biggity in the lobby with some of his friends. Also with him was what looked to be another woman. Betty went in to confront him, they argued for five or ten minutes and then she left again with George. They walked to a cafe where they met up with friends, and before too long they decided to leave again, taking two of them with them, Eva and Marion. The four went back to the Benson House and drank beer in a shed in the backyard,

likely making sure to keep as quiet as possible. For unknown reasons, they didn't stay for long. Marion and Eva left first shortly after midnight. Betty and George stayed for a few more minutes but then left again, returning to the downtown area. While Betty wasn't ready for their night to end yet, George was almost done, and he announced that he was heading home at about half-past midnight. Betty still wanted to stay out so the two said their goodbyes and parted ways. Because Betty had been with George the whole night up until that point, it was easy to trace

her movements. But after he went home and she was by herself, all investigators had to go off were random sightings of her. About 15 minutes after she and George parted ways, she was seen passing the Cambrian Hotel again. And then, just over an hour later, someone saw her at a dance that was being held at the local legion. By this point, it was about 2 a.m. About 15 minutes later, a close friend said she saw Betty walking down the street, away from the dance at the Legion. And this was the last time she was seen that night.

Now, investigators would have to figure out where she went next, what happened to her, and who was involved. When the RCMP heard about the brief argument Betty and Cornelius had in the hotel lobby, that made him a suspect. Now, Cornelius was only 17, a minor, so if law enforcement wanted to question him, policy dictated that they needed to ask permission from his parent or guardian. But the RCMP did not do this. They didn't ask permission from his host family, nor did they contact his parents in Pukarawagan.

They would later claim they received consent from a date. Department of Indian Affairs Councillor, but not only was this never corroborated, but it wasn't actual policy. In any event, officers showed up at the host family home where Cornelius and at least one other Indigenous student were staying and told them both to get in the cruiser. Now, like Betty's friend Annalise, Cornelius had no idea that his girlfriend was dead. He may have known she was missing, and he may have heard that a body had been found, but he wasn't yet aware that a connection had been made. So when the RCMP showed up,

his first thought was that something must have happened to a member of his family back home, and he anxiously waited for officers to fill him in. When they arrived at the RCMP detachment, Cornelius was taken into an interrogation room, and without even uttering a word and investigator slammed a photo on the table in front of him. It was a close-up image of Betty's bloody disfigured face.

The shock of both having to view a graphic image like this with no warning and then realizing it was his girlfriend and she was now dead was too much for Cornelius to process. The 17-year-old passed out on the spot. The officers waited until he came to and went wrong. right back to questioning him for around half an hour. Cornelius confirmed the witness testimony that he and Betty argued for a few minutes at the hotel lobby, but when she left with George, that was the last time he saw or heard from her.

The RCMP released him, satisfied that he wasn't involved. But later, officers had some more questions for him, so they showed up at his school where he was playing a volleyball game, they pulled him out of the game in front of everyone and took him back to the detachment. A later inquiry would report that the RCMP offered no justification for why they failed to respect the rights of Cornelius Bigotty. The inquiry concluded, quote, his treatment does not come up to acceptable standards of police conduct. But Cornelius himself was incredibly gracious towards the RCMP. Years later, he would testify that he had no complaint about the way he was treated by them, but he added that he would not allow the police to treat his

own children the same way. The inquiry would acknowledge that the blame for this series of events wasn't solely on the RCMP though. The Government Department of Indian Affairs also played a role. Officials had a responsibility to protect the Indigenous students' interests by informing them and their host families of their rights and responsibilities when it came to the RCMP, and also to ensure that the RCMP approached them in a way that didn't result in additional trauma. It was a failure on several different levels. With Cornelius cleared, it meant the person or persons responsible for the vicious attack on Betty Osborne was still at large, so the RCMP needed to continue to pursue every lead they could. A motorist came forward to say that he picked up a screwdriver in the middle of

the highway just a few hundred meters from the crime scene. He told them that he'd picked it up at about 1.15 on the Saturday afternoon, which investigators knew was just a few hours after Betty's body was first discovered. The screwdriver appeared to be a few. The screwdriver appeared to be clean, but it did have some paint on it as well as an engraving of something that seemed to be a name. The RCMP undertook an extensive search of that stretch of the highway to see if there was anything else there and spent time trying to track down the owner of the screwdriver but were unsuccessful. They ultimately determined that the screwdriver wasn't likely connected to Betty's murder. There were quite a few leads like this that turned out to be false,

but each one still took time for the investigators to clear up nonetheless. A very dirty bloodstained shirt had been found along the highway, leading the RCMP to believe for a time that it may have been worn by the perpetrator, who they described as potentially a person unkept an appearance with a slim build. But they weren't able to find out where the shirt came from, and determined it was unlikely to have any relation to Betty's murder. There were also false statements and rumors. One person came forward with what seemed like a very promising lead.

She said she had witnessed a woman kill Betty Osborne. Investigators looked into it but soon proved the story to be false. And then the rumors started. One suggested that three or four girls had banded together to kill Betty. Another suggested she'd been killed by a mentally unstable vagabond who was passing through town. Yet another rumour was that the names of three of the murderers were written down on someone's suicide note. All rumours were investigated and found to be without basis. Meanwhile, that extensive search of the highway stretch was proving fruitful.

Even though the screwdriver lead was abuss, an investigator found a blood-stained paper bag from the ditch on the side of the highway. There was a pair of gloves and what looked to be two pieces of a woman's bra. None of these items would be linked to Betty Osborne, but later that same day, a police dog was canvassing the same area and found a bloody screwdriver. Nowadays, it would have been sent straight for testing against Betty's DNA to confirm, but this was 1971 and the technology wasn't there yet. So with the presumption that the screwdriver was most likely the murder weapon, the main question that still remained was who was using it. That's where we'll leave it for part one.

In part two, which will be released to everyone in a week, the investigation continues and people start talking, leading to the first big break in the case and identification of several people of interest. But gathering the evidence needed to find out what happened and prove their guilt would present a whole new challenge. If you're subscribed to premium feeds on Apple Podcasts, Patreon or Supercast, look out for the early ad-free release of Parts 2 and 3 coming soon.

For more information, visit canadiantruecrime.ca.ca.com. And while you're there, you can also see full credits and resources for each episode. Canadian True Crime donates monthly to help those facing injustice. This month we've donated to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society who provide essential services to survivors, their families and those dealing with intergenerational traumas. See the show notes for more information. 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 in a week with Part 2. See you then.