Calls to 'search the landfill' grow in Calgary during MMIW vigil
CTV
A group gathered at the East Calgary Landfill on Saturday to pray, to heal and to call for a 2016 criminal investigation to be re-opened.
A group gathered at the East Calgary Landfill on Saturday to pray, to heal and to call for a 2016 criminal investigation to be re-opened.
Parts of the body of 25-year-old Joey English were found in a Crescent Heights park in June of 2016. Shortly after, a man she knew admit to cutting up English's body and scattering her remains. Police conducted a brief search for the young Calgarian's undiscovered limbs, but parts of her have still not been discovered.
On Saturday, her mother said the unanswered questions mean she hasn't completely received closure.
"My daughter still lays in the landfill," Natowawakii English said. "It angers me, because what am I supposed to tell her daughter? How am I supposed to tell her, 'Oh, your mom is in the landfill?'"
English gathered together Indigenous elders this weekend to bless each landfill within city limits.
She hopes the process will bring healing and answers for the community, which has been reeling from similar cases in recent years.
"This must stop," she told CTV News. "Stop with our people, in all walks of life, being thrown away like garbage."