Criminology - Tamra Keepness

Episode Date: July 24, 2022

The circumstances surrounding the 2004 disappearance of 5-year-old Tamra Keepness are extremely mysterious. Tamra disappeared from her home in Saskatchewan, Canada, while her three siblings and two half-siblings were in the house. The timing of events has been debated based on the facts that various people in Tamra's life have given. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance of Tamra Keepness. Tamra's mother Lorena, Lorena's boyfriend Dean, and a man named Russell Sheepskin, who was living at the home, all have their accounts of the events of that night. All three had been drinking, and for a period of time, the children were alone in the home. Despite a massive search, no evidence of what happened to her has been uncovered. This is a case that, as many do, comes down to who you believe and the plausibility of certain statements that have been made by the people involved in Tamra's life. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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where you can download or stream each episode, plus there's links to iTunes and social media. And as I always say, don't forget to delete your browser history. This is True Crime Island. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 216 of the criminology podcast.

I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, man, what is going on with you? Well, I'm just reading, sitting down, getting some details about one of my pet cases that was solved, the case at Lindy Sue Beakler, which we covered in episode 121. It's one that I've been working on for a long time, and it just was solved. Did you see the news about it? Well, I saw where somebody was arrested. Yeah, it's just another instance where we talk about it so often now is that the bad

guy should be looking over their shoulder because the genetic genealogy is catching up to these guys. So that's what I'm happy about. Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, you and I have done so many cases in the last couple of years involving genetic genealogy. And I like we've said before, I think we're just going to continue to see more and more of it. Yeah. And unfortunately, there's still no shortage of cases. I think there's like 200,000 unsolved cases.

So Morph, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. Donna Bashline up to her membership, which is always amazing. We had Kelly Wiley, Shannon Whitaker, Joel Minima, Scotty Johnson, and Tiffany. So that's really a lot of great new support. it's much appreciated. Yeah, it goes a long way, and we can't thank people enough that help us with that.

And, you know, I actually had someone reach out this week and say, how can I go to the platinum level? And I was like, I didn't even know we had a platinum level, but just the outpouring of support for the show is impressive and we can't thank you enough. And anyone that would like to support criminology can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology.

All right. Let's go ahead and jump into this episode. And this week, we are looking at a case out of Canada. And it's a case that takes place in Saskatchewan, the most populated province in Canada. It was in Saskatchewan in 2004 that a five-year-old girl named Tamara Keapness went missing. And she's never been found, despite massive search efforts, in 2004. There were almost one million people living in the province. The majority of the population lives either in Saskatoon,

or Regina, like Alberta in many parts of Canada. Saskatchewan has a less than stellar track record when it comes to the treatment of the indigenous population there, known as First Nations, which Tamara was part up. Tamara Jewel Keatness was born on September 1st and White Bear at First Nation, located in the southeastern portion of Saskatchewan in 1998 to parents Lorena and Troy Keatness. In addition to Tamara, Lorena and Troy had three other children, Tanis, who was Tamara's fraternal twin sister, another daughter named Summer, and a son named Rain.

The family wound up making their home in Regina, but the marriage between Lorena and Troy Keatness didn't work out, and they split up. A couple shared time with their children, with them living primarily with Lorena, and Lorena's new boyfriend, Dean MacArthur, at 1834 Ottawa Street, a distressed two-story home. The breakup of the family was hard, and things weren't easy for Tamara and her siblings.

The area they lived in was pretty run down, and it was a low-income neighborhood, with most people living below the poverty line. And reportedly, some people in Tamara's family abused drugs and alcohol, and life in the family home was volatile, to say the least. Dean MacArthur was charged by police with abusing Lorena one night when he was drunk, and he was sentenced to three months in jail for the assault. He wound up serving two of the three months of his sentence,

police being called to the home was not out of the ordinary. And there were dozens of reported incidents in the home that were documented by social services. And there were also allegations of child neglect. This was apparently not a stable environment for Tamara and her siblings. And more if this is always a very sad situation. I think in a lot of instances, you know, kids grow up in less than ideal situations, you know, do they know anything different? You know, they love their families, sometimes no matter how bad things are for them. And I think this was true of Tamara. She did as well as could be expected and

was apparently a bright and inquisitive child. Her mom Lorena told the globe and male that Tamara was her little Einstein. On July 6th, 2004, five-year-old Tamara Keatness was reported missing to the Regina police service. Her mother, Lorena, said that she had last been seen at their Ottawa Street home the day before on July 5th. In the home that day, alongside Tamara, were her mom, Lorena's boyfriend Dean, as well as Lorena's siblings, Tannis, Summer, and Rain. Also in the home were Tamara's four-year-old half-brother and a nine-month-old half-sister, both of which were Lorena and Dean's children. Also living in the home was a friend of Dean's, a man named Russell Sheepskin. Lorina told police that she and Dean had an argument that evening,

and eventually Dean stormed out of the home alongside with Russell Sheepskin. They had been watching the Gladiator together at around 8.30 p.m. But Lorena wanted to watch CSI instead, and she decided to change the channel, which upset Dean. When they went out, Dean and Russell decided to stop at a 7-11 to get a can of milk for Dean and Lorena's nine-month-old daughter. After they dropped it off to Lorena, they went out to a bar together. It was at the St. Regis Hotel, just six blocks away from the home on Ottawa Street. Lorena stayed home. While Dean cooled off at the bar, she got the children ready for bed. They watched the Simpsons together and the children, as children normally do, took their

time getting to bed. At around 11 p.m., Lorena kissed each of them and told them to go to bed. Once they had all gone upstairs for the night, Lorena left. Summer, who was 11 years old at the time, was left in charge. Lorraine told Summer she was going to a friend's house and that she would call home with the friend's phone number. She also gave Summer very specific instructions. as reported by CBC Canada. Locked the doors. Don't open the doors for anyone. If anything comes up, phone me.

Lorena then went just one block over to the friend's house where she had some drinks to unwind and talk about the argument she had gotten into a dean. She and her friend left the townhouse and then went to the St. Regis Hotel where they bought some more beer and headed back to the friend's house. Along the way back,

Lorina decided to stop at home to check on her kids and everything was fine. When Lorena and her friend got back to the townhouse, Lorena called summer to give her the phone number where she could be reached at. This was around midnight. And more of I think we have to stop here and talk about Lorena's actions that night. You know, some online have been extremely critical of her. And when you read posts from people about this case, you know, a lot of them. let's face it, are rough towards Lorena. You know, why would you leave your kids alone, 11 year old in charge?

And I get that. I mean, I think for me, and I can only speak for me, it's not something that I would be comfortable with, would have ever been comfortable with when my kids were, you know, that age. To me, that's just too young. But that's me speaking personally. Yeah. My daughter's 11, and I would never think about going out drinking with her in charge of my six-year-old son. To me, I just don't think that would ever happen.

And, you know, maybe this child was very responsible and had done it before. And she thought, what's the worst that can happen? The kids are going to be sleeping. There won't be any problems. She has my phone. I'm only a block away. I don't know. But any time, as we know, something's bad is going to happen in this case,

anytime something comes up like that, you have to look back at the actions of everyone and it's going to draw scrutiny. Yeah, I mean, there's no way around it. It was right around the same time, midnight, that Russell Sheepskin came back home for some food. Some of the children had come back downstairs after Lorena left.

He saw Summer sleeping on a love seat. Tannis was on an armchair, and Tamara was sleeping on the couch in the living room. At around 3 a.m., he went outside to smoke a cigarette on the porch. As Russell smoked a cigarette, he was greeted by Dean, who was coming up the front porch steps. For some unknown reason, Dean assaulted Russell, beating him and kicking him and smashing his head through a window. He threatened that if Russell wasn't gone from the home soon, he and two friends would come back for him and attack him again.

Dean left the house, and Russell quickly left out the back door, closing it behind him. But according to him, he left it unlocked. He went to the hospital for stitches, and that was the last time he was ever in the house on Ottawa Street. This assault left blood on the porch And the window that Tam was sleeping next to was broken Presumably none of the children were awakened by the attack on the porch Because Russell didn't see or hear them on his way out as he fled the house Summer never called the rain on the phone as she was instructed to if they needed anything

So apparently they slept through the entire incident And I do think this incident is a very big component in this case It's one that's scrutinized talked about very often you have a fight between two grown men. It sounded like it must have been, you know, pretty intense. Russell needed stitches. But to me, the most intriguing part of it is the fact that this fight resulted in a broken window near where Tamara was supposedly asleep and none of the children woke up,

including her. I just found that to be very intriguing. Yeah, and I think some people have a hard time believing that that actually happened. And, you know, again, when something like this happens, everything gets scrutinized. And then everyone's accounts of what happened gets scrutinized. So some people, you know, sort of come down on one side of the fence. As for me, having two different types of kids, my son is up at the butt crack of dawn. as soon as anyone stirs or the alarm is shut off, whatever, he's up.

My daughter, an alarm could be blaring next to her head for 20 minutes and not budge. So depending on the kids, I could see certain things not waking them up, especially if they're in deep sleep at like three in the morning. Yeah, for sure, every kid is different. You know, every person is different for that matter as far as it comes to sleep. But I do think it's a part of this case that is analyzed heavily. We need to analyze it. It was just after 3 a.m.

That Lorena came home from her friend's house. The doors were locked and she had to crawl in through the window. Summer was on the love seat and Tanis was sleeping on the chair. Lorena went to sleep on the couch. Now, Tamara's 10-year-old brother, Rain would later say that sometime early in the morning, he thought that he felt his sister get up from the bed that they were sharing in a upstairs bedroom. He said the sun was up, but he had no idea what time it was, and he didn't pay much attention to it and then went back to sleep. Sometime between 8 and 9 a.m. Lorina got up and

unlocked the door for her mother, Lois Shepherd, who was on her way over to visit. By 930, Lois arrived at the home and found the door wide open and walked inside. Just before 10 a.m., rain and summer headed off to the community center for a day camp they were enrolled in. By 10,000, 30 a.m. The family had eaten breakfast and were planning to go for a walk, but Tamara hadn't come downstairs yet. Lois told the children to go get Tamara and wake her up, but she was shocked when they told her that she wasn't there. She told CBC Canada that she blurted out. What do you mean she's not there? She rushed upstairs to look for herself, and sure enough, Tamara was gone. The family started searching the home for Tamara, and when she wasn't found, they began searching in the yard

and spread out to the neighborhood in homes or friends and family. After 90 minutes of searching without any sign of Tamara, Lorena called the police service. That evening, Dean came home from his aunt's house where it turned out he had spent the night. And more for me, this is the part, you know, in any kind of unsolved missing person's case, especially when it involves a small child, the point at which parents, family, realized that their child is missing. And in this situation, you've got a bunch of children who are waking up, you know, people are groggy.

We've already talked about some details that are confusing as to where Tamara actually was in the house. And we'll get back to that later in the episode. But the panic, that sense of panic when you realize that you don't know where your child is. Yeah, I think any of us that our parents have had that moment. where your heart jumps out of your chest and you look around and you don't see your child. And then all of a sudden you see them and you get that sense of relief. But it's got to be really tough feeling to scramble around looking for this five-year-old and not find them.

And then you go outside and she's not out in the yard either. And that's when the panic really must have set in because you expect to find them in your home or around the home outside. And to not find her had to be really tough for the family. on July 8th officers did a thorough search of Tamara's Ottawa Street home they didn't find any of the locks broken they didn't find signs of forced entry you know that related to like the doors and things like that obviously they found the broken window and they saw the blood and that would have to be explained the search was expanded outside of the home and included a nine block area around the home. By the next day, July 9th, Larena was upset that the search still seemed

focused on their home and their family when she knew in her mind that Tamara was not there and was some place outside the home. In the coming days, the search was massively expanded to include the downtown area as well as heavily wooded areas, but nothing was found. On July 12th, the search was officially ended by the Regina Police Service. The next day, despite ending the search, they announced that a $25,000 reward would be offered to anyone who could provide a tip about Tamara's whereabouts. So there's a couple of things here, Morven. You know, one of the big things in this case is, did the police do enough? Now, I said this was a massive search. And by all accounts, it was. I mean, there were things in the reporting that talked

about the fact that this was the biggest search in the history of the province. But To end it after three days, that seems pretty short. Okay, it might have been a massive, but it wasn't lengthy, is the way I'm looking at. Yeah, and obviously we don't have all the details about how did they do a grid search, a house-by-house searchers. You know, we don't know the individual pieces of that search, but the police seemed to feel confident that they had scoured enough area that they would have found her if she was someplace to be found.

and I understand that the family's concerned, they probably just wanted them to keep going and going and going, but at some point, I guess they'd come to a decision that, hey, if she was here to be found, we would have found her. While police seemed to be appealing to anyone that could help their investigation, they felt that the answer to Tamara's disappearance could be found in her home. And just two days after the search was called off, the RPS officially began to investigate Lorena and Dean in Tamara's disappearance.

Meanwhile, First Nations volunteers from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations kept searching for Tamara. On July 19, Dean MacArthur was charged with assault causing bodily harm over the altercation with Russell Sheepskin. He claimed that Russell had thrown a joint at his face, causing him to lose his temper and attack, and that Russell had injured him too. He was questioned for 20 hours about Tamara's disappearance, but he claimed to have no answers and no involvement. Soon after, the children were taken from Marina's custody and placed with family under the direction of provincial child protection officials. And authorities did another search of the home, but didn't find anything of value. Police also announced that they had two vehicle descriptions, which may be relevant to Tamara's disappearance. One was a red and silver GMC pickup truck, and the other was an orange 1973 Volkswagen van.

finally an amber alert was issued for Tamara. There was no Amber Alert system in Saskatchewan until July 15th, 2004, days after Tamara disappeared. But at first, the authority said it didn't matter because she wouldn't have met the requirements to release an Amber Alert anyway. Lorena was still upset that the police were spending so much time investigating the family. The family felt that if they had been upper class or not for, nations that they would have been cleared quicker.

And I understand as a family member, if someone goes missing, you have nothing to do with it. You know that the police are wasting their time and you want them to be looking elsewhere, where the truth may lie. But looking at it from the investigator standpoint, most of the time when something like this happens, it's someone that's close to that missing person that holds the clues to what happened. so I understand why the police did spend so much time focusing there close to home. Yeah, I mean, I liken it to a spouse that is murdered.

You know, if you're a husband, let's say, of a woman who is murdered, you're going to be looked at, you're going to be scrutinized very heavily. But when you know you didn't do it, you're going to be upset because you're going to think, hey, police, you're wasting your time. why are you looking at me, you should be out trying to find, you know, whoever did this. But just like what you said, Morph, more often than not, you know, these things happen or the perpetrator is someone who is close at home. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bill. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency.

We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. On September 9, 2004, 32-year-old Walter William Obie was charged with auto theft for stealing a van,

just 10 blocks from the keep in his home on Ottawa Street. The very night the Tamara disappeared. Authorities had found what remained of that van. An orange 1973 Volkswagen van burned on a reserve about 40 miles northeast. or vagina. That van closely matched the description of the vehicle police were looking for in connection with Tamara's disappearance, but police didn't clarify why they were interested in that vehicle. Tips continued to come in. There were multiple false sightings of Tamara, but none of them panned out.

In early August, Guy Lonechild, vice chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, announced that when Tamara disappeared, she and her siblings had only recently returned home from the care of provincial child protection officials, the equivalent of CPS. He wondered if Tamara's family had been given adequate support upon their return. Loraina has denied that the children were ever out of the custody of her or their biological father at any time. Troy Keapness, Tamara's biological father, was charged with assault with a weapon on August 11. He allegedly attacked Dean MacArthur with a baseball bat around 5 a.m. after going to the home on Ottawa Street to, as the Globe and Mail reported, get answers.

But Dean has said that it never happened. He told CBC Canada that it was another misunderstanding. Lorena apparently called the police when she heard Troy and Dean arguing. Soon after this incident, or non-incident, depending on who you believe, Dean admitted during an interview that he knew people thought he was involved in Tamara's disappearance. he told CBC Canada, that's what I'm scared of. People thinking that I'm guilty. For his part, Dean said that when he went back to the home, the night he fought with Russell,

he left the home following that altercation and never went inside. The fight happened on the porch. And then he made his way to his aunt's house for two hours, getting lost and taking rest on the way. So I think a lot of people hear this statement from Dean and question it. okay took you two hours to get to your aunt's house you got lost you took rest along the way it was after a night of drinking so is it possible is it not i don't know these are one of these things morph that get debated during these types of cases you know for me it always comes down to people's statements who's telling the truth who do you believe who do you not believe

And I think in a case like this, when you've got multiple people that are drinking and you have to sort of cobble all these different accounts together and make a timeline and try and figure out what's accurate, what's not, I think it's an uphill battle for investigators to try and put all those puzzle pieces together. Investigators kept plugging away, and over 6,000 people were interviewed in the first year after Tamara's disappearance, but it didn't lead to any breaks in her case. In January, 2006, Dean was sentenced to nine months in jail. for the assault causing bodily harm for his attack on Russell Sheepskin. In May 2006, his appeal for his shorter sentence was thrown out. It wasn't long before some people began to openly wonder if Tamer's case got the attention it deserved, because her family belonged to the White Bear First Nation

from the poorest southeastern Saskatchewan region. Authorities, however, insist that's not the case here. According to Regina Police Service, there were thousands of tips about Tamara's disappearance in the first year of their investigation, And they took all of them seriously, even following up on some in the United States. With no arrests and no sign of Tamara, suspicion by many seemed to shift back close to home. In particular because in the minds of a lot of people, both Russell and Dean have pretty shaky stories.

Russell, who had already been drinking before he went out with Dean that night, doesn't remember the trip to 7-Eleven for the milk. He only remembers being outside of the St. Regis Hotel and drinking a strong beer called extra gold. He doesn't remember where Dean was when he was making food. He doesn't even remember making himself anything. He only remembers eating spaghetti and checking on the kids. There's also about three hours of time that are unaccounted for in Russell's story. To many, it's convenient that he was supposedly so drunk he couldn't remember anything other than that he had spaghetti. But somehow he was very sure that he had seen some of the children at the house when he was there and also recalled that he didn't lock the door when he left them alone in the middle of the night.

As far as Dean, he claims that he was walking to his aunt's house a few blocks away to try and sleep there that night, but that he kept blacking out and getting lost on the way. He also claimed that he accidentally went to her old house, so he didn't get to her new house until around 5.30 a.m. Most people don't believe that it took Dean, drunk or not, over two hours to make it just a few blocks. And people wonder if this just could have been a cover story for the two hours it took him to either take Tamara somewhere else or hand her off to someone and make it back, or the time it took to dispose of her body in a way that she's never been found. And this is where, you know, we get to the part of the story, like we said before, where, you know, people's actions and then their recollection of events gets picked apart later on. This tends to happen in almost every case. So here we have, you know, people questioning Russell and his version of events. We have people questioning Dean and his version of events. And I'll say it again. For me, it always comes down to obviously who is telling the truth. That's the key. But then, you know,

you have to look at what's believable, what's not believable, what's plausible, what's not plausible. But some of those are very tough. You know, could somebody be so drunk that it takes them two hours to, you know, traverse a couple of blocks? I guess. Yeah, I think the wild card in this case is, is the alcohol because we know that all three adults that we've done, talked about were drinking that night and to what degree and how clear they were and what they can remember and how accurate it is. I think for investigators, anytime you bring alcohol into the mix and you're trying to rely on people to give an accurate story, you have to wonder how accurate it's going to be. And that makes a big difference, I think, in a case like this.

If Tamara was in the living room when Russell left for the hospital, as he claimed, this would mean that something happened to Tamara between 3 and 5 a.m. But, but we talked about rain. He was so sure that he felt Tamara get out of the bed sometime in the morning and he remembered there being sunlight. Lorraine believes that Tamara disappeared between 9 a.m. and 10.20 a.m. on July 6th. She's also confident that Dean had nothing to do with her disappearance. She told the Canadian news outlet, the walrus, if I thought he did something to my daughter, I would have killed him myself. If Tamara had been taken in the middle of the night, then what weight on the bed did Rain feel early in the morning? So the one thing I definitely think we have here is, you know,

we have a lot of things that don't really add up to any type of clear picture of what really happened. You know, Raines thought that his sister was in bed with him. He felt her get up, but that it was after sunrise, right? The sun is up, according to him. The timeline is strange. Lorena believes it was after 9 a.m. So, you know, the waters are really muddy here. And we've talked a lot about the possibility that something happened to Tamara and someone in the house may have been responsible or covered it up. But another possibility we need to explore is what if Tamara wasn't taken from the home, but she walked out of it on her own.

And it turns out that Tamara had walked out of her house before, alongside her twin sister, Tannis. One night while they were staying with her father, Troy, they walked four blocks to Lorena's home and knocked on the door in the middle of the night. Is it possible that Tamara did get out of bed sometime in the morning when rain fell to wait shift on the mattress, only to walk up the door and meet some kind of misfortune? we just don't know. Well, it seems possible there's no evidence one way or another of that happening. This case is in some ways very similar to the case of Aisha degree because it's also extremely puzzling.

By all appearances, 9-year-old Aisha packed aback and walked out of her Shelby, North Carolina home, into the darkness on a rainy night. Her brother O'Brien, who shared a room with her, heard her bed squeak like she was moving around. but he assumed she was getting up to go to the bathroom. She apparently left her home and then vanished. She took a bag which had her house key in it and was spotted walking down the highway alone that night, making it unlikely that she was kidnapped from her home. There have been no answers as to why she left home that night where she was going, who could have lured her out into a storm, or what happened to her after she was seen

walking down that highway alone, perhaps like Asia. Could Tamara have headed off on her own with her brother, you know, just assuming she was getting up to go to the bathroom? Tamara's mom, Lorena, has a theory of her own. She had a friend she and her kids called Big Auntie. Lorena had known her since she was young, and she let Big Annie stay at her home. Big Annie and Lorraine had an argument one day, and she left. Lorena didn't realize at first that she wasn't coming back to the house, but she never saw her again. The argument took place just before Tamara disappeared.

Looking back, some things about Big Annie seemed like red flags to Lorena. She would sometimes claim to be pregnant when she wasn't, and the name she gave Lorena wasn't the name on her medical records that Lorena saw once. Trying to get in touch with her, Lorina asked around, but no one had seen Big Annie since she left following her argument. When Big Annie's sister passed away, she didn't even show up to her funeral. The timing of Big Annie's vanishing around the time Tamara disappeared seems like too much of a coincidence to Lorena. So now we have the introduction of this mysterious woman named Big Anty. We don't know if police know the identity of Big Anty or if they have tracked her down and questioned her.

The theory about Big Anty taking Tamara is not really a stretch. There are plenty of cases where women have claimed to be pregnant when they weren't, but wanted a child so badly that they were willing to go to. extreme measures. In December 2004, just months after Tamara disappeared, the murder of Bobby Joe Stennett made the news. She was eight months pregnant when Lisa Montgomery killed her and then without harming the fetus cut her abdomen to steal the baby right out of her. Multiple tips were called in about Montgomery who had faked multiple pregnancies but was sterile due to a tubal ligation, making these pregnancies impossible. And then all of a sudden, she had an actual baby. She was sentenced to

death for the murder and kidnapping. Like Montgomery, Big Auntie was known to fake pregnancies. So obviously, more of Tamara was not a newborn baby, but could this woman have wanted a child of her own so badly that she was willing to take Tamara? Yeah, and I think anytime someone's talking about being pregnant when they're not, you have to wonder, is that someone that's so desperate for a child that they're making things up? Are they stable and might that kind of action result in them abducting a child? And that also, we can't forget, this happened right after a big fight that they had, so it might be something that pushed her over the edge, possibly. There's certainly cases in which people have been known to kidnap children to try

and raises their own. In December 2019, the body of 33-year-old Heidi Broussard was found in the trunk of a car parked at the house of one of her best friends. Her three-week-old daughter, Margo, was found inside the home near Houston, Texas, alive. Megan Fermuska, who had been friends with Heidi since they met at a church camp when they were 11 years old, was charged with Heidi's murder and for kidnapping baby Margo. Megan had announced a pregnancy of her own while Heidi was pregnant, and after kidnapping Margo, Megan announced her boyfriend that she had given birth to their child, a girl. Margo was very young when she was kidnapped. And I guess more if technically it could be possible for someone to pass off a, you know,

three week old baby as, you know, a newborn who had just been born, you know, a few days ago. But Tamara was five years old. She could talk. She would have memories. And you would need to come up with five years of fake biograph. information to really make it seem like she was your child. This seems like it would be very difficult to get away with. You know, every doctor's visit, every single day that the child went to school, every

trip to the grocery store where a stranger could recognize them. How could someone keep up that kind of ruse when the child can remember their past, their family? It just seems like it would be extremely difficult. If someone did take Tamara, people have raised the question, why her specifically and not one of the other children in the home that night? Lorena had three children after Tamara went missing. If she's alive somewhere, she has three siblings she's never met. After being evicted and moving multiple times, Lorena's belongings were all thrown out.

The only pictures she has of Tamara are the few that were put on posters to alert the public that she was missing. Lorraine and Dean have remained on-again-off-again partners. While a lot of attention in this case is focused on Lorena's boyfriend Dean and his friend Russell, there are many people that think not enough attention has been paid to Lorraine herself. Many have accused her and Dean together of harming Tamara or selling her to pay off some sort of drug debt. The two have both struggled with addiction and alcoholism, but there simply isn't any evidence that this ever happened. If they did do something to Tamara and work together to cover up her disappearance, it had to be after Russell Sheepskin left around 3 a.m. If he's telling the truth. If there had been

some sort of accident and they concocted the story of their fight and going to separate places as some sort of alibi, how did Russell see Tamara sleep on the couch near the other children? If something had already happened to Tamara, how did the other children not notice before she was moved wherever she ended up? And again, Tamara's brother seemed to believe that Tamara got out of bed after the sun came up. If Russell Sheepskin knew more than he was saying, his secrets are safe because he died on January 1st, 2009. In November 2014, a post by a now deleted username showed up on the subreddit for the city of Regina. This post read, location of Tamara Keepness, check the wells. With the post was a hand-drawn map depicting an area with old wells that should be searched. Authorities change

down this lead and ended up finding 30 wells on the Moscow-Petong-Saltow First Nation, northeast of Regina, the poster on Reddit claimed that their grandmother, who had since passed away, had received the map from her aunt, who was also deceased. The aunt had visited someone in prison a few times, and she drew the map based on information from those visits. Elizabeth Popovich, a spokeswoman for the Regina Police Service told CBC Canada, it's important to remember this tip, like every other, has to be weighed, has to be evaluated. So more of obviously, Tamara was not found. They checked out all these wells, but I want to go back to this statement by this spokeswoman. You know, every tip has to be weighed, has to be evaluated. You know, in some of these cases that we do,

you know, we're talking about thousands of tips. that come in. Can every tip, can every lead be checked? Well, it depends on the resources that the authorities have. I don't believe in every case each and every tip can be fully vetted. So then it does have to come down to weighing which ones the resources are going to go to to be checked out. And I think it, you know, if we look at like this well thing, for example, is it, it someone providing a map and saying, I think you need to look in this area because of X, Y, and Z? Or is it a psychic saying, you know, I have these visions of a kid falling in a well? So, you know, maybe the police put more emphasis on the very specific information with a map as opposed to a psychic that's getting visions of a kid falling in a well.

So I think in that kind of instance, you can sort of put more weight on one than the other. Despite the passing of each year since Tamara vanished, she hasn't been forgotten. Each year there's a barbecue at Pepsi Park in Regina on July 5th. It's hosted jointly by the Regina Police Service and the Regina Treaty Status Indian Services. The Regina Police Chief told Regina's CVT news that we poured our life into this investigation to try and find out where Tamara went. The Regina Police Service continues to look into all tips regarding Tamara's whereabouts. We are always hoping that we get that one piece of information that is going to give us some lead where we can follow up and hopefully locate Tamara.

If Tamara truly got the investigation, she deserved, like the one Chief Bray describes, then it's even more puzzling considering the massive search, thousands of leads being checked out, and still no answers. What we don't know and what has hamstrung the investigation in some ways is whether Tamara was abducted from the home or whether she walked out on her own. We don't even know if she was alive or dead when she ultimately left the home. If someone is lying, was it Russell, who swears he left the children alone in an unlocked house after Dean left?

Or is it Dean who swears that after he left the kids in Russell's care, though he had just beaten Russell, he wondered for two hours? Or was it both of them? and perhaps Dean's attack on Russell was related in some way to the disappearance. You know, we talked about it early on. There was blood on the porch assumed to be from their fight. But was it covering for something that happened to Tamara near the porch or did their fight with Tamara sleeping near the window that they smashed hurt her in some way and they panicked

and then covered it up. And we also can't forget some people have been suspicious of Lorena. Could she have any involvement in it? There's a lot of different avenues to go down. And it seems that no one's alibi is more solid than another's in this case. And no one is really more or less suspicious than others. But they were all questioned and none of them were arrested. And that investigation to them has not led to Tamara's whereabouts.

The FBI continually puts out releases about Asia degree that make it seem like they're directly appealing for her to come forward and admit that she is alive somewhere after all these years. Perhaps Canadian officials could take the same approach with Tamara's case. Perhaps she's out there now as an adult someplace and has memories or suspicions of her past and she might one day come forward. I do think there's a little bit of difference between Tamara and Asia. Tamara was only five years old. And I remember when you and I did the Asia degree case, we were dumbfounded that she would leave on her own at the age of nine and be able to navigate. So for me, a five-year-old, I'm even more dubious about that.

Not that a five-year-old couldn't get out of the house. That could definitely happen. But take care of themselves. No, I'm not getting that. It seems like, you know, if she, to me, if she did leave the house, she met with some type of, of misfortune, but I want to go back to all these people involved to some degree, because they were close to the family or direct relatives and their alibis. You know, we talked about everything being kind of muddy.

Some of that I think has to do with the fact that they were drinking, maybe using other substances. I don't know, but it definitely plays a part in this case. I think the problem with this case is there's possible angles to explore, but no evidence pointing to any one thing happening. You know, there's no eyewitnesses saying that she walked out the door with so-and-so. The witnesses in this case have sort of different timelines, each being on their own, moving in and out of the house that night.

It just seems like a real tough puzzle for police to try and put the pieces together. and establish something here with no clear evidence pointing in any one direction or at any one person. I will say, you know, I obviously I don't know what happened. I wish I did. But this angle that you see quite a bit online about the fight between Russell and Dean could it have resulted in something terrible happening to Tamara and then people panicking and and trying to cover it up. You know, Russell has said he saw her sleeping in a chair or whatever it was next to that window that ultimately got broken. To me, that's an interesting angle.

I have no idea if there's, you know, anything to it. But in a case like this with like you said, Morf, where, you know, there's a. a lot of different angles, but there's really nothing to suggest one is more relevant than the next. You know, in a lot of cases we do, there seems to be at least on the part of the general public or the online sluice, if not the police, kind of a prevailing theory or, you know, a suspect who appears to be stronger than everyone else. I don't even know. I don't even know. if we have that here. I don't think we do. Obviously, people are very suspicious of both Dean and Russell to varying degrees. Like you mentioned, people are also very suspicious of Lorena.

Now, what is that based on? The fact that she left her kids at home, went out drinking. I do think you have to look at motive, because that's important in every case. What would be the motive for her to want to harm her own child. I have no idea what that would be. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen because we see things like that happen all the time. But then the question is why Tamara, as opposed to any of the other children? And I think that's why some people think and point to a theory of an accident happening and one or more people covering it up. Something like that could obviously happen, but there's, again, just no evidence.

of that. And that's what's frustrating. And I think what this case is really missing is the one big clue. Like we talked about Asia Degree's case. In her case, there was that one big clue. It was an eyewitness seeing her walking down the road at night by herself. If they didn't have that clue, who knows? This might be a very, very similar situation here. Did she walk out on her own? Did the parents do something to her? Did someone come in and take her away? That question could still be going on Asia Degrees case. But with that eyewitness account, that added that big clue that helped police come to determination about what they think happened.

And that's what we're missing in this case. And that's why it is and will remain a very big mystery until, you know, police are able to get that one clue or somebody finally comes forward and says, look, this is what happened. I'm ready to tell. all. Without one of the other, it's going to continue to be a mystery. The Regina Police Service is still offering a $50,000 reward for information that helps determine what happened to Tamara and where she is. If you have any leads, you can contact the Regina Police Service at 306-777-6-6500, or you can contact Child Find at 1-800-387-39-79-69-69.

If you want to remain anonymous, you can contact Crime Stoppers by calling 1-800-22-8477. Thanks because of the Sunny Landon for help with writing and research in this episode. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done it yet. take a minute, go out, give us a rating, leave a review. All of that stuff helps propel the podcast. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans. Some more, if that is it for our episode on Tamara Keepness, you know, hopefully this is one that

get solved sometime in the near future. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So until then for Mike. And Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

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