August 27, 2025 • 47 mins
Summon your rage and gather your empathy because today, we’re getting a broader understanding of the disappearance and death of Amber Tuccaro as well as the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
CW: violence
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CW: violence
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
The family of Amber Tuckero, chiefs and the RCMP are
again pleading with the public for anyone to come forward
with knowledge of Amber's disappearance and death. Twenty one year
old Amber Tuckero was last seen in August eighteenth, twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Near Edmonton, Alberta.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
A man's voice was captured on a call from her phone.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But has never been identified.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Two years later, her remained were found in a wooded
area or near LaDuke, just south of Edmonton. The RCMP
apologized for deficiencies and how they handled her case in
twenty nineteen. Tuckero's family says many of the issues they
experienced persists to this day for the.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
RCMP or whoever keeps the information when a parent reposter
child missing, but your saws and think, well what.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
If that was me?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Because what if that was my child?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
When I get.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Told well they'll come home, they'll come home, our king
party just gets out of time, explaining tirteen years, we
still have no answer, We're still have we're still don't know.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
We're going to raise We heard a mom who's hurting
and a family and a community that's devastated by what happened.
So I would say this the people that are out
there that know that have information, no matter what they
think that is, I would ask them to come forward
as well.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
This investigation is not going it's not.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Stopping, and this family's commitment to making change it's not
going to stop either. So I would like to reassure
you that from the top of this organization that we're
committed to moving this investigation forward and we'll continue to
do so.
Speaker 6 (01:48):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends and justice seekers. Who knows something's
rotten in the RCMP. I'm Danielliscreamer, and this is Broad's
next door. Make sure your phone calls are being constantly recorded,
and don't get in the car with just anyone because
today we're getting a broader understanding of what happened to
(02:08):
Amber Takaro and also the epidemic of missing and murdered
Indigenous women and girls.
Speaker 7 (02:14):
This is going to be some.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Dark stuffs, some horrible statistics.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
I want to start covering these cases at least once
a month because they're so disproportionately, so many of them.
We hear more about missing white women and missing White
Women's syndrome than our most vulnerable populations when.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
They go missing.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
So this is a case out of Canada that happened
in twenty ten. It is still unsolved her death and disappearance. Yeah,
let's get into it. Hi, Hello, how is everyone. I
hope you're doing well. I am very bummed out after
researching this one. I've been familiar with this case for
(03:02):
a while, not since it happened, though, but for a
long time.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
I hope your heart's open.
Speaker 6 (03:10):
I hope you're doing well. I hope your spine straight
and your rage is righteous. Because today's episode is a
hard one and it should be. This is the story
of Amber Tacaro, her unsolved disappearance in death, and how
someone who recorded the person responsible for it still hasn't
found justice. Amber's phone call. She gets in a car
(03:35):
with a man, she realizes something's off. She gets a
phone call from her brother who's in prison, and this
phone call is recorded. Because everything is recorded, the police
wait a year to release it, and she.
Speaker 7 (03:51):
Through this call.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
She recorded her own killer, and no one has been caught.
So we're gonna hear the phone call now and then
we'll get into the details of what led Amber to
that car and what happened that night, and the lack
of what happened afterward, where are we by?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We're just sad, not bon Yo?
Speaker 8 (04:17):
Where are we going.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Now? Are you kidding me? Take me anywhere I want
to go?
Speaker 9 (04:29):
I want to go into the city.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
Yo.
Speaker 9 (04:34):
We're not going in the city, are we No, we're not.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Road's going to street?
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Fifty street?
Speaker 11 (04:43):
Are you sure?
Speaker 8 (04:44):
Absolutely no?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Where are we going?
Speaker 10 (04:50):
Fifty straight?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Problem?
Speaker 12 (04:58):
No?
Speaker 6 (05:05):
So she knew something was wrong. She knew she was
being taken in the wrong direction. You better not be
taking me or anywhere I don't want to go.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
You better not be.
Speaker 6 (05:17):
You're in the back seat now so you can't get out.
I know, I think that's what they say. And then
she also says the road is the road is ending,
and he says it's gravel, so he took her off
some side street. This was recorded on August eighteenth, twenty ten,
after Amber accepted a ride from an unknown man near Edmonton.
(05:37):
She had flown to the area from Fort McMurray with
her baby and a friend. She left their hotel room
to hitch a ride into the city, but no one
really knows what her intention was. We do know that
she was never seen alive again. This is from CBC
News and they will play another clip of what I
(05:58):
just did.
Speaker 8 (06:02):
Anywhere to go?
Speaker 12 (06:04):
You can tell listening to Amber Tuckero's last phone call,
I'm going to that this rural area outside of Edmonton
isn't where she wanted to end up. Tuckero is a
passenger in a vehicle, the driver a stranger. She likely
(06:27):
didn't know their conversation was being recorded that years later
it could help solve her murder where.
Speaker 9 (06:36):
I'm sure all the time I think Coolora all the time.
Speaker 12 (06:51):
It's been five years since her daughter disappeared, but Tutsie
Tuckero's grief has not subsided. Amber was her baby, her
only girl after four boys. One weekend in August twenty ten,
Amber told her mother she and her son were taking
a trip to Edmonton with a friend. Tussy says she
didn't want her daughter to go, and.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
She's like, mom, it's okay, just just two slips and
I'll be back. And well, even though I tell Amber
or not to go or do whatever, she's going to
do it anyways, And so they left that evening.
Speaker 12 (07:23):
They stayed at this motel in Niskeu, just outside the city.
Tussy says she and Amber were in constant communication so
when she couldn't reach her on the second evening, she
was immediately worried.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And you still always tell Amber like don't hitchhike, don't
you know, go strangers, or if you're in a cab,
even if you have to pretend like you're on your cellphone.
They do it just so personally, think you're talking to
somebody and you'll do.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Nothing to you.
Speaker 12 (07:53):
Tutcy doesn't know how or why, but the night before
they were due to head back home, Amber ended up
in the exact sity situation her mother warned her about.
She got in a vehicle with an unknown man. But
this phone call wasn't fake, it was real, Ye are
we going? And it was being recorded on the other end.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
To go.
Speaker 12 (08:19):
Amber was never heard from again. Tutsi reported her missing
right away, but says police didn't take Amber's disappearance seriously.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Oh she's probably old partying and she'll come home, she'll call.
Speaker 9 (08:32):
That's what they told me.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
But I said, I still want to report her missing.
Speaker 12 (08:35):
Arcy MP didn't seem to put much effort into finding
Amber until two years after her disappearance, when they did
something unprecedented. They released this audio recording and asked anyone
who recognized this man's voice to come forward.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yo're going?
Speaker 13 (09:00):
Are you sure?
Speaker 12 (09:05):
Police have never disclosed how or where they got the
audio recording or who Amber's talking to on the phone,
but we found out that the call to amber cell
came from her brother, who was incarcerated in the Edmonton
Reman Center. We're all outgoing phone calls by inmates are recorded.
Just four days after the recording was released, horseback riders
(09:26):
found Amber's remains here on this farmer's property in Ludue County,
just south of Edmonton, and the RCMP's missing person's case
became a homicide investigation and their search for the voice intensified.
Rcmps say they've received hundreds of tips, but the identity
of the man behind the voice remains a mystery.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
How can his found me or if he has a
wife for his friends, how do they sleep at night knowing,
you know, they hear it? Maybe it's the same the
same guy that's some killing these other women that have
found it in the area, right and how many more
(10:07):
women girls are going to be killed before he's cut
because these people that know are not coming forward and
identifying him.
Speaker 12 (10:16):
This woman is convinced that she knows the man in
the recording. We've agreed to conceal her identity.
Speaker 14 (10:22):
I knew the voice like I know the back of
my own hand.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
So many people say it's the same guy right way.
Speaker 14 (10:27):
Yeah, I listened to it. I recognize it right away.
Not only recognized it, but I could see. I could
see how the voice was sitting, where his hands were,
where it was looking.
Speaker 15 (10:41):
I was so resto it.
Speaker 12 (10:43):
We spoke to two other women who also believe it's
the same man. All three say they reported him to
RCMP's care division, But RCMP reached out to us and
told us they've looked into their tips, but this man
is not a person of interest in Amber's case.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Oh, they didn't look very hard. I don't think our.
Speaker 12 (11:01):
CMP only released sixty one seconds of the recording, but
the entire phone call lasted seventeen minutes. That's about the
length of time it would take to drive from the
Nisky motel to hear where Amber's remains were found. Tutsie
has heard the whole thing. She says Amber can be
heard laughing at the beginning, but that the phone call
(11:23):
ends abruptly in fear.
Speaker 16 (11:26):
My baby sounds.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's so scared, and Amber was like the tough girls.
She can't take care of herself and all as she
won't just let anybody do anything to her without a
fight or whatever. And I get make mare to have
(11:50):
all these awful thoughts, what could have you know?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
What happened to her?
Speaker 12 (12:05):
As hard as it is to imagine what happened, Tutsie
can't let it go. And Si Lambert's killer is caught,
she vows she won't give up.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
And as messed up as it is, I think of
the voice all the time.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I think with the voice all the time.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
It's kind of late, so messed up, because Tamber's case
is about the voice, the man's voice, and now I
am Amber's voice.
Speaker 14 (12:32):
Now.
Speaker 12 (12:33):
Her only hope is that someone out there recognizes the
voice and has the courage to speak up. Connie Walker,
CBC News for Chippewan, Alberta.
Speaker 6 (12:43):
So her family did everything right, even her friend that
I knew Amber would have never just left her baby
and not come back.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
They know some things up.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
They report her missing right away, and they're not taken
seriously at all. The police literally assume she's just a runaway,
which is so heartbreaking knowing that they could have had
this seventeen minute call from the get go. I'm not
as sure exactly how long it took to find it. Also,
(13:12):
they in certain clips they pronounced her last name Tuckero
and then other ones to Carro, so I'm not sure
what is right. I feel like maybe it is Tuckero
because they just used that in the one where they
were talking directly to her family, So I'm sorry if
I am miss pronouncing that. But when Amber's family purported
her missing, the RCMP told them to wait it out,
(13:34):
implying she had probably run off. They never issued an alert,
never treated it as urgent. They even threw out her
belongings that her mother had brought in for evidence. It
took them a full year to release that recording you
just heard, and when they finally did, they played it
at a press conference and left no context, barely any timeline,
(13:54):
no answers, just Amber's voice and this man's voice echoing
into a void. Years later, the RCMP would offer a
bland apology, a singer a single press release, and as
you heard, her mother, Tutsie wasn't having it. They're the
ones apologizing, But yet they can get up and walk away.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
What does that say she said she's right? What does
it say?
Speaker 6 (14:18):
Amber's remains were found at a field in Luddock County
in twenty twelve, two years after she vanished, just seventeen
minutes from where she was last seen, the same exact
length as the phone call. To this day, no one
has been charged. Amber's story hurts so much, not just
because it's rare, but because it isn't. She's part of
(14:40):
a devastating pattern. In Canada, Indigenous women make up four
percent of the population but account for sixteen percent of
all female homicide victims. In the US, five seven hundred
and twelve cases of missing Indigenous women and girls were
reported in just one year twenty sixteen, but only one
hundred and sixteen were logged in the federal database. The
(15:02):
US Bureau of Indian Affairs literally says this on their website.
There is no reliable count on how many Indigenous women
are missing or murdered. That's just horrifying. We don't know
how many because they don't get counted, because systems don't
listen to voices like Ambers until it's far too late.
(15:23):
And Amber isn't alone. Here are a few more names
whose stories haven't been told. Ramona Wilson vanished in nineteen
ninety four hitchhiking to a dance, found in the woods,
no arrest. Loretta Saunders, a student writing or thesis on
missing and murdered, missing, murdered Indigenous women and girls, murdered
(15:45):
by her roommates in twenty fourteen. The Highway of Tears
a four hundred and fifty miles stretch in British Columbia
where dozens of Indigenous women have disappeared and been found
dead since nineteen seventy. Official numbers say eighteen. The family
members say the truth is closer to fifty. This is
a clip from Vice News the searchers Highway of Tears.
Speaker 13 (16:10):
People are going missing, kids are going missing, women are
going missing. It doesn't matter who they are, or what
their race is or anything. It shouldn't matter, especially them
in Canada, but you know there's a lot of people
would tell you it does.
Speaker 14 (16:24):
We're going to fly up Prince stores and then what
sort of on the agenda.
Speaker 13 (16:28):
I guess we need to think about where where I'm
going to go to try to find some of these people.
They're a little bit on the criminal side, so I
don't anticipate them.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We're telling to be happy in their face at their door,
so we'll.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
Do sometimes.
Speaker 17 (16:45):
Run light.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
Now, this guy passed away last year who was investigating. Unfortunately,
growing up here, I had.
Speaker 18 (16:57):
No idea that women were going to miss and being murdered,
and that more often.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Than not those women were Indigenous.
Speaker 7 (17:04):
And it was around two.
Speaker 18 (17:05):
Thousand and two that the Highway of Tears started being
talked about a lot more publicly, and started learning about this.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Other place in the province.
Speaker 18 (17:12):
Where again women were going missing and being murdered. Most
of the cases were unsolved, and once again most of
those women were Indigenous.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Working as a journalist in the.
Speaker 18 (17:22):
City, I learned about this guy named Ray who is
next cop and he's been investigating some of these unsolved
cases on his own time, and he's agreed to let
us come with him to show us what he's all about,
and also really curious where he fits into the bigger
picture of the Highway of Tears and unfortunately what's been.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
Going on there for a long time.
Speaker 18 (17:44):
We're here in Prince George, which is the largest city
in Northern British Columbia. About seventy thousand people live here,
and this is also the edge of what people call
the Highway of Tears, which is Highway sixteen, seven hundred
and twenty four kilometers between here and Prince Rupert on
the cost and if you go by the RCMP numbers,
nine women have gone missing or been murdered along that
(18:05):
specific stretch of highway. If you ask for snations groups
or just the communities along this route, and they'll tell
you that number is much higher.
Speaker 7 (18:13):
This is nine years raising Prince George.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Truck came in.
Speaker 18 (18:15):
He thinks may have been involved in one of the
Highway of Tears murders. He won't give us details about
which case. The person that you're hoping to speak to
you tomorrow or the next couple of days.
Speaker 13 (18:26):
Yeah, he's a low level drug dealer in MFM and
you've never spoken to this person before. No, I can't
find him. I'm getting closer, though, I mean his name
came from what I consider to be.
Speaker 17 (18:37):
Good a good source.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So there are other people around that, there are.
Speaker 17 (18:41):
People that know.
Speaker 13 (18:42):
There's people street workers in Prince George.
Speaker 17 (18:46):
You know, they know.
Speaker 18 (18:48):
You know if you've been trying to talk down this
person for years, so you do you have a lot
of anticipation about what that.
Speaker 13 (18:52):
Might look like I think I'll be the first person
to confront him, so you know, I don't know.
Speaker 17 (18:59):
What that's going to be.
Speaker 18 (18:59):
Like do you actually sit down and just look at
somebody and I've and half illustraight out.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Did you kill this person? Yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker 13 (19:08):
I'd probably explain why I'm there and then.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
See what happened.
Speaker 7 (19:13):
The pents like a video.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
I live in Prince George when there's way more disappearing
to kill fifty like just and again, this is nine
years old. This is another interview with Ray, but this
one is from CBC News Roads.
Speaker 17 (19:33):
That a killer could drive off to dispose of a
body in an hour, and there were you know, a
hundred and or more, It'd be very easy to dispose
of somebody and been very difficult to find them. It's
a perfect place to go missing forever.
Speaker 19 (19:54):
Raymahalko is trying to solve the murders along BC's infamous
Highway of Tears. He used to be an RCMP officer,
but after nine years he left the force to work
on his own. Now he's a private investigator, but nobody's
paying him to look into these cases. He just can't
help it.
Speaker 17 (20:10):
I'm disappointed that some of these cases haven't been solved.
I'm stubborn, I'm not a quitter, and you know I.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Like to help people.
Speaker 19 (20:21):
On this date, Ray takes me back to the very beginning,
to the spot where he first started his investigation ten
years ago, this abandoned elementary school in Prince George. So
what do you you come here and what do you
think about?
Speaker 17 (20:39):
Well, this is where my first theory started because Lee
Germain's body was found dump behind the school. It seems
like a bizarre place to leave somebody if you're just
driving down the highway like a stranger. So I'm still
convinced that that whoever was responsible is familiar with this area.
Speaker 19 (20:57):
So that's raised working theory. The killer lived somewhere very
close to here.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Would you show me? Can we walk?
Speaker 7 (21:02):
Sure?
Speaker 19 (21:05):
It's terrible to imagine that this is the place where
Lea Jermain, just a kid fifteen years old, was left
after she was stabbed to death.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
That was December nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 19 (21:14):
How she ended up in this field is one of
the things that Ray has spent years trying to figure out.
He now thinks Lea's case is linked to another murdered
young woman fifteen year old Rocks and Tiara, you know,
both were murdered.
Speaker 20 (21:25):
How many serious areas and prostitution so that ship that
they wanted to get out of it and clean up
their eye.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So what does it make you wonder?
Speaker 17 (21:36):
Well, it makes me wonder if the people responsible for
running that business like they're using them, like their pimps,
had something to do with it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Do you know who the pimp was in those days?
Speaker 10 (21:46):
You know?
Speaker 17 (21:46):
I don't. I'm attempting to find that out, actually.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
And now that he's dead, I really wonder who's investigating that.
There's also a really good documentary on YouTube called Highway
of Tears that I highly recommend. I don't think I
can get away with playing any of it because it's
not news and this isn't just happening in Canada. This
is happening all over the United States. This is another
(22:17):
a different Vice News piece about indigenous women keep going
missing in Montana.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Family and friends, along with search and rescue teams, have
been looking for Selena Not Afraid at about a three
to five mile radius.
Speaker 21 (22:30):
Selena Not Afraid was last seen around two o'clock on
Wednesday at the eastbound I ninety rest area between.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Billings and Harden. Searchers have been looking for not Afraid
since New Year's Day. She was a last freeer check
radio check.
Speaker 15 (22:41):
Selena not Afraid disappeared from a resta on New Year's
Day in Montana's Bagelorn County.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's been really cold on her home.
Speaker 15 (22:52):
Nine days later and community led search teams we're still
looking for the first clue that might lead them to her.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So we know our mission for today.
Speaker 22 (23:00):
We're looking for any sign of Selena, anything out of
the ordinary. You know the drill.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You guys have been doing this. So this is bartooth, baratooth. Yeah,
how are you, buddies. We'll find our girl, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 15 (23:13):
Selina Fred's case is an example of what Native women face.
They are almost three times more likely to experience sexual
violence compared to white women, and homicide is the fourth
leading cause of death for those under twenty, and.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
The problems often continue even after death.
Speaker 15 (23:30):
According to a twenty nineteen report, approximately half of all
cases involving murdered Indigenous women in Montana have been misclassified
for causes like suicide, overdose, or exposure.
Speaker 23 (23:41):
Been on Bugsy Teddy and his wife, their baby, little Lighte, Mikey,
Plain Bull Garrett. Our current active search right now hub Williamson,
Bonnie three irons twenty seventeen we recovered her. The next
one was Henny Scott just in Montana last year. We
recovered her because Sarah stopped at pretty places she was found.
Speaker 7 (24:03):
I believe by indipity in town we are and now.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Our recent active search is Selena.
Speaker 22 (24:11):
In all the previous cases that I've been involved with,
where the situation is like this here, it's it's it's
always been a recovery, It's never been a.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Happy ending. Where is Selena?
Speaker 9 (24:30):
Where is she?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Where's my grandbaby?
Speaker 15 (24:34):
Native Americans make up six point seven percent of Montana's population,
but account for twenty six percent of missing person reports.
And while local officials claim that causes for these deaths
and disappearances are varied, from drug trafficking to domestic violence,
one thing they all have in common is that they
take place in a jurisdictional minefield. Depending on where someone
(24:56):
is reported missing or where a victim is found, it
could fall to are state, federal, or tribal authorities to investigate,
and with that many intersecting agencies, there are plenty of
cracks for these cases to fall through.
Speaker 11 (25:09):
An Indian reservation, for all intentsive purposes, is a sovereign nation.
It is subject to completely different laws governing bodies. They're
like a country within a country, so bigger in county
deputy can show up on a tribal member'stor step on
the reservation, and that tribal member can say, you have
no right to.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Be here, you have no jurisdiction here.
Speaker 15 (25:29):
It can be very difficult. Responsibility might fall with the
county sheriff's department, officers from the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs,
or the tribal police.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Sometimes the FBI also steps in.
Speaker 15 (25:41):
There are both too many agencies jocking for authority and
not enough resources to go around. In late twenty nineteen,
the Crow Tribe declared a state of emergency. Tribal Chairman
aj not Afraid cited a list of issues, including the
BIA's lack of officers and failure to address the murdered
and missing women in crisis. The Crow Reservation is roughly
(26:02):
the size of Connecticut, but for years has only had
five BIA officers. Recently, the tribe assembled its own sovereign
police force, independent from the BIA.
Speaker 11 (26:13):
We're between two communities right now, we currently have no
radio service, we have no cell phone service, we have
no ways unless we had a SAT phone, we wouldn't
have any way to communicate with anybody.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
But even like outside of that, outside of the tribal
laws and tribal police and the politics of all of this,
like in cases like Ambers where those things are not
an issue, the case still just does not get the
kind of.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Media coverage it deserves. It does not get covered in
the way anything should be covered. And even when things
happen like the RCMP apologizing.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
What does that really do?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
After the RCMP, I am truly sorry.
Speaker 16 (26:53):
Words Amber Tackrose relatives have been waiting nine years to
hear ever since she went missing your Edmonton in twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I fully acknowledge that in the early days of our
investigation into ambers disappearance that it required a better sense
of urgency and care.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
But there were a few details on why things were mishandled.
Speaker 16 (27:12):
Why Amber's name was removed from a missing person's list
shortly after she vanished, last scene getting into an unknown man's.
Speaker 24 (27:18):
Car and.
Speaker 9 (27:21):
Ar anywhere I don't want to go, Why it.
Speaker 16 (27:23):
Took two years for police to release this recording, of
a conversation between Amber and the driver.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
Where why we're just the bamark to Beaumart.
Speaker 16 (27:34):
Amber's remains were found in twenty twelve, all this time later,
what the police had to say rings hollow to her
loved ones.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
As of right now, the apology.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Doesn't mean anything to me because they did it because
they were torlatal.
Speaker 16 (27:50):
Last year, an independent federal commission released a report looking
into the investigation. It called the police's work deficient and
urged today's public Maya kulpa Or says it's learned a lot.
Speaker 14 (28:01):
We've implemented mandatory reviews of missing person's files every twenty
four hours.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
But also, as the family was speaking today, I'm sorry,
but we're out of time. We're over time in facts,
the Takaro sted put.
Speaker 16 (28:13):
But the deputy police commissioner left the news conference for
another meeting.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I mean, they're the ones apologizing, but they can get
up and walk away.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
What does that say? Amber's case remains an open investigation.
Speaker 16 (28:27):
Today, the Tuckero's unveiled a new poster calling for tips
as they continue to seek justice for Amber.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Raphie What You Can You and CBC News.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Edmonton, and there has been outrage over it, which has
brought some change. This is from a local Portland news
station from four months ago, Alesley.
Speaker 23 (28:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 25 (28:46):
And resources are being set across the country from the
FBI to tackle unresolved violent crimes among Native American communities, including.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Here in Portland.
Speaker 26 (28:54):
Operation Not Forgotten is the longest and most intense deployment
of FBI resources to address these crimes. Fox Balls Michail
Armstrong is in studio now with more on the impact
this could have on a local woman still looking for
answers in an unsolved case, Petriel.
Speaker 25 (29:07):
With these added resources, unsolved violent crimes and Native American
communities will be getting much more attention and for one
sister that could bring answers to a missing person's case
be adding nearly eight years.
Speaker 27 (29:18):
The thing that I noticed throughout Indian country is if
you tell a story of love whe going missing, it's
the same tamplet of all other stories. It says, if
you tell one story, you're telling them all.
Speaker 8 (29:27):
Kimberly Louring heavy Runner says that story plagued her family
when her sister, Ashley Louring heavy Runner, vanished in June
of twenty seventeen on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana.
Her family is still without answers nearly eight years later,
and says her disappearance is a part of an ongoing
crisis among Native Americans going missing or being murdered at
(29:47):
disproportionately high rates.
Speaker 27 (29:49):
It's just different names, it's different places, it's different officers.
You know, it's all the same story, just different times
in people.
Speaker 8 (29:55):
According to the FBI Indian Country Program, in twenty twenty five,
there are forty three hundred OP investigations, including nine hundred
death investigations, a thousand child abuse investigations, and more than
five hundred domestic violence and sexual abuse investigations. To address
this growing crisis, the FBI announced Tuesday that it intends
to searge additional resources, including temporary duty assignments that rotate
(30:17):
over the next six months, in several different areas.
Speaker 21 (30:20):
For decades, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives have experienced disproportionately
high rates of murder, rape, and other violent crimes, and
outcome experts say of generational trauma and systemic abuse. Tackling
the issue has been a rare bipartisan effort. President Trump
is now continuing a Justice Department program to surge FBI
agents to help solve cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
(30:43):
Stephanie Side reports from New Mexico. A lack of law
enforcement resources is just one reason why so many of
these cases are never solved. It's part of our ongoing series.
Speaker 28 (30:52):
Race Matters, Giggles, and the Breathless Joy of Childhood Breathe
life into the dusty Jumez Pueblo. The grandkids are all right,
but it wasn't always so.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
So.
Speaker 24 (31:04):
Shauna actually had four kids, three girls and one boy.
Wilson was her only boy she had, and it was
actually the hardest to comfort him when she passed.
Speaker 28 (31:17):
Geraldine and Benjamin Toya are potters by trade. They work
while they reminisce about their late daughter.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
She used to follow me a road everywhere I go.
Speaker 28 (31:25):
In July of twenty twenty one, Shauna was with Geraldine
at a family party. About six hours later, Geraldine.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Got a call in the dead of night.
Speaker 10 (31:33):
When I got that call that morning at three point
fifteen to say that they found my daughter deceased at
a park in her ride. It didn't you know, it
was like a bad dream, you know, That's what I
wanted to see it as, because I just saw her
I just spoke with her.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It can't be here.
Speaker 28 (31:50):
The incident report says EMTs tried CPR on Shauna, but
she was beyond help. In the post mortem examination, test
showed she had methamphetamines, ventanyl and alcohol in her system,
indicating an accidental overdose.
Speaker 10 (32:03):
They told me that they found out that they didn't
see that there was any foul play, and they immediately
kind of labeled her as a person that had, I guess,
caused trouble on the streets, homeless and did a lot
of drugs.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And I said, that's not her.
Speaker 28 (32:19):
The Toyas say they have reason to believe Shauna may
have been killed.
Speaker 10 (32:23):
She had actual bruises on her face, and her lip
was like what swollen, She had a bleeding from her neck.
She had gravel all over her back, and I set
what in the world what happened?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Did they just throw her in the freezer.
Speaker 28 (32:41):
The Toyos noticed Shawna's car contained empty grocery bags and
an empty wallet, a sign she was robbed, they say,
And they found another woman's idea in the car, something
not mentioned in the police incident report. Among other things,
the Toyas claimed were overlooked Shawna was wrongly labeled male
in one of the medical examine reports.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
They does sent her home like she was nobody.
Speaker 28 (33:05):
The Albuquerque Police Department did not respond to a request
for comment, but the Toyas are convinced that Shawna's case
fits in with thousands of other unsolved violent crimes against
Native Americans.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It's a crisis.
Speaker 29 (33:17):
Tribal communities experienced disproportionate levels of violent crime, and we
have to work as hard as we can to address that.
Speaker 28 (33:22):
Elliot Neil is an assistant US attorney based in New Mexico,
specifically assigned to address missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases
or m MIP in the Southwest. Under federal law, the
FBI works with tribes to investigate major crimes in Indian country.
Speaker 29 (33:37):
Crimes like domestic violence, assaults, things like that, child abuse,
child sexual abuse, things like that that are sort of
m MIP precursors that lead to those deaths.
Speaker 28 (33:48):
There are at least forty three hundred cases of unsolved
violent crimes against Native Americans across the country. Operation Not
Forgotten will surge sixty Department of Justice personnel, including FBI agents,
in the next six months to help investigate those cases.
The agents will be deployed to ten FBI field offices
across the country, rotating in ninety day assignments.
Speaker 30 (34:10):
We owe it to Native Americans, as the first people
of this land, we should be trying to solve their
cases with the utmost respect and the utmost due diligence.
Speaker 28 (34:20):
Darlene Gomez is an attorney and advocate for missing and
murdered Indigenous people based in Albuquerque. One of the cases
she's advocated authorities pursue further is that of Calvin Martinez,
who has been missing since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 20 (34:33):
Hey loss his wife and his son in a family
fire and twenty fourteen, it was midnight December twenty third,
twenty fourteen. I woke up and I heard my brother yelling,
and I got up and I went outside and I
just seen it. Oh trailer on fire, and he got out,
and I think he went back in to grab the
(34:55):
baby and her and she fell over.
Speaker 12 (34:58):
And we don't have a resource in to figure out
where they're at or who has them.
Speaker 28 (35:03):
Becky Martinez, Calvin's sister, says he struggled for the next
five years using drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
She says when he disappeared.
Speaker 28 (35:11):
He was living between places, and because he didn't have
an address, the county referred the family to the Navajo
Nation Police, and.
Speaker 20 (35:18):
Then the Navajo Police department points as to Farmington, and
then Farmington said that they.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Couldn't help us.
Speaker 7 (35:24):
I think I just I just felt like conscious. That's
what I've been focusing on.
Speaker 20 (35:30):
I didn't have no help, I didn't have no resources.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
I didn't know who to turn to.
Speaker 28 (35:35):
Jurisdictional confusion is a common feature in missing persons cases
involving tribal members, but it is only one challenge to
solving these cases, says attorney Darling Gomes.
Speaker 30 (35:45):
Everybody in Indian Country knows if you want to kill
somebody and get away with it, you go to Indian Country.
The lack of officers to respond to calls, the remoteness
oftentimes you have no cell service, you have no radio service.
The nine to one one calls areb manned by outside
of the reservation, by county nine one one resource centers.
(36:05):
What I have seen is cases that should have been
investigated further by calling either a criminal investigator or the
FBI don't even make it to that level because officers like, oh,
it's unattended death, or comes up with some other reason
not to consider it a major crime.
Speaker 27 (36:20):
Right now, I am out in Farmington, New Mexico, for
Operation Not Forgotten.
Speaker 28 (36:25):
The FBI put out this video last year of a
special agent working a four year old case. The agent
searches for clues in an open field. Crucially, in this case,
a body had been found.
Speaker 30 (36:36):
The US Attorney's Office is not going to prosecute a
case without a body.
Speaker 28 (36:41):
US attorneys generally decide which major crimes to prosecute. There
are thousands of Indian Country families that want answers, And
what you're saying is you cannot necessarily promise more prosecutions.
Speaker 29 (36:55):
You know, we have a duty to the public to
prosecute cases where you know, we can prove that a
crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt. Right if we don't
feel like we can do that at a particular point,
we can't bring that case.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
It's not fair of us to bring that case.
Speaker 28 (37:11):
In the latest statistics from the Department of Justice, US
attorneys most commonly cited reason for declining to prosecute cases
in Indian Country was insufficient evidence.
Speaker 29 (37:21):
These are tight knit, small communities. For almost every case,
I've looked at We're pretty confident that people in the community.
Speaker 10 (37:29):
Know what happened.
Speaker 28 (37:30):
Georgiana Harrison believes it is why her sister, Renelle Rose
Bennett has been missing since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
That's the only thing that I wish people would do.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I don't know what kind of thrill they have from
withholding information.
Speaker 28 (37:42):
You think that there's people in the community on the
reservation that are withhold.
Speaker 25 (37:46):
Definitely, definitely there is people out there that are withholding
information and they need to if they see something, say something,
tell somebody.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I mean, there's kids out here hurting.
Speaker 11 (37:56):
There's mothers out here.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Hurting what if it was their children?
Speaker 28 (38:00):
Which for answers also looms over the Toyas. Back on
the Hemez Pueblo, the kids have gone to counseling, and
Wilson no longer goes to bed hoping his mom will
be there when he wakes. The youngest girl, Shyey, reminds.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Them of Shauna.
Speaker 10 (38:13):
She's just like her mom.
Speaker 23 (38:14):
Her mom is to sing.
Speaker 24 (38:15):
Everywhere she went, and every time she was going to talk,
it was in.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
More singing than talking.
Speaker 28 (38:23):
Geraldine Toya says it's the grandkids that motivate her continued
quest to try and get the case reopened. For the
PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sie on the Hemez Pueblo
in New Mexico.
Speaker 6 (38:37):
So, I mean, there's just so much here, and it's
just so heartbreaking that there are so many families dealing
with the same thing that everyone kind of just points
fingers and blames within the police and within the FBI,
and that it's happening in the United States and Canada
(38:58):
after the history that Native people have had, like this
didn't happen overnight. It's a systemic thing and years and
years of abuse and misconduct and genocide before that. I
know this episode wasn't a complete deep dive on this subject,
but I just wanted to lay the groundwork since it
(39:19):
will be something that will be talking about again. I
can't believe Amber's Amber Tucker's case hasn't been solved as
well as so many of the others. I can't believe
that there's a place called the Highway of Tears. I mean,
I can believe it. I can believe it, but it's horrifying.
(39:40):
Like Amber has her killer's voice on audio. They've had
audio of it for fifteen years now. Everyone says they
know who the guy is, and this case still isn't solved,
and that just feels so it's heartbreaking because you know,
you think if you have that much that they'd be
(40:01):
able to do something with it, and there's still excuses
and reasons they didn't. There's that sorry half apology, but I.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
Mean, is that what does that do? What does that
do in the end?
Speaker 6 (40:14):
So I just wanted to bring attention to some of
these cases. We'll do deeper dives into some more and
in future episodes also try and figure out how this
is so pervasive and.
Speaker 7 (40:30):
What can be done about it.
Speaker 6 (40:31):
I'll put some links in the show notes with more information.
I really just wanted to get Amber's story out there
a little bit more. I think it's something that can
still be solved. And I'm going to end this episode
with that call from her again, just because if anyone
is listening that does recognize that man's voice, I wish
(40:54):
the police would release the full seventeen minute call instead
of just giving us a minute of audio, because you
never know what could be valuable on it. It reminds
me of the Delphi up guys up the Hill where
they released that and just snippets. But I mean that
was like a worldwide news case and it still took
(41:18):
years and years to solve, not as long as Amber's case.
But I really do think that this can still be solved.
If it's a guy that everyone thinks it is, maybe
more evidence will come forward. I feel like a lot
of these dudes are just straight up serial killers, like
the guy in the audio with Amber. The way he's
kind of chuckling and so nonchalant, just not a care
(41:41):
in the world, even though he knows she's on the phone.
Speaker 7 (41:45):
It makes me feel like.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
It's not the first time he's done that, that it
couldn't be the first time someone has done that, because
there's a level of confidence with it.
Speaker 7 (41:56):
It's just disgusting.
Speaker 6 (41:59):
So if you do recognize this voice, contact contact the
RCMP through the links in the show notes, message me
about it. There's a lot of resources to reach out.
You never know when all of this could come together
and someone can solve this. And we have to look
(42:21):
out for each other. We also have to look out
for the most vulnerable groups of people among us. And
just hearing these statistics from Montana to Canada, to New
Mexico to Portland, where I am it's so upsetting, it's
so disturbing.
Speaker 7 (42:39):
This is something that should not be happening.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I'm RCP Constable Ray Shelton.
Speaker 31 (42:45):
I'm an investigator with Care which is mandated with investigating
unsolved homicides and vulnerable missing persons. Right now, we're asking
for the public' assistance, your assistance and solving one such investigation.
This is a missing person's case of Amber Tucherl, a
twenty one year old female who went missing in August
of twenty ten. On August seventeenth, twenty ten, Amber flew
from Fort McMurray to Edmonton with her female friend and
(43:07):
Amber's fourteen month old son. After arriving at Edmonton International Airport,
the three booked into a motel room here in this
queue and spent the night. In the early evening of
August eighteenth, twenty ten, Amber left the hotel room to
find a ride into the city of Edmonton. We know
that between seven thirty and eight o'clock PM, Amber got
into a vehicle with an unknown mail. While in that vehicle,
(43:28):
Amber received a phone call, and through investigative means, we
have obtained a recording of that phone call. That recording
includes the voice of the unknown male driver of the vehicle.
To date, that individual is unidentified. We're asking the public's
assistance to listen to the tape in hopes that someone
recognizes the male voice of the driver and phones investigators
with that information. This audio clip may be disturbing to
(43:49):
some listeners, but it's important that the public listens to
the voice and helps investigators identify the driver of that vehicle.
In the following audio recording, you will hear two voices,
that of Amber Tucker and the unknown male driver.
Speaker 17 (44:01):
Of the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Where are we by?
Speaker 10 (44:05):
We're out?
Speaker 12 (44:07):
Or right head?
Speaker 16 (44:09):
Boh?
Speaker 11 (44:10):
Yo?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Where are we going.
Speaker 6 (44:15):
Now?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Are you still kidding me?
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Doing anywhere?
Speaker 11 (44:21):
I want to go?
Speaker 4 (44:22):
I want to go into the city.
Speaker 15 (44:26):
Yo, We're not going in the city, Army, We're going.
Speaker 20 (44:29):
No, we're not.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Road's going to fifty Street?
Speaker 6 (44:34):
Fifty Are you sure?
Speaker 8 (44:36):
Absolutely?
Speaker 7 (44:38):
Go where we're going?
Speaker 6 (44:40):
This shape street, Deep Shay.
Speaker 7 (44:48):
Out problem valleys.
Speaker 31 (44:55):
We believe that rather than driving into the city of Edmonton,
the mail drove south and east of miss you into
La County, and subsequent to this phone conversation ending, no
one has seen or heard from Amber. We believe the
mail driver of this vehicle has information that may assist
police in finding Amber. You will now hear the audio
clip a second time. Please listen carefully and if you
believe you recognize the voice of this mail driver, please
(45:18):
call investigators.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
With that information.
Speaker 17 (45:26):
Street Street.
Speaker 31 (45:42):
This recording is available at the care website at k
A R E dot ca A and also at the
Alberta Missing Person's website Alberta Missing Persons dot ca A.
Listen to the audio carefully and if you can assist
investigators and recognize the male voice of the driver of
the vehicle, please contact the Care tip line at seven
eight zero five zero mind three three five six or
(46:02):
toll free at eight seven seven four one two five
two seven three.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of
Broad's next Door. We will be covering more missing murdered
Indigenous women and girls cases in the future. This was
just kind of getting into the subject. It's something I
should have covered sooner. Honestly, this is like episode one
(46:31):
fifty four or something, so it's something I should have
talked about sooner.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
But I'm glad we're talking about it now.
Speaker 6 (46:39):
If there are specific cases you want me to cover,
please let me know.
Speaker 7 (46:44):
Let me know your thoughts.
Speaker 6 (46:45):
If you have any information, please call the tip lines
that we're listed.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
I'll put more resources in the show notes.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
You can find me online at Daniella Screama and at
Broad's next Door. You can email me at Broad's Nextdoor
dot com or brown to next Door at gmail dot com.
I'm bummed out. I'm bummed out, but it feels like
that's the only appropriate response right now is to be
(47:14):
bummed out and I will talk to you very soon
at the very somber Goodbye.
The family of Amber Tuckero, chiefs and the RCMP are
again pleading with the public for anyone to come forward
with knowledge of Amber's disappearance and death. Twenty one year
old Amber Tuckero was last seen in August eighteenth, twenty ten.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Near Edmonton, Alberta.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
A man's voice was captured on a call from her phone.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But has never been identified.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Two years later, her remained were found in a wooded
area or near LaDuke, just south of Edmonton. The RCMP
apologized for deficiencies and how they handled her case in
twenty nineteen. Tuckero's family says many of the issues they
experienced persists to this day for the.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
RCMP or whoever keeps the information when a parent reposter
child missing, but your saws and think, well what.
Speaker 4 (00:55):
If that was me?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Because what if that was my child?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
When I get.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Told well they'll come home, they'll come home, our king
party just gets out of time, explaining tirteen years, we
still have no answer, We're still have we're still don't know.
Speaker 5 (01:12):
We're going to raise We heard a mom who's hurting
and a family and a community that's devastated by what happened.
So I would say this the people that are out
there that know that have information, no matter what they
think that is, I would ask them to come forward
as well.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
This investigation is not going it's not.
Speaker 5 (01:32):
Stopping, and this family's commitment to making change it's not
going to stop either. So I would like to reassure
you that from the top of this organization that we're
committed to moving this investigation forward and we'll continue to
do so.
Speaker 6 (01:48):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends and justice seekers. Who knows something's
rotten in the RCMP. I'm Danielliscreamer, and this is Broad's
next door. Make sure your phone calls are being constantly recorded,
and don't get in the car with just anyone because
today we're getting a broader understanding of what happened to
(02:08):
Amber Takaro and also the epidemic of missing and murdered
Indigenous women and girls.
Speaker 7 (02:14):
This is going to be some.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Dark stuffs, some horrible statistics.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
I want to start covering these cases at least once
a month because they're so disproportionately, so many of them.
We hear more about missing white women and missing White
Women's syndrome than our most vulnerable populations when.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
They go missing.
Speaker 6 (02:38):
So this is a case out of Canada that happened
in twenty ten. It is still unsolved her death and disappearance. Yeah,
let's get into it. Hi, Hello, how is everyone. I
hope you're doing well. I am very bummed out after
researching this one. I've been familiar with this case for
(03:02):
a while, not since it happened, though, but for a
long time.
Speaker 7 (03:08):
I hope your heart's open.
Speaker 6 (03:10):
I hope you're doing well. I hope your spine straight
and your rage is righteous. Because today's episode is a
hard one and it should be. This is the story
of Amber Tacaro, her unsolved disappearance in death, and how
someone who recorded the person responsible for it still hasn't
found justice. Amber's phone call. She gets in a car
(03:35):
with a man, she realizes something's off. She gets a
phone call from her brother who's in prison, and this
phone call is recorded. Because everything is recorded, the police
wait a year to release it, and she.
Speaker 7 (03:51):
Through this call.
Speaker 6 (03:51):
She recorded her own killer, and no one has been caught.
So we're gonna hear the phone call now and then
we'll get into the details of what led Amber to
that car and what happened that night, and the lack
of what happened afterward, where are we by?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We're just sad, not bon Yo?
Speaker 8 (04:17):
Where are we going.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
Now? Are you kidding me? Take me anywhere I want
to go?
Speaker 9 (04:29):
I want to go into the city.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
Yo.
Speaker 9 (04:34):
We're not going in the city, are we No, we're not.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
Road's going to street?
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Fifty street?
Speaker 11 (04:43):
Are you sure?
Speaker 8 (04:44):
Absolutely no?
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Where are we going?
Speaker 10 (04:50):
Fifty straight?
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Right?
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Problem?
Speaker 12 (04:58):
No?
Speaker 6 (05:05):
So she knew something was wrong. She knew she was
being taken in the wrong direction. You better not be
taking me or anywhere I don't want to go.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
No, I'm not.
Speaker 7 (05:15):
You better not be.
Speaker 6 (05:17):
You're in the back seat now so you can't get out.
I know, I think that's what they say. And then
she also says the road is the road is ending,
and he says it's gravel, so he took her off
some side street. This was recorded on August eighteenth, twenty ten,
after Amber accepted a ride from an unknown man near Edmonton.
(05:37):
She had flown to the area from Fort McMurray with
her baby and a friend. She left their hotel room
to hitch a ride into the city, but no one
really knows what her intention was. We do know that
she was never seen alive again. This is from CBC
News and they will play another clip of what I
(05:58):
just did.
Speaker 8 (06:02):
Anywhere to go?
Speaker 12 (06:04):
You can tell listening to Amber Tuckero's last phone call,
I'm going to that this rural area outside of Edmonton
isn't where she wanted to end up. Tuckero is a
passenger in a vehicle, the driver a stranger. She likely
(06:27):
didn't know their conversation was being recorded that years later
it could help solve her murder where.
Speaker 9 (06:36):
I'm sure all the time I think Coolora all the time.
Speaker 12 (06:51):
It's been five years since her daughter disappeared, but Tutsie
Tuckero's grief has not subsided. Amber was her baby, her
only girl after four boys. One weekend in August twenty ten,
Amber told her mother she and her son were taking
a trip to Edmonton with a friend. Tussy says she
didn't want her daughter to go, and.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
She's like, mom, it's okay, just just two slips and
I'll be back. And well, even though I tell Amber
or not to go or do whatever, she's going to
do it anyways, And so they left that evening.
Speaker 12 (07:23):
They stayed at this motel in Niskeu, just outside the city.
Tussy says she and Amber were in constant communication so
when she couldn't reach her on the second evening, she
was immediately worried.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
And you still always tell Amber like don't hitchhike, don't
you know, go strangers, or if you're in a cab,
even if you have to pretend like you're on your cellphone.
They do it just so personally, think you're talking to
somebody and you'll do.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Nothing to you.
Speaker 12 (07:53):
Tutcy doesn't know how or why, but the night before
they were due to head back home, Amber ended up
in the exact sity situation her mother warned her about.
She got in a vehicle with an unknown man. But
this phone call wasn't fake, it was real, Ye are
we going? And it was being recorded on the other end.
Speaker 6 (08:15):
To go.
Speaker 12 (08:19):
Amber was never heard from again. Tutsi reported her missing
right away, but says police didn't take Amber's disappearance seriously.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Oh she's probably old partying and she'll come home, she'll call.
Speaker 9 (08:32):
That's what they told me.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
But I said, I still want to report her missing.
Speaker 12 (08:35):
Arcy MP didn't seem to put much effort into finding
Amber until two years after her disappearance, when they did
something unprecedented. They released this audio recording and asked anyone
who recognized this man's voice to come forward.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yo're going?
Speaker 13 (09:00):
Are you sure?
Speaker 12 (09:05):
Police have never disclosed how or where they got the
audio recording or who Amber's talking to on the phone,
but we found out that the call to amber cell
came from her brother, who was incarcerated in the Edmonton
Reman Center. We're all outgoing phone calls by inmates are recorded.
Just four days after the recording was released, horseback riders
(09:26):
found Amber's remains here on this farmer's property in Ludue County,
just south of Edmonton, and the RCMP's missing person's case
became a homicide investigation and their search for the voice intensified.
Rcmps say they've received hundreds of tips, but the identity
of the man behind the voice remains a mystery.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
How can his found me or if he has a
wife for his friends, how do they sleep at night knowing,
you know, they hear it? Maybe it's the same the
same guy that's some killing these other women that have
found it in the area, right and how many more
(10:07):
women girls are going to be killed before he's cut
because these people that know are not coming forward and
identifying him.
Speaker 12 (10:16):
This woman is convinced that she knows the man in
the recording. We've agreed to conceal her identity.
Speaker 14 (10:22):
I knew the voice like I know the back of
my own hand.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
So many people say it's the same guy right way.
Speaker 14 (10:27):
Yeah, I listened to it. I recognize it right away.
Not only recognized it, but I could see. I could
see how the voice was sitting, where his hands were,
where it was looking.
Speaker 15 (10:41):
I was so resto it.
Speaker 12 (10:43):
We spoke to two other women who also believe it's
the same man. All three say they reported him to
RCMP's care division, But RCMP reached out to us and
told us they've looked into their tips, but this man
is not a person of interest in Amber's case.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Oh, they didn't look very hard. I don't think our.
Speaker 12 (11:01):
CMP only released sixty one seconds of the recording, but
the entire phone call lasted seventeen minutes. That's about the
length of time it would take to drive from the
Nisky motel to hear where Amber's remains were found. Tutsie
has heard the whole thing. She says Amber can be
heard laughing at the beginning, but that the phone call
(11:23):
ends abruptly in fear.
Speaker 16 (11:26):
My baby sounds.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's so scared, and Amber was like the tough girls.
She can't take care of herself and all as she
won't just let anybody do anything to her without a
fight or whatever. And I get make mare to have
(11:50):
all these awful thoughts, what could have you know?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
What happened to her?
Speaker 12 (12:05):
As hard as it is to imagine what happened, Tutsie
can't let it go. And Si Lambert's killer is caught,
she vows she won't give up.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
And as messed up as it is, I think of
the voice all the time.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I think with the voice all the time.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
It's kind of late, so messed up, because Tamber's case
is about the voice, the man's voice, and now I
am Amber's voice.
Speaker 14 (12:32):
Now.
Speaker 12 (12:33):
Her only hope is that someone out there recognizes the
voice and has the courage to speak up. Connie Walker,
CBC News for Chippewan, Alberta.
Speaker 6 (12:43):
So her family did everything right, even her friend that
I knew Amber would have never just left her baby
and not come back.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
They know some things up.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
They report her missing right away, and they're not taken
seriously at all. The police literally assume she's just a runaway,
which is so heartbreaking knowing that they could have had
this seventeen minute call from the get go. I'm not
as sure exactly how long it took to find it. Also,
(13:12):
they in certain clips they pronounced her last name Tuckero
and then other ones to Carro, so I'm not sure
what is right. I feel like maybe it is Tuckero
because they just used that in the one where they
were talking directly to her family, So I'm sorry if
I am miss pronouncing that. But when Amber's family purported
her missing, the RCMP told them to wait it out,
(13:34):
implying she had probably run off. They never issued an alert,
never treated it as urgent. They even threw out her
belongings that her mother had brought in for evidence. It
took them a full year to release that recording you
just heard, and when they finally did, they played it
at a press conference and left no context, barely any timeline,
(13:54):
no answers, just Amber's voice and this man's voice echoing
into a void. Years later, the RCMP would offer a
bland apology, a singer a single press release, and as
you heard, her mother, Tutsie wasn't having it. They're the
ones apologizing, But yet they can get up and walk away.
Speaker 7 (14:13):
What does that say she said she's right? What does
it say?
Speaker 6 (14:18):
Amber's remains were found at a field in Luddock County
in twenty twelve, two years after she vanished, just seventeen
minutes from where she was last seen, the same exact
length as the phone call. To this day, no one
has been charged. Amber's story hurts so much, not just
because it's rare, but because it isn't. She's part of
(14:40):
a devastating pattern. In Canada, Indigenous women make up four
percent of the population but account for sixteen percent of
all female homicide victims. In the US, five seven hundred
and twelve cases of missing Indigenous women and girls were
reported in just one year twenty sixteen, but only one
hundred and sixteen were logged in the federal database. The
(15:02):
US Bureau of Indian Affairs literally says this on their website.
There is no reliable count on how many Indigenous women
are missing or murdered. That's just horrifying. We don't know
how many because they don't get counted, because systems don't
listen to voices like Ambers until it's far too late.
(15:23):
And Amber isn't alone. Here are a few more names
whose stories haven't been told. Ramona Wilson vanished in nineteen
ninety four hitchhiking to a dance, found in the woods,
no arrest. Loretta Saunders, a student writing or thesis on
missing and murdered, missing, murdered Indigenous women and girls, murdered
(15:45):
by her roommates in twenty fourteen. The Highway of Tears
a four hundred and fifty miles stretch in British Columbia
where dozens of Indigenous women have disappeared and been found
dead since nineteen seventy. Official numbers say eighteen. The family
members say the truth is closer to fifty. This is
a clip from Vice News the searchers Highway of Tears.
Speaker 13 (16:10):
People are going missing, kids are going missing, women are
going missing. It doesn't matter who they are, or what
their race is or anything. It shouldn't matter, especially them
in Canada, but you know there's a lot of people
would tell you it does.
Speaker 14 (16:24):
We're going to fly up Prince stores and then what
sort of on the agenda.
Speaker 13 (16:28):
I guess we need to think about where where I'm
going to go to try to find some of these people.
They're a little bit on the criminal side, so I
don't anticipate them.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We're telling to be happy in their face at their door,
so we'll.
Speaker 7 (16:43):
Do sometimes.
Speaker 17 (16:45):
Run light.
Speaker 7 (16:46):
Now, this guy passed away last year who was investigating. Unfortunately,
growing up here, I had.
Speaker 18 (16:57):
No idea that women were going to miss and being murdered,
and that more often.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Than not those women were Indigenous.
Speaker 7 (17:04):
And it was around two.
Speaker 18 (17:05):
Thousand and two that the Highway of Tears started being
talked about a lot more publicly, and started learning about this.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Other place in the province.
Speaker 18 (17:12):
Where again women were going missing and being murdered. Most
of the cases were unsolved, and once again most of
those women were Indigenous.
Speaker 7 (17:20):
Working as a journalist in the.
Speaker 18 (17:22):
City, I learned about this guy named Ray who is
next cop and he's been investigating some of these unsolved
cases on his own time, and he's agreed to let
us come with him to show us what he's all about,
and also really curious where he fits into the bigger
picture of the Highway of Tears and unfortunately what's been.
Speaker 7 (17:39):
Going on there for a long time.
Speaker 18 (17:44):
We're here in Prince George, which is the largest city
in Northern British Columbia. About seventy thousand people live here,
and this is also the edge of what people call
the Highway of Tears, which is Highway sixteen, seven hundred
and twenty four kilometers between here and Prince Rupert on
the cost and if you go by the RCMP numbers,
nine women have gone missing or been murdered along that
(18:05):
specific stretch of highway. If you ask for snations groups
or just the communities along this route, and they'll tell
you that number is much higher.
Speaker 7 (18:13):
This is nine years raising Prince George.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Truck came in.
Speaker 18 (18:15):
He thinks may have been involved in one of the
Highway of Tears murders. He won't give us details about
which case. The person that you're hoping to speak to
you tomorrow or the next couple of days.
Speaker 13 (18:26):
Yeah, he's a low level drug dealer in MFM and
you've never spoken to this person before. No, I can't
find him. I'm getting closer, though, I mean his name
came from what I consider to be.
Speaker 17 (18:37):
Good a good source.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
So there are other people around that, there are.
Speaker 17 (18:41):
People that know.
Speaker 13 (18:42):
There's people street workers in Prince George.
Speaker 17 (18:46):
You know, they know.
Speaker 18 (18:48):
You know if you've been trying to talk down this
person for years, so you do you have a lot
of anticipation about what that.
Speaker 13 (18:52):
Might look like I think I'll be the first person
to confront him, so you know, I don't know.
Speaker 17 (18:59):
What that's going to be.
Speaker 18 (18:59):
Like do you actually sit down and just look at
somebody and I've and half illustraight out.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Did you kill this person? Yeah, that's what I would do.
Speaker 13 (19:08):
I'd probably explain why I'm there and then.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
See what happened.
Speaker 7 (19:13):
The pents like a video.
Speaker 6 (19:14):
I live in Prince George when there's way more disappearing
to kill fifty like just and again, this is nine
years old. This is another interview with Ray, but this
one is from CBC News Roads.
Speaker 17 (19:33):
That a killer could drive off to dispose of a
body in an hour, and there were you know, a
hundred and or more, It'd be very easy to dispose
of somebody and been very difficult to find them. It's
a perfect place to go missing forever.
Speaker 19 (19:54):
Raymahalko is trying to solve the murders along BC's infamous
Highway of Tears. He used to be an RCMP officer,
but after nine years he left the force to work
on his own. Now he's a private investigator, but nobody's
paying him to look into these cases. He just can't
help it.
Speaker 17 (20:10):
I'm disappointed that some of these cases haven't been solved.
I'm stubborn, I'm not a quitter, and you know I.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Like to help people.
Speaker 19 (20:21):
On this date, Ray takes me back to the very beginning,
to the spot where he first started his investigation ten
years ago, this abandoned elementary school in Prince George. So
what do you you come here and what do you
think about?
Speaker 17 (20:39):
Well, this is where my first theory started because Lee
Germain's body was found dump behind the school. It seems
like a bizarre place to leave somebody if you're just
driving down the highway like a stranger. So I'm still
convinced that that whoever was responsible is familiar with this area.
Speaker 19 (20:57):
So that's raised working theory. The killer lived somewhere very
close to here.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Would you show me? Can we walk?
Speaker 7 (21:02):
Sure?
Speaker 19 (21:05):
It's terrible to imagine that this is the place where
Lea Jermain, just a kid fifteen years old, was left
after she was stabbed to death.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
That was December nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 19 (21:14):
How she ended up in this field is one of
the things that Ray has spent years trying to figure out.
He now thinks Lea's case is linked to another murdered
young woman fifteen year old Rocks and Tiara, you know,
both were murdered.
Speaker 20 (21:25):
How many serious areas and prostitution so that ship that
they wanted to get out of it and clean up
their eye.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
So what does it make you wonder?
Speaker 17 (21:36):
Well, it makes me wonder if the people responsible for
running that business like they're using them, like their pimps,
had something to do with it.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Do you know who the pimp was in those days?
Speaker 10 (21:46):
You know?
Speaker 17 (21:46):
I don't. I'm attempting to find that out, actually.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
And now that he's dead, I really wonder who's investigating that.
There's also a really good documentary on YouTube called Highway
of Tears that I highly recommend. I don't think I
can get away with playing any of it because it's
not news and this isn't just happening in Canada. This
is happening all over the United States. This is another
(22:17):
a different Vice News piece about indigenous women keep going
missing in Montana.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Family and friends, along with search and rescue teams, have
been looking for Selena Not Afraid at about a three
to five mile radius.
Speaker 21 (22:30):
Selena Not Afraid was last seen around two o'clock on
Wednesday at the eastbound I ninety rest area between.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Billings and Harden. Searchers have been looking for not Afraid
since New Year's Day. She was a last freeer check
radio check.
Speaker 15 (22:41):
Selena not Afraid disappeared from a resta on New Year's
Day in Montana's Bagelorn County.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's been really cold on her home.
Speaker 15 (22:52):
Nine days later and community led search teams we're still
looking for the first clue that might lead them to her.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
So we know our mission for today.
Speaker 22 (23:00):
We're looking for any sign of Selena, anything out of
the ordinary. You know the drill.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
You guys have been doing this. So this is bartooth, baratooth. Yeah,
how are you, buddies. We'll find our girl, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 15 (23:13):
Selina Fred's case is an example of what Native women face.
They are almost three times more likely to experience sexual
violence compared to white women, and homicide is the fourth
leading cause of death for those under twenty, and.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
The problems often continue even after death.
Speaker 15 (23:30):
According to a twenty nineteen report, approximately half of all
cases involving murdered Indigenous women in Montana have been misclassified
for causes like suicide, overdose, or exposure.
Speaker 23 (23:41):
Been on Bugsy Teddy and his wife, their baby, little Lighte, Mikey,
Plain Bull Garrett. Our current active search right now hub Williamson,
Bonnie three irons twenty seventeen we recovered her. The next
one was Henny Scott just in Montana last year. We
recovered her because Sarah stopped at pretty places she was found.
Speaker 7 (24:03):
I believe by indipity in town we are and now.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Our recent active search is Selena.
Speaker 22 (24:11):
In all the previous cases that I've been involved with,
where the situation is like this here, it's it's it's
always been a recovery, It's never been a.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Happy ending. Where is Selena?
Speaker 9 (24:30):
Where is she?
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Where's my grandbaby?
Speaker 15 (24:34):
Native Americans make up six point seven percent of Montana's population,
but account for twenty six percent of missing person reports.
And while local officials claim that causes for these deaths
and disappearances are varied, from drug trafficking to domestic violence,
one thing they all have in common is that they
take place in a jurisdictional minefield. Depending on where someone
(24:56):
is reported missing or where a victim is found, it
could fall to are state, federal, or tribal authorities to investigate,
and with that many intersecting agencies, there are plenty of
cracks for these cases to fall through.
Speaker 11 (25:09):
An Indian reservation, for all intentsive purposes, is a sovereign nation.
It is subject to completely different laws governing bodies. They're
like a country within a country, so bigger in county
deputy can show up on a tribal member'stor step on
the reservation, and that tribal member can say, you have
no right to.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Be here, you have no jurisdiction here.
Speaker 15 (25:29):
It can be very difficult. Responsibility might fall with the
county sheriff's department, officers from the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs,
or the tribal police.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Sometimes the FBI also steps in.
Speaker 15 (25:41):
There are both too many agencies jocking for authority and
not enough resources to go around. In late twenty nineteen,
the Crow Tribe declared a state of emergency. Tribal Chairman
aj not Afraid cited a list of issues, including the
BIA's lack of officers and failure to address the murdered
and missing women in crisis. The Crow Reservation is roughly
(26:02):
the size of Connecticut, but for years has only had
five BIA officers. Recently, the tribe assembled its own sovereign
police force, independent from the BIA.
Speaker 11 (26:13):
We're between two communities right now, we currently have no
radio service, we have no cell phone service, we have
no ways unless we had a SAT phone, we wouldn't
have any way to communicate with anybody.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
But even like outside of that, outside of the tribal
laws and tribal police and the politics of all of this,
like in cases like Ambers where those things are not
an issue, the case still just does not get the
kind of.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Media coverage it deserves. It does not get covered in
the way anything should be covered. And even when things
happen like the RCMP apologizing.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
What does that really do?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
After the RCMP, I am truly sorry.
Speaker 16 (26:53):
Words Amber Tackrose relatives have been waiting nine years to
hear ever since she went missing your Edmonton in twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
I fully acknowledge that in the early days of our
investigation into ambers disappearance that it required a better sense
of urgency and care.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
But there were a few details on why things were mishandled.
Speaker 16 (27:12):
Why Amber's name was removed from a missing person's list
shortly after she vanished, last scene getting into an unknown man's.
Speaker 24 (27:18):
Car and.
Speaker 9 (27:21):
Ar anywhere I don't want to go, Why it.
Speaker 16 (27:23):
Took two years for police to release this recording, of
a conversation between Amber and the driver.
Speaker 6 (27:28):
Where why we're just the bamark to Beaumart.
Speaker 16 (27:34):
Amber's remains were found in twenty twelve, all this time later,
what the police had to say rings hollow to her
loved ones.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
As of right now, the apology.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Doesn't mean anything to me because they did it because
they were torlatal.
Speaker 16 (27:50):
Last year, an independent federal commission released a report looking
into the investigation. It called the police's work deficient and
urged today's public Maya kulpa Or says it's learned a lot.
Speaker 14 (28:01):
We've implemented mandatory reviews of missing person's files every twenty
four hours.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
But also, as the family was speaking today, I'm sorry,
but we're out of time. We're over time in facts,
the Takaro sted put.
Speaker 16 (28:13):
But the deputy police commissioner left the news conference for
another meeting.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
I mean, they're the ones apologizing, but they can get
up and walk away.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
What does that say? Amber's case remains an open investigation.
Speaker 16 (28:27):
Today, the Tuckero's unveiled a new poster calling for tips
as they continue to seek justice for Amber.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Raphie What You Can You and CBC News.
Speaker 6 (28:35):
Edmonton, and there has been outrage over it, which has
brought some change. This is from a local Portland news
station from four months ago, Alesley.
Speaker 23 (28:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 25 (28:46):
And resources are being set across the country from the
FBI to tackle unresolved violent crimes among Native American communities, including.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Here in Portland.
Speaker 26 (28:54):
Operation Not Forgotten is the longest and most intense deployment
of FBI resources to address these crimes. Fox Balls Michail
Armstrong is in studio now with more on the impact
this could have on a local woman still looking for
answers in an unsolved case, Petriel.
Speaker 25 (29:07):
With these added resources, unsolved violent crimes and Native American
communities will be getting much more attention and for one
sister that could bring answers to a missing person's case
be adding nearly eight years.
Speaker 27 (29:18):
The thing that I noticed throughout Indian country is if
you tell a story of love whe going missing, it's
the same tamplet of all other stories. It says, if
you tell one story, you're telling them all.
Speaker 8 (29:27):
Kimberly Louring heavy Runner says that story plagued her family
when her sister, Ashley Louring heavy Runner, vanished in June
of twenty seventeen on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana.
Her family is still without answers nearly eight years later,
and says her disappearance is a part of an ongoing
crisis among Native Americans going missing or being murdered at
(29:47):
disproportionately high rates.
Speaker 27 (29:49):
It's just different names, it's different places, it's different officers.
You know, it's all the same story, just different times
in people.
Speaker 8 (29:55):
According to the FBI Indian Country Program, in twenty twenty five,
there are forty three hundred OP investigations, including nine hundred
death investigations, a thousand child abuse investigations, and more than
five hundred domestic violence and sexual abuse investigations. To address
this growing crisis, the FBI announced Tuesday that it intends
to searge additional resources, including temporary duty assignments that rotate
(30:17):
over the next six months, in several different areas.
Speaker 21 (30:20):
For decades, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives have experienced disproportionately
high rates of murder, rape, and other violent crimes, and
outcome experts say of generational trauma and systemic abuse. Tackling
the issue has been a rare bipartisan effort. President Trump
is now continuing a Justice Department program to surge FBI
agents to help solve cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people.
(30:43):
Stephanie Side reports from New Mexico. A lack of law
enforcement resources is just one reason why so many of
these cases are never solved. It's part of our ongoing series.
Speaker 28 (30:52):
Race Matters, Giggles, and the Breathless Joy of Childhood Breathe
life into the dusty Jumez Pueblo. The grandkids are all right,
but it wasn't always so.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
So.
Speaker 24 (31:04):
Shauna actually had four kids, three girls and one boy.
Wilson was her only boy she had, and it was
actually the hardest to comfort him when she passed.
Speaker 28 (31:17):
Geraldine and Benjamin Toya are potters by trade. They work
while they reminisce about their late daughter.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
She used to follow me a road everywhere I go.
Speaker 28 (31:25):
In July of twenty twenty one, Shauna was with Geraldine
at a family party. About six hours later, Geraldine.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Got a call in the dead of night.
Speaker 10 (31:33):
When I got that call that morning at three point
fifteen to say that they found my daughter deceased at
a park in her ride. It didn't you know, it
was like a bad dream, you know, That's what I
wanted to see it as, because I just saw her
I just spoke with her.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It can't be here.
Speaker 28 (31:50):
The incident report says EMTs tried CPR on Shauna, but
she was beyond help. In the post mortem examination, test
showed she had methamphetamines, ventanyl and alcohol in her system,
indicating an accidental overdose.
Speaker 10 (32:03):
They told me that they found out that they didn't
see that there was any foul play, and they immediately
kind of labeled her as a person that had, I guess,
caused trouble on the streets, homeless and did a lot
of drugs.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
And I said, that's not her.
Speaker 28 (32:19):
The Toyas say they have reason to believe Shauna may
have been killed.
Speaker 10 (32:23):
She had actual bruises on her face, and her lip
was like what swollen, She had a bleeding from her neck.
She had gravel all over her back, and I set
what in the world what happened?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Did they just throw her in the freezer.
Speaker 28 (32:41):
The Toyos noticed Shawna's car contained empty grocery bags and
an empty wallet, a sign she was robbed, they say,
And they found another woman's idea in the car, something
not mentioned in the police incident report. Among other things,
the Toyas claimed were overlooked Shawna was wrongly labeled male
in one of the medical examine reports.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
They does sent her home like she was nobody.
Speaker 28 (33:05):
The Albuquerque Police Department did not respond to a request
for comment, but the Toyas are convinced that Shawna's case
fits in with thousands of other unsolved violent crimes against
Native Americans.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
It's a crisis.
Speaker 29 (33:17):
Tribal communities experienced disproportionate levels of violent crime, and we
have to work as hard as we can to address that.
Speaker 28 (33:22):
Elliot Neil is an assistant US attorney based in New Mexico,
specifically assigned to address missing and Murdered Indigenous People cases
or m MIP in the Southwest. Under federal law, the
FBI works with tribes to investigate major crimes in Indian country.
Speaker 29 (33:37):
Crimes like domestic violence, assaults, things like that, child abuse,
child sexual abuse, things like that that are sort of
m MIP precursors that lead to those deaths.
Speaker 28 (33:48):
There are at least forty three hundred cases of unsolved
violent crimes against Native Americans across the country. Operation Not
Forgotten will surge sixty Department of Justice personnel, including FBI agents,
in the next six months to help investigate those cases.
The agents will be deployed to ten FBI field offices
across the country, rotating in ninety day assignments.
Speaker 30 (34:10):
We owe it to Native Americans, as the first people
of this land, we should be trying to solve their
cases with the utmost respect and the utmost due diligence.
Speaker 28 (34:20):
Darlene Gomez is an attorney and advocate for missing and
murdered Indigenous people based in Albuquerque. One of the cases
she's advocated authorities pursue further is that of Calvin Martinez,
who has been missing since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 20 (34:33):
Hey loss his wife and his son in a family
fire and twenty fourteen, it was midnight December twenty third,
twenty fourteen. I woke up and I heard my brother yelling,
and I got up and I went outside and I
just seen it. Oh trailer on fire, and he got out,
and I think he went back in to grab the
(34:55):
baby and her and she fell over.
Speaker 12 (34:58):
And we don't have a resource in to figure out
where they're at or who has them.
Speaker 28 (35:03):
Becky Martinez, Calvin's sister, says he struggled for the next
five years using drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
She says when he disappeared.
Speaker 28 (35:11):
He was living between places, and because he didn't have
an address, the county referred the family to the Navajo
Nation Police, and.
Speaker 20 (35:18):
Then the Navajo Police department points as to Farmington, and
then Farmington said that they.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Couldn't help us.
Speaker 7 (35:24):
I think I just I just felt like conscious. That's
what I've been focusing on.
Speaker 20 (35:30):
I didn't have no help, I didn't have no resources.
Speaker 6 (35:33):
I didn't know who to turn to.
Speaker 28 (35:35):
Jurisdictional confusion is a common feature in missing persons cases
involving tribal members, but it is only one challenge to
solving these cases, says attorney Darling Gomes.
Speaker 30 (35:45):
Everybody in Indian Country knows if you want to kill
somebody and get away with it, you go to Indian Country.
The lack of officers to respond to calls, the remoteness
oftentimes you have no cell service, you have no radio service.
The nine to one one calls areb manned by outside
of the reservation, by county nine one one resource centers.
(36:05):
What I have seen is cases that should have been
investigated further by calling either a criminal investigator or the
FBI don't even make it to that level because officers like, oh,
it's unattended death, or comes up with some other reason
not to consider it a major crime.
Speaker 27 (36:20):
Right now, I am out in Farmington, New Mexico, for
Operation Not Forgotten.
Speaker 28 (36:25):
The FBI put out this video last year of a
special agent working a four year old case. The agent
searches for clues in an open field. Crucially, in this case,
a body had been found.
Speaker 30 (36:36):
The US Attorney's Office is not going to prosecute a
case without a body.
Speaker 28 (36:41):
US attorneys generally decide which major crimes to prosecute. There
are thousands of Indian Country families that want answers, And
what you're saying is you cannot necessarily promise more prosecutions.
Speaker 29 (36:55):
You know, we have a duty to the public to
prosecute cases where you know, we can prove that a
crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt. Right if we don't
feel like we can do that at a particular point,
we can't bring that case.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
It's not fair of us to bring that case.
Speaker 28 (37:11):
In the latest statistics from the Department of Justice, US
attorneys most commonly cited reason for declining to prosecute cases
in Indian Country was insufficient evidence.
Speaker 29 (37:21):
These are tight knit, small communities. For almost every case,
I've looked at We're pretty confident that people in the community.
Speaker 10 (37:29):
Know what happened.
Speaker 28 (37:30):
Georgiana Harrison believes it is why her sister, Renelle Rose
Bennett has been missing since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
That's the only thing that I wish people would do.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I don't know what kind of thrill they have from
withholding information.
Speaker 28 (37:42):
You think that there's people in the community on the
reservation that are withhold.
Speaker 25 (37:46):
Definitely, definitely there is people out there that are withholding
information and they need to if they see something, say something,
tell somebody.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
I mean, there's kids out here hurting.
Speaker 11 (37:56):
There's mothers out here.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Hurting what if it was their children?
Speaker 28 (38:00):
Which for answers also looms over the Toyas. Back on
the Hemez Pueblo, the kids have gone to counseling, and
Wilson no longer goes to bed hoping his mom will
be there when he wakes. The youngest girl, Shyey, reminds.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Them of Shauna.
Speaker 10 (38:13):
She's just like her mom.
Speaker 23 (38:14):
Her mom is to sing.
Speaker 24 (38:15):
Everywhere she went, and every time she was going to talk,
it was in.
Speaker 10 (38:19):
More singing than talking.
Speaker 28 (38:23):
Geraldine Toya says it's the grandkids that motivate her continued
quest to try and get the case reopened. For the
PBS News Hour, I'm Stephanie Sie on the Hemez Pueblo
in New Mexico.
Speaker 6 (38:37):
So, I mean, there's just so much here, and it's
just so heartbreaking that there are so many families dealing
with the same thing that everyone kind of just points
fingers and blames within the police and within the FBI,
and that it's happening in the United States and Canada
(38:58):
after the history that Native people have had, like this
didn't happen overnight. It's a systemic thing and years and
years of abuse and misconduct and genocide before that. I
know this episode wasn't a complete deep dive on this subject,
but I just wanted to lay the groundwork since it
(39:19):
will be something that will be talking about again. I
can't believe Amber's Amber Tucker's case hasn't been solved as
well as so many of the others. I can't believe
that there's a place called the Highway of Tears. I mean,
I can believe it. I can believe it, but it's horrifying.
(39:40):
Like Amber has her killer's voice on audio. They've had
audio of it for fifteen years now. Everyone says they
know who the guy is, and this case still isn't solved,
and that just feels so it's heartbreaking because you know,
you think if you have that much that they'd be
(40:01):
able to do something with it, and there's still excuses
and reasons they didn't. There's that sorry half apology, but I.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
Mean, is that what does that do? What does that
do in the end?
Speaker 6 (40:14):
So I just wanted to bring attention to some of
these cases. We'll do deeper dives into some more and
in future episodes also try and figure out how this
is so pervasive and.
Speaker 7 (40:30):
What can be done about it.
Speaker 6 (40:31):
I'll put some links in the show notes with more information.
I really just wanted to get Amber's story out there
a little bit more. I think it's something that can
still be solved. And I'm going to end this episode
with that call from her again, just because if anyone
is listening that does recognize that man's voice, I wish
(40:54):
the police would release the full seventeen minute call instead
of just giving us a minute of audio, because you
never know what could be valuable on it. It reminds
me of the Delphi up guys up the Hill where
they released that and just snippets. But I mean that
was like a worldwide news case and it still took
(41:18):
years and years to solve, not as long as Amber's case.
But I really do think that this can still be solved.
If it's a guy that everyone thinks it is, maybe
more evidence will come forward. I feel like a lot
of these dudes are just straight up serial killers, like
the guy in the audio with Amber. The way he's
kind of chuckling and so nonchalant, just not a care
(41:41):
in the world, even though he knows she's on the phone.
Speaker 7 (41:45):
It makes me feel like.
Speaker 6 (41:49):
It's not the first time he's done that, that it
couldn't be the first time someone has done that, because
there's a level of confidence with it.
Speaker 7 (41:56):
It's just disgusting.
Speaker 6 (41:59):
So if you do recognize this voice, contact contact the
RCMP through the links in the show notes, message me
about it. There's a lot of resources to reach out.
You never know when all of this could come together
and someone can solve this. And we have to look
(42:21):
out for each other. We also have to look out
for the most vulnerable groups of people among us. And
just hearing these statistics from Montana to Canada, to New
Mexico to Portland, where I am it's so upsetting, it's
so disturbing.
Speaker 7 (42:39):
This is something that should not be happening.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
I'm RCP Constable Ray Shelton.
Speaker 31 (42:45):
I'm an investigator with Care which is mandated with investigating
unsolved homicides and vulnerable missing persons. Right now, we're asking
for the public' assistance, your assistance and solving one such investigation.
This is a missing person's case of Amber Tucherl, a
twenty one year old female who went missing in August
of twenty ten. On August seventeenth, twenty ten, Amber flew
from Fort McMurray to Edmonton with her female friend and
(43:07):
Amber's fourteen month old son. After arriving at Edmonton International Airport,
the three booked into a motel room here in this
queue and spent the night. In the early evening of
August eighteenth, twenty ten, Amber left the hotel room to
find a ride into the city of Edmonton. We know
that between seven thirty and eight o'clock PM, Amber got
into a vehicle with an unknown mail. While in that vehicle,
(43:28):
Amber received a phone call, and through investigative means, we
have obtained a recording of that phone call. That recording
includes the voice of the unknown male driver of the vehicle.
To date, that individual is unidentified. We're asking the public's
assistance to listen to the tape in hopes that someone
recognizes the male voice of the driver and phones investigators
with that information. This audio clip may be disturbing to
(43:49):
some listeners, but it's important that the public listens to
the voice and helps investigators identify the driver of that vehicle.
In the following audio recording, you will hear two voices,
that of Amber Tucker and the unknown male driver.
Speaker 17 (44:01):
Of the vehicle.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
Where are we by?
Speaker 10 (44:05):
We're out?
Speaker 12 (44:07):
Or right head?
Speaker 16 (44:09):
Boh?
Speaker 11 (44:10):
Yo?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Where are we going.
Speaker 6 (44:15):
Now?
Speaker 2 (44:16):
Are you still kidding me?
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Doing anywhere?
Speaker 11 (44:21):
I want to go?
Speaker 4 (44:22):
I want to go into the city.
Speaker 15 (44:26):
Yo, We're not going in the city, Army, We're going.
Speaker 20 (44:29):
No, we're not.
Speaker 4 (44:32):
Road's going to fifty Street?
Speaker 6 (44:34):
Fifty Are you sure?
Speaker 8 (44:36):
Absolutely?
Speaker 7 (44:38):
Go where we're going?
Speaker 6 (44:40):
This shape street, Deep Shay.
Speaker 7 (44:48):
Out problem valleys.
Speaker 31 (44:55):
We believe that rather than driving into the city of Edmonton,
the mail drove south and east of miss you into
La County, and subsequent to this phone conversation ending, no
one has seen or heard from Amber. We believe the
mail driver of this vehicle has information that may assist
police in finding Amber. You will now hear the audio
clip a second time. Please listen carefully and if you
believe you recognize the voice of this mail driver, please
(45:18):
call investigators.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
With that information.
Speaker 17 (45:26):
Street Street.
Speaker 31 (45:42):
This recording is available at the care website at k
A R E dot ca A and also at the
Alberta Missing Person's website Alberta Missing Persons dot ca A.
Listen to the audio carefully and if you can assist
investigators and recognize the male voice of the driver of
the vehicle, please contact the Care tip line at seven
eight zero five zero mind three three five six or
(46:02):
toll free at eight seven seven four one two five
two seven three.
Speaker 6 (46:10):
Thank you so much for listening to another episode of
Broad's next Door. We will be covering more missing murdered
Indigenous women and girls cases in the future. This was
just kind of getting into the subject. It's something I
should have covered sooner. Honestly, this is like episode one
(46:31):
fifty four or something, so it's something I should have
talked about sooner.
Speaker 7 (46:36):
But I'm glad we're talking about it now.
Speaker 6 (46:39):
If there are specific cases you want me to cover,
please let me know.
Speaker 7 (46:44):
Let me know your thoughts.
Speaker 6 (46:45):
If you have any information, please call the tip lines
that we're listed.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
I'll put more resources in the show notes.
Speaker 6 (46:53):
You can find me online at Daniella Screama and at
Broad's next Door. You can email me at Broad's Nextdoor
dot com or brown to next Door at gmail dot com.
I'm bummed out. I'm bummed out, but it feels like
that's the only appropriate response right now is to be
(47:14):
bummed out and I will talk to you very soon
at the very somber Goodbye.
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