Seeking justice for the Starlight Tours
By Paul Breschuk
Features Editor
December 2, 2009
 In contrast to the brewing investigative frenzy outside, Neil Stonechild’s frozen body waited quietly inside the morgue of a Saskatoon hospital. There, while his grieving family searched for answers, his body thawed for three days before an autopsy could be performed.
When the procedure was finally conducted, curious markings were found on his body. He had indentations on his wrists and two parallel cuts across the bridge of his nose. In a public inquiry that followed, witnesses would testify that they were they were the markings of handcuffs. The evidence presented at the Stonechild inquiry would later implicate Constables Bradley Senger and Lawrence Hartwig of the Saskatoon Police Service, whose own police records showed that they had picked up Stonechild in their cruiser just hours before his death.
Power of memory
November 25 marked the 19th anniversary of Neil Stonechild’s death. And while the case remains unresolved, journalists and artists work continuously to keep his memory alive.
Susanne Reber’s efforts lead to the 2006 release of her co-authored book, Starlight Tour: The Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild (Random House). Reber, who led CBC’s Investigate Unit for six years, and her writing partner, Robert Renaud, now a CBC manager in Ottawa, spent time in Saskatoon during the inquiry, obtaining interviews with key players before subpoenas forced them into silence.
“The case bothered me to my core that this boy was found frozen to death in the middle of a field. I just could not help feeling that this was the loneliest death imaginable,” said Reber, explaining how her initial reaction in part became inspiration for the book and its title.
“Once we had met Stella Stonechild-Bignell and Donald Worme and his nephew Jason Roy, I knew that I wanted to write the book. The connections between them were so interesting that I knew that only a book could do justice to the characters and the cinematic quality of the narrative that was their story,” said Reber.
Artists have also entered the foray, the most recent being Regina-based painter David Garneau. His exhibition, which ran in July 2009, featured a work derived from Stonechild’s now infamous autopsy photo which he titled, Evidence. The image, used in court to show facial wounds possibly caused by handcuffs, has been recreated by the painter through a careful arrangement of dots. By a technique similar to pointillism, the image loses none of its ability to shock its viewers.
In a sense, Garneau’s reimagining is even more disturbing than the original source.
Evidence has not come without its criticism, however, with some viewers bringing up issues of taste and appropriateness. True, there is a certain sanctity involved with photographs of the dead that cannot be overlooked. The artist himself even toyed with the idea of covering the painting with a veil. However, with the backing of First Nations elders, he realized that it would be wrong not to display the painting in full.
“Artists are like shamans,” said Garneau. “To pursue their research, they may need to violate protocols. They are granted a certain license, though, because their results often provide a social good greater than the harms their research may inflict.”
The healing properties of art cannot be denied, no matter how tough the medicine.
Questions of Evidence’s appropriateness are also answered by Brenda Francis Pelkey, Director of UWindsor’s School of Visual Arts. Having lived in Saskatoon during the time of Stonechild’s death, she feels a connection with the case as well as Garneau’s art, believing its censorship to be out of the question.
“To take on Stonechild’s death as subject matter is to take on racism as a subject matter,” said Pelkey. “When I first moved to Saskatoon in 1980, I remember reading in the paper of ‘unidentified male body found in river’ during the spring when the river thawed. It seemed every spring there were one or two bodies found. After the investigations, the bodies stopped turning up in the river and fields. In a province where systemic racism runs as deep as it does in Saskatchewan, work like Garneau’s is important and it is an important reminder everywhere.”
Pelkey contends that Stonechild’s image should not disappear because “the underlying issues which caused Stonechild's death, racist attitudes and behaviours, have also not disappeared.”
Neil's story
Prior to the night of Nov. 24, 1990, Stonechild was a handsome, likeable, and gifted 17-year old. Despite having a history of police encounters, his social workers would be the first to dispel the myth of him being a lost cause.
He was known as a talented high school wrestler who had begun to attend A.A. meetings in an attempt to turn his life around.
Sadly, these hints of brightness in his sometimes cloudy early life have become overshadowed by the tragic manner in which he died. Attracting racism and stereotyping, his First Nations ethnicity would also be cause for some to label him as just another problematic native. Further still, these racist attitudes may have led to a more dire injustice, the loss of his life.
The events of that tragic night still remain cloudy. Yet, certain pieces of evidence stand out in haunting clarity like a dark shape set amidst the blinding white snow of a Saskatoon morning. One of the most troubling aspects of the story comes from the testimony of Stonechild’s friend, Jason Roy, who was the last person to have recorded seeing the death bound teenager. He recalls watching his bloodied friend in the back of a a police cruiser, screaming, “They’re gonna kill me.”
Five days later, Stonechild’s body was found in the barren, industrial outskirts of town. Cause of death was ruled to be hypothermia, an obvious conclusion given the night’s temperature had approached a deadly -30 Celsius.
The question remains: what was the lightly dressed teenager doing in such a remote area? By the time he reached his resting place, with footprints staggering to a final halt, he was missing a shoe. His glove-less hands were found curled up into his jacket. Obviously, this dangerous trek through the endless snow fields of Saskatoon was something he had not planned for.
The case remained a mystery, sliding away from public perception for over a decade. Meanwhile, there had been a steady increase in similar types of freezing deaths, mostly of Saskatoon’s First Nations people. Rumours began to swirl, implicating police involvement in what are known as starlight tours. These tours included the unlawful release of a suspect on the outskirts of town, leaving one to face a sobering walk home instead of being processed at the jail. While this conduct may seem harmless in the summer, it would turn deadly in Saskatoon’s sub-zero winter months.
In January of 2000, Darrell Night was lucky enough to survive his starlight tour, walking several freezing kilometers to safety from where the police had dropped him off. He had only been wearing a T-shirt. After his case was made public, an RCMP investigation was formed to investigate the freezing deaths. In the end, Dan Hatchen and Ken Munson were fined with forcible confinement for Night’s starlight tour.
Stonechild’s case received particular attention, finally capturing the interest of the nation. He quickly became a symbol of the starlight tour, the most recognizable victim despite the court’s failure to put closure to his story. While lack of evidence has spared Constables Senger and Hartwig of criminal charges, they were ultimately fired from the police force.
The case still remains open, a painful wound for Stonechild’s mother, Stella, who only wants to know how her son died.
“Stella just wants someone to tell her what happened and say sorry. Clearly that has not occurred and so the case remains open,” said Reber. “November is always a tough time of year for her.”
While no one has ever been charged with Stonechild’s death, some positive changes have been made in Saskatoon as a result of its appearing in the media spotlight.
“Justice David Wright was scathing in his criticism of the Saskatoon Police Service for the way in which all of this was handled and the way in which the police service tried to cover it all up,” said Reber. “In Saskatoon the police felt it was acceptable to drop people off at the edge of town in freezing temperatures and in part the reason they got away with it was the native community was too scared to speak up. Since the inquiry and the book that fear has been broken. The secret is out in the open and there have been no freezing deaths in Saskatoon since.”
Over 19 years after Stonechild’s death, the practice of starlight tours has seemingly been put to an end. While this in itself is a major victory, the fact remains that no one has yet to be charged with his murder. The work of writers and artists such as Reber, Renaud, and Garneau, evidences the way in which Stonechild’s story will linger until justice has finally been met. |
