by Lori Shenher
On my last day shift, I saw large blotches on the computer screen in front of me. I sat there for several minutes, thinking that I’d stared too long at a fluorescent light and that the spots would fade, but they didn’t. Within fifteen minutes, Toby—fearing a repeat of a brain tumor that had killed a colleague of ours a few years back—rushed me to St. Paul’s Hospital, where doctors thoroughly examined me, suspecting a detached retina. The diagnosis was an aural migraine, probably brought on by stress and irregular sleep patterns. We’d worked four night shifts before turning around to day shift, and I hadn’t been up all night in years. I put the episode aside, hoping I could ride it out and succeed in my bid for promotion.
23
The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry
• • •
“Do not wait for the last judgment. It comes every day.”
ALBERT CAMUS, THE FALL
I FEEL SO alone on my first day of testimony, January 30, 2012. The preparation throughout the weeks leading up to it winds me tighter and tighter as I relive so much of the work I’d done on the file with the commission, Vancouver Police Union (VPU), and City of Vancouver counsel, reviewing documents and memos I’d written begging my supervisors for more resources. Reliving the ineffectual nature of our work, the helplessness in imploring the RCMP to investigate the Ellingsen tip—all of this is like going back to a crime scene for me. The lawyers I work with treat me so well, and I feel grateful for their professionalism and interest.
In the first weeks of the inquiry, witnesses such as VPD Deputy Chief Constable Doug LePard, Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Constable Jennifer Evans, various experts from the criminology and sociology worlds, and family members of the victims testify for days on end, time a seemingly endless commodity. I become increasingly anxious, fearing I will be on the stand for weeks if people with far less to answer for are taking several days to testify.
I follow the testimony from the commission’s start in October 2011, and even listening to that evidence proves difficult for me emotionally. As I listen one day, lawyers for the Vancouver police begin talking about Cara Ellis, a woman who’d gone missing in 1997. Her sister-in-law, Lori-Ann Ellis, first reported Cara missing to the Vancouver police in 1998, when the Calgary woman’s own search of the Downtown Eastside turned up nothing. Cara’s DNA was found on the Pickton farm in 2004, her blood on a prayer card featuring the words of the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” located in Pickton’s slaughterhouse.
I’ve known about Cara Ellis as a victim of Pickton but not the timeline of her disappearance; I’ve always assumed she had gone missing after my time working in Project Amelia, because I’d never heard of her until the last few years. Her file was somehow misplaced, abandoned in a drawer in the Missing Persons office, and Cara’s information hadn’t been entered or retained in a manner that would have enabled her case to be investigated further. Physically sick at the thought that I missed this entire case, I contact Sean Hern, a lawyer representing the City of Vancouver, during a break in the testimony I have been watching from my office.
“Sean, tell me I didn’t have anything to do with Cara Ellis,” I blurt. I’d seen Lori-Ann in the press and read about Cara for years since Pickton’s arrest, but I’d never had any dealings with the file. Suddenly, I find myself questioning my memory and sanity. Sean, a quiet sea of calm in a noisy, stormy legal world, has become used to my excitability throughout the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.
“No, her file was lost in a drawer somewhere in the Missing Persons office. You never would have seen it,” he reassures me, his voice filled with regret. “It’s a mess, but you had nothing to do with it.”
“Thank God,” I say. “I mean, I wish I’d seen it, but I knew I hadn’t. Oh my God, this is awful.” Sean agrees.
The days of my preparation are long, and the constant immersion in those events of 1998 to 2002 shakes me deeply, as though I am experiencing all that grief and loss freshly a second time. In small part, I feel excited and energized that finally, after more than twelve years, this inquiry is happening. I feel hopeful that when this is done, I can move on and take all I’ve learned and use it for good. Working with the commission lawyers and my own counsel encourages me. It is refreshing to be among people who agree that the events of 1999 regarding Pickton and Ellingsen are murky at best and need to be better known and understood.
Each day before my testimony at the inquiry, I walk to a 6:00 AM yoga class to calm myself and physically prepare for long days of sitting. Strict personal routines have been my friend and lifeline as well as my prison since 2002, and this week of testimony further intensifies my need for a regular, predictable daily regimen. I’ve been practicing yoga since 2005, when I sought it out in desperation, unable to cope with my PTSD. Historically, I’ve dealt with stress through running and other exercise, but I’ve reached a point where I ache all the time and my old strategies aren’t working. Now, I cling to my yoga like a life preserver.
My class ends at 7:30 AM, after which I walk down the street, drop into a juice bar, and buy a double shot of wheatgrass with an OJ chaser. I am terrified of illness and worried that touching the handholds on the Canada Line trains might cause me to contract the flu or something worse, and I hope that wheatgrass will boost my immunity. I have become a compulsive hand washer and obsessively use hand sanitizer. Wheatgrass is the strongest thing that passes my lips these days.
The juice bar guy recognizes me from the news, and I feel grateful to have him to chat with over these four days. I continue to the grocery store for a couple of bananas and an energy bar, but I stop going there when I see with shock my own image staring out at me from the cover of the National Post in the check-out line. When I feel ready to enter the VPD building—an act I’ve found more and more difficult to perform since 2002—I shower and dress for court.
I brought my court clothes for the week down early on the preceding Saturday morning, hoping not to run into anyone. Since 2002, I’ve had a great deal of difficulty being in and around the VPD offices and officers, and straying from my normal worksite and routine causes me a lot of anxiety. My isolation is self-imposed, and I push people away and distance myself more and more from the police world over time. I mistrust the police in general and the entire institution’s ability to protect or save anyone in need. Berating myself for having these limitations makes me feel even worse. Suck it up. Go into the office, for God’s sake. It’s just a workplace. It isn’t the damn farm. It isn’t your old project room.
This first morning, I step onto the elevator and run into an inspector I know who says, “So, all ready for your big day?” I nod. There are a couple of other policemen in the elevator I have never met, and one speaks up.
“Why? What’s she doing?” asks the young policeman.
“She’s testifying at the missing women inquiry,” the inspector answers.
“Oh, jeez, is that thing still dragging on? What more do those people want?” the young cop says, rolling his eyes. I just raise my eyebrows at the inspector and step out of the elevator, thankful we are at the bottom. Welcome to my world.
“Good luck,” the inspector calls. “Is anyone driving you?”
“Nope.” I say, walking out of the building toward the Canada Line station.
When I arrive at the federal court building, I ride the elevator to the eighth floor, grateful to be the only person inside. As the doors open, I scan left and right—another habit I’ve developed since 2002. Never do I enter a room or location without checking left and right. I have no idea why.
The hallway is empty, except for the commissionaire sit-ting at the entry desk. I ask her where the hearing room is, and she directs me down the hall and to the right. Maybe this won’t be so bad, I think as I near the end of the hallway. As I turn right, digital cameras whirr and click, and I have no idea where to look or walk. Determined to not appear rattled, I walk up to the hearing room doors and, discovering they are locked, turn around and
enter a small meeting room that I will later learn is specifically for witnesses like me when we aren’t in court.
I arrive early, as instructed by my lawyers, so I leave the door slightly ajar and stand in the room waiting. I perform a self-check, asking myself, Am I okay? Do I feel anything? Do I feel weird? Strange? Anxious? I felt nothing but numbness. I expect to be hyper-aroused for these proceedings, heart pounding through my chest, as often happens now whenever I felt anxious, but I feel pretty good. I hope this is a positive sign. Sean Hern joins me, and his calm, quiet, assured demeanor comforts me, though I can’t recall much of what we say or do. The hard work and preparation are done. My Vancouver Police Union lawyer, David Crossin, joins us. I’ve lobbied hard to have him represent me separately from Fisk and Myers, because I know our interests are in direct opposition. Fortunately, the VPU agrees, and Dave acts for Geramy Field and me, whereas Kevin Woodall’s office represents Fisk and Myers.
We enter the hearing room, and Sean instructs me to sit in the gallery until called. He sits with me, and I look past him and see Lori-Ann Ellis, Lillianne Beaudoin, George Lane, and Michele Pineault seated on the other side of the gallery. I know George and Michele but have only seen Lori-Ann and Lillianne in the media, and I want to greet them all. I lean over to Sean.
“Can I go talk to the families? Is that allowed?”
“Of course,” he says. I rise and make my way over to them, a little apprehensive, not knowing whether they will welcome me. I greet Michele first.
“Hi, Michele. How’re you doing?” I extend my hand, and she takes it. We speak for a couple of minutes. I turn to George and shake his hand. They greet me with warmth, and I feel immediately at ease. I extend my condolences for their daughter Stephanie’s death, allegedly at the hands of Pickton. I hadn’t been able to reach them the night of the arrest. Like so many people touched by this case, they have struggled over the years with how to manage such an awful tragedy. Michele and I run into each other later that morning in the washroom, and we talk more about our journeys. We share a lot in those few minutes, and I have so much respect for Michele and how she has survived so much heartache and continues to advocate for missing and murdered women.
“I only know you two from the news,” I say as I shake Lillianne’s and Lori-Ann’s hands. “It’s really good to meet you both. I am so sorry.” They smile, and I like them both instantly.
The entire day is a blur. Commission counsel Karey Brooks leads me through my evidence in chief, which consists of my explanation of my actions working on the file. She listens to my evidence and directs me to documents I want entered into the record. At lunch, I ride the elevator down with Sean, and we step out onto the street together, walking and talking as he approaches his office and I near the Pacific Centre mall entrance. He touches my elbow, steering me away from something, and I turn to see a huge television camera inches from my face as we stand on the corner. I feel completely unnerved, not because it is there, but because I had no idea the cameraman was following us. We part, and I walk into the mall to grab some lunch.
Television screens hang from the ceiling of the food court, and it shakes me further to see Missing Women Commission of Inquiry footage of myself on each of them as the noon news plays. I realize people are staring at me, so I turn and leave without food, too self-conscious to stay and eat. I walk out onto Hornby Street and grab a Subway sandwich, which I eat alone back in the witness room.
I note with some surprise that the intense anxiety in the middle of my chest is absent and has been since I began preparing for my testimony. In its place is hardness, a numbed-out solid mass I envision as the clay from my junior high school art class, gray and dense. I realize then that I have felt no nervousness, no butterflies in these long days leading up to my appearance at the inquiry. Although I feel surprisingly normal and very much not how I had felt for the ten years since the search, I don’t feel particularly good. I don’t feel anything. I hate this.
Karey continues leading me through my evidence the rest of that afternoon and Tuesday morning. During our preparation the week before, she asks me if I’d be comfortable telling the commission how the investigation has affected me, personally and professionally. I feel no hesitation in answering yes, but immediately after she asks me in our preparation session, I feel fear and uncertainty. Can I keep my emotions in check? What will it mean to my testimony, my credibility, if I break down and expose myself for the raw mess of grief that is my mind these past ten years? Does any of it matter? Is my suffering even relevant? You’re the cop, not the victim here. Keep your shit to yourself. Still, I cannot discount the impact the case has had on me, and I want the commission to know. I want the RCMP to know what their inaction has done to me. I want the VPD to know what their lack of investigative support has left me with.
Karey asks me the question just before the lunch break.
“So, I understand that this investigation has affected you in both a personal and professional way. So, if you could tell us about that.”
I start hesitantly. “Well, before I begin, I want to, I just want to be clear that whatever impact this has had on me I think is very minor compared, in comparison to what the families and friends of the missing and murdered women have gone through, and I’m very cognizant of that.”
What the transcript doesn’t show is how I break down in gulping, wracking sobs as I croak out the rest of what I have to say, all broadcast via the Canadian Broadcast Corporation live feed of the proceedings. I divide my comments into how I was coping at work before the search of the Pickton farm and after.
I mention how VPD Chief Constable Jamie Graham’s assignment (I mistakenly say Chief Chambers on the stand) of Doug LePard to chronicle the VPD side of the investigation is the first—and only—acknowledgment of the seriousness of the file I ever saw from the VPD. I speak haltingly and far less articulately than I would like to, but I am desperately trying to hold myself together to speak the words I need to say.
I conclude by saying, “I don’t want anyone to go through what these families have gone through, you know, or what I have gone through professionally. So, that’s really all I have to say, and I thank you all for your indulgence. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.” I sit there, head hanging, wiping at my tears with the tissue I am thankful someone has passed me at some point.
Commissioner Oppal responds. “I want to thank you, Detective Shenher, for sharing those thoughts with us. You have given us an indication of how much of an impact, on a personal level, this tragedy, this horrific tragedy, has had on you, and I think it helps us understand what happened. And your comments—I am sure by everybody in the room—are very much appreciated. I want to thank you for doing that.” He pauses and then reminds us we are to return for 1:30 PM to resume my testimony.
I don’t want to move. I don’t want to stay there, but I can’t imagine going anywhere for lunch, not that I have any appetite. As I sit, head down, in the witness box working hard to collect myself, a line silently forms in front of me. Wrapped up in my own misery and shame for breaking down when I’d hoped I wouldn’t, I don’t see it.
When I finally look up, there they are. Karey is first to approach and hug me. After her comes an Indigenous woman I first met that day named Marie, then family members Lori-Ann Ellis, Lillianne Beaudoin, Michele Pineault, and a couple of people whose names I don’t even know—friends and strangers who feel compelled to share comfort with me, even when I am complicit in their own incomprehensibly painful loss.
Two court-appointed social workers sit with me in the witness room over lunch, and Karey generously brings me a sandwich. Normally, I would chat with the social workers—they are so kind—but I have little to say. I feel laid bare, exhausted, and unable to even feel embarrassed at everyone’s obvious reluctance to leave me alone, but the social workers are lovely and don’t feel the need to fill the room with chatter. I am completely spent. I can barely think about the challenge that still lies ahead of me that afternoon: cross-examination
by less friendly counsel than the commission lawyers. I don’t care; I feel the worst is already behind me.
The week continues with each lawyer taking turns cross-examining me on my evidence. I find the majority of the lawyers respectful and professional; indeed, I have pleasant conversations with many of them during the breaks when it is appropriate, careful not to discuss any details of my evidence.
I lose my patience and objectivity responding to the questioning by Darrell Roberts, an experienced lawyer representing Marion Bryce, the mother of alleged Pickton victim Patricia Johnson, touting his theory that the murdered women were victims of “kidnapping by fraud.” His position is that we should have been pursuing a kidnapper in our investigation. He argues that this would have somehow changed the manner in which we approached the investigation and given us grounds for a warrant to search Pickton’s farm far sooner.
Although I admire his creativity, I fail to understand how you could kidnap someone who willingly entered your vehicle. His “Kidnapping by Fraud” theory extends to me insofar as he feels I had grounds to apply for a warrant to search Pickton’s property as far back as 1998, when Bill Hiscox first came to me with his thirdhand information about women’s clothing and purses seen in Pickton’s trailer.
Roberts applies this theory to his questioning of every police witness in the inquiry, bent on proving we somehow ignored the possibility that the women were kidnapped. Obviously, if Pickton’s intent was to murder the women at some point in the interaction, that interaction was fraudulent in that it was not the simple sex-for-money transaction he led the victims to believe, but how would that change how we investigated him? How could you prove there was fraud in the transaction without the statements of the victims? I simply cannot understand how we could be expected to get inside Pickton’s head to know his intentions.
Roberts seems to not understand how police officers speak or work, continually asking me what criminal charge I was pursuing at any given time in the investigation. It is far more intuitive work than that; I knew there was a serious crime committed, probably murder. I expected to uncover the physical or witness evidence to prove it. I can grasp his reasoning in some ways, but it just doesn’t come from a place of reality, in my view. He asks me several questions about my knowledge of kidnapping, and my answers are frustratingly inadequate, and I know it. Of course, I know what the crime of kidnapping is, but in trying to keep my annoyance in check and my answers brief, I realize I am not fully explaining myself or my experience with kidnapping, and that is a mistake. It is not my finest hour.