The Trail Went Cold - Episode 295 - Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

May 26, 1986. Frobisher Bay, Northwest Territories. After returning home from a trip, the sister of 15-year old Mary Ann Birmingham enters their residence and discovers that Mary Ann has been stabbed to death. Months later, a local resident named Jopie Atsiqtaq pops up on the radar as a potential suspect after he is charged with the similar stabbing deaths of two other victims. Even though Atsiqtaq is initially charged with killing Mary Ann, he denies any involvement and since the evidence is deemed insufficient for him to stand trial, the crime is never solved. Mary Ann Birmingham’s murder is just the first case we’ll be covering on this week’s special episode of “The Trail Went Cold” about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls from Northern Canada. In total, we’ll be exploring nine unsolved cold cases involving Indigenous female victims which took place in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. The nine victims are 15-year old Ann Birmingham, 38-year old Tabitha Kalluk, 46-year old Della “Jochebed” Ootoova, 18-year old Leona Brule, 15-year old Charlene Catholique, 24-year old Mary Rose Keadjuk, 17-year old Mariella Lennie, 39-year old Dorothy Abel and 22-year old Angela Meyer. If you have information about the murder of Mary Ann Birmingham, please contact the Iqaluit detachment of the RCMP at (867) 979-0123. If you have information about any of the other featured cases from the Northwest Territories, please contact their RCMP’s Historical Case Unit at (867) 669-1111. If you have information about any of the featured cases from Nunavut, please contact the Canadian Crime Stoppers Association at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). The Trail Went Cold has made donations to the following organizations in support of Indigenous women’s and girls’ issues in Canada. The Native Women’s Association of Canada: https://nwac.ca Amnesty International’s No More Stolen Sisters program: https://www.amnesty.ca/what-we-do/no-more-stolen-sisters/ Additional Reading: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mary-ann-birmingham-anniversary-mmiw-1.4131421 https://nunatsiaq.com/stories/article/65674after_30_years_iqaluit_girls_murder_still_unsolved/ https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20180314_MMIWG_Montreal_Public_Vol_65_-Birmingham.pdf https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/mmiw/profiles/tabitha-niaqutiaq-kalluk https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/mmiw/profiles/della-ootoova https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/20180221_MMIWG_Rankin_Inlet_Public_Vol_47a_Nashook.pdf https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/mmiw/profiles/leona-mae-brule https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/476716020/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/475559912/ https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/mmiw/profiles/charlene-candice-catholique https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/aunt-remembers-charlene-catholique-1.5660623 https://www.nnsl.com/news/yk-cold-case-files-what-happened-to-charlene-catholique-part-1/ https://www.nnsl.com/news/yk-cold-case-files-what-happened-to-charlene-catholique-part-2/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mary-rose-keadjuk-remains-identified-1.4547174 https://www.nnsl.com/news/yk-cold-case-what-happened-to-mary-rose-keadjuk/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mariella-lennie-homicide-still-unsolved-after-more-than-20-years-1.3025591 https://www.nnsl.com/news/yk-cold-case-files-what-happened-to-mariella-lennie/ http://itstartswithus-mmiw.com/our-mother-dorothy-georgina-abel/ https://unsolvedcasefiles.ca/Files/1996/dorothy.php https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/mmiw/profiles/angela-carmen-pitseolak-meyer https://www.nnsl.com/news/yk-cold-case-what-happened-to-angela-meyer/ https://www.nnsl.com/news/yk-cold-case-part-2-the-search-for-angela-meyer/ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mmiwg-inquiry-yellowknife-meyer-1.4500825 https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/lack-of-mental-health-care-a-factor-in-missing-womans-disappearance-family/ https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/20180123_MMIWG_Ye

Transcript

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0:00.0	May 26th, 1986.
0:03.2	Froba Shurbe, Northwest Territories.
0:06.3	After returning home from a trip, the sister of 15-year-old Mary Ann Birmingham enters the
0:11.3	residence and discovers that Mary Ann has been stabbed to death.
0:15.0	Months later, a local resident named Jopi Assitic
0:19.0	pops up on the radar as a potential suspect
0:21.0	after he is charged with a similar stabbing deaths of two other victims.
0:25.5	Even though at Sictic is initially charged with Mary Ann's murder, he denies any involvement and
0:30.4	the evidence is deemed insufficient for him to stand trial so the crime is never solved.
0:36.0	After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, uh, and uh, and uh, and uh, and uh, uh,
0:45.0	uh, uh, uh, for, uh, for the uh, uh,
0:48.0	uh, I'm not. Oh, uh,
0:54.0	and uh,
0:55.0	there, uh, uh, uh, uh,
0:58.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
1:00.0	uh, Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail went cold.
1:18.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and this week we're going to be returning to our
1:21.8	podcast Home Country of Canada to do something a little different from the norm.
1:26.0	We're going to be profiling the stories of nine missing and murdered indigenous women from the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
1:33.8	As you probably know, earlier this year, the Trail went cold reached a milestone in which
1:38.1	we managed to cover at least one cold case from all 50 American states, so I made it a goal to eventually do the same thing for every
1:45.2	Canadian province and territory.
	...

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