Carol Off: Melissa, I know you have followed a lot of leads over the decades, hoping to learn something about your aunt. What’s been the latest lead?

Melissa Skunk: The latest that we had was on September 11th, Nishnawbe Aski Police Service from Thunder Bay had come to my community to get D.N.A. off my grandmother. Their reason for being there was that there was a body that was found in Oregon and I guess what they had to do was a face composite. When we’ve seen these pictures of what this person, what the body that they had found would have looked like, everybody in our family that was there at that family meeting said it was her. It’s because the resemblance was so strong. Her facial features and everything that was on that picture. Only to find out six months later it wasn’t her.

CO: It took six months to get the results from the DNA test from your grandmother. What was that like for your family to have yet another hope that gets dashed?

MS: That’s what it was. It was crushing. There’s this hope that we finally knew — because we all believed that it was her, because the resemblance was so strong. The waiting and the waiting, you know, that was the hardest part. Even harder was hearing that it wasn’t her. It makes it harder for everybody because my grandma’s 91 years old and enduring this six month waiting, you know, we watched her. We see her sitting there by the window, looking out the window. I think the most important thing for my grandmother throughout this whole years and years of looking for my aunt is that she wants to know where she is. We all do. Is she okay out there? Where is she? Does she know we’re looking for her? Is she alive? Was she a victim of, you know?

CO: When was the last time your grandmother saw her daughter, Sarah?

MS: The last time that she would have seen her was in 1986.

CO: That’s such a long time ago.

MS: That’s a long time ago. This is pretty much, I think, that anybody has had like direct contact with Sarah. Whether it was in person or by phone. Everything after that was just like hearsay stuff, and it was just always just dead ends.

CO: What are the leads that you think that should have been followed or could have been followed over these years?

MS: I have to admit, we’ve had our back and forth with the investigating officer. She has looked into it. I guess maybe it’s just us sometimes, you know, we want to know. We want to know now.

CO: What for instance? I know your aunt has some children, have they been able to locate those children and find out what they know?

MS: We’ve been trying to locate them. We’ve been trying to find them. We’re just going by what my aunt — the last time that I’ve seen my aunt was when I was five years old. I’m 43 now and all that we know, from what she had said to us, was that she had a daughter that was a year old than I was. We know she had a daughter named Lisa who’s 44 years old today. Then later on we received information from somebody that had that Sarah had two more kids. We don’t even know where the kids are. We want to find them. Maybe they know where their mom is.

CO: I think some members of your family wonder if she may have ended up on the Pickton farm and been one of those victims.

MS: My aunt has a strong belief that it’s a strong possibility, only because of a reoccurring theme that she keeps having. When she’s seen the Pickton farmhouse, it resembles the house that she dreamt of. Dreams are a big thing in our culture. We’re taught to listen to our dreams and this is what she’s fighting with. ‘I want to go there, I want to go find out all these victims that were found at the Pickton farm because Sarah was reported to travel to B.C. on many occasions. We also heard that is where one of her daughters could be possibly be living is in B.C.

CO: I guess these are the kinds of thoughts and dreams one has when you want news of someone you love and you can’t find them.

MS: Yeah. You know, you go though grief and this anguish and you can’t even identify which part of the grieving process you’re in. Because you don’t know, not knowing, it’s the not knowing that gets to everybody.

CO: They spoke with a number of other families who have missing women in their families. They felt a great deal of frustration with the police, at least initially, and some of them are finding, just most recently, that there has been better police work being done to find out what happened to them, but do you share that frustration with how this investigation has been.

MS: I think there needs to be more involvement. More dedication to finding these women that are missing, rather than waiting and waiting for information. Like I said, even if there was a dead end in some information that was received, maybe going back to the information, doing it again, maybe there’s something else new that they can find.

CO: Given all the frustration, given all the lost leads in this search, how are you going to keep the memory of your aunt Sarah alive?

MS: We’re planning a walk in May from the community of Thunder Bay, in hopes that we can bring awareness to the missing and murdered aboriginal women. Maybe somebody sees it, somebody sees pictures of Sarah, somebody driving by. Anything. Anybody that has any new information regarding my aunt, if they can come forward.

CO: Melissa, I hope that it helps and I hope you get news. It’s been so long for you.

MS: It’s been long, yeah. The one and only memory I have of Sarah is me and her walking along the road and her telling me that she has a daughter that looked just like me, that was a year older than me. It was just her holding my hand. That’s what touches me the most. In my mind, I think I want to take her by the hand and bring her home. Whether she’s alive or gone.

CO: Melissa, thank you.

MS: And thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

MS: Okay.

Source:: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/sarah-skunk-last-seen-in-1986-1.3012992?cmp=rss