After decades, families in Yukon still have questions about the deaths of their loved ones

In Upper Liard, Yukon, a sacred fire is lit as the family of Ann Mary Dick gather in her memory. Although very few of her family knew 18-year-old Ann Mary. She was killed 62 years ago. A man confessed to the crime and a trial was held, but he was ultimately found not guilty on a technicality. Decades later, the story around Ann Mary’s death is a lost narrative in the small Kaska community. Her siblings are working hard to bring her story back to light. Her family says Ann Mary was a survivor of Lower Post Residential School. They described her as a happy Kaska mother who loved being on the land. “I worked on her case for so long,” said Maryann Dick, as she sat at a picnic table next to the fire. She was named after her late older sister. “It will never come out of my head. It will never come out of my heart. I’m so heartbroken the way she died.” Ann Mary Dick in an undated photo courtesy of the family. Maryann and her brothers Joseph and John Dick only recently obtained all of the information about Ann Mary’s 1963 death. According to court documents, “there was a drinking party of a group of Indians in a house” in Upper Liard. Early the next morning, Ann Mary was noticed lying dead on the kitchen floor. In court, witnesses said they thought she was passed out after drinking. By the time police were called, Ann Mary had been laying there for at least 12 hours. She was partially covered with a sleeping bag, her blouse was lifted, revealing a bullet wound in her chest. Twenty-six-year-old Charlie Lewis from Mayo, Yukon was charged with murder, but found not guilty. According to court documents, Lewis said he doesn’t remember pulling the trigger. He testified he was “twirling the rifle across the front of his body and not facing Dick when the gun went off accidentally.” When two constables took Lewis in for questioning, they did not read him the usual police warning. According to court documents, Const. Michael Raspberry told Lewis if he was involved in the death of Ann Mary, “it would be best if he got it off his chest and eased his mind.” “Alright, I did it,” Lewis said, before bringing the officers to the weapon. It was stored 40 meters away from the house. But because Lewis’s confession was not voluntary, it was not considered valid evidence. Maryann Dick sits on a bench that was made in honour of her sister Ann Mary. Photo: Tamara Pimentel/APTN. “Justice is not served,” Ann Mary’s nephew Daniel Dick said, “There’s a total injustice in my aunt. It feels like her life was never valued.” “When I first heard of it, I was devastated, I was hurt, I was angry,” added her brother, Joseph. During an interview with APTN Investigates, the family of Ann Mary Dick read her autopsy report for the first time. The report begins by describing her as a “well-developed native girl” who had a severely damaged heart. There was evidence her body had been abused after her death. Peter Ladue and Timmy Dick were charged and convicted of indignity to a human body and served two years behind bars. In court Timmy said he realized she was dead when he committed the act. “I want justice for her because there was nothing for her,” Maryann said. “Justice wasn’t fair for our sister Ann.” The case of Tootsie Jimmy-Charlie The RCMP sketch of Tootsie Jimmy-Charlie. The story of Ann Mary’s death is not an isolated incident. The death of another Kaska woman remains a mystery almost 60 years later. In 1967, the body of Tootsie Jimmy-Charlie was found near a Whitehorse landfill. Fifty-five years later, in August, 2022, the RCMP publicly apologized for an inadequate investigation into her death. The apology followed a complaint filed by Tootsie’s family through the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) for the RCMP after the family testified at the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2017. An inquest report concluded Tootsie died of ‘misadventure’ due to exposure and alcohol consumption. It’s been three years since the apology. RCMP have since re-opened the investigation, deemed Tootsie’s death as suspicious and released a sketch of her in hopes of getting more answers from the public. The sketch is the only photo Tootsie’s family have of her. “I don’t even know my mother. They took us away at a very early age,” said Tootsie’s daughter, Darlene Jimmy. “We were mostly in the residential school or living in private homes or other people’s homes.” Darlene and her brother Jack Jimmy met with APTN near Upper Liard Yukon where their mother lived. They shared the complaint that was filed against the RCMP It states “Soon after the forcible taking of her children, Tootsie was found intoxicated inside a bar in Whitehorse.” This happened in 1967, a time when the Indian Act prohibited Indigenous people from consuming alcohol off-reserve. Tootsie was arrested. When released, she was only given a bus ticket to get back home to Upper Liard, four-and-a-half hours away from Whitehorse. She never made it. Her body was discovered two months later. Darlene Jimmy holds RCMP sketch of her mother Tootsie Jimmy-Charlie. Photo: Tamara Pimentel/APTN. The complaint reveals biases and racism that led to the flawed investigation into Tootsie’s death. It quotes a manuscript from Cpl. Stanley McLeod, who helped with Tootsie’s case. McLeod admitted Tootsie’s death was written off as accidental which was “a poor substitute for what really occurred.” He said there was also evidence that tootsie was last seen with two men, a detail that was dismissed in the investigation. In 2019 McLeod was asked if the investigation had explored whether Tootsie could have been sexually assaulted. In the CRCC Final Report he was quoted: “I’m pretty sure as far as I remember no there was no, it wasn’t a sexual assault, it would have been consensual anyway if she did. If she did, she was the type of person it would have been consensual anyway… She wouldn’t have been hard to rape I don’t think. She, we used to say, they rape easy. “She had a history of drinking too much and screwing around with anybody that would take her.” Darlene said she “couldn’t get over” how they talked about her. “How they talked about her in a real cruel, horrible way,” Darlene said. “They didn’t even put that down on the paper when they apologized.” Read more: ‘We failed her family’: Yukon RCMP apologize for shoddy investigation into 1967 death  APTN has not been able to track McLeod down for comment. For Darlene and Jack, finding out how their mother died will bring them one step toward closure. To this day, they still don’t know where Tootsie was laid to rest. “I hope they just let her rest and find the person that actually did that to her,” Darlene said. “It’s been going on too long and her children have been going on like this forever.” Continue Reading