RCMP are planning to make an announcement Tuesday in relation to the case of Cassidy Bernard, who was found dead in her home on We’koqma’q First Nation in Cape Breton last year.

Over the past 13 months, police have been very tight-lipped about the ongoing investigation into the 22-year-old Mi’kmaw woman’s death, beyond that it was considered suspicious and not a random act.

Bernard’s six-month-old twin daughters were in the house when she died, but were not harmed. 

The update will be provided Tuesday on We’koqma’q First Nation at 11 a.m.

Though RCMP have never said they considered Bernard’s death on Oct. 24, 2018, a homicide, community members have always believed she was killed. 

We’koqma’q is a tight-knit community of about 850 people. In the weeks following Bernard’s death, the chief and council said in a statement her “murder has devastated her children, her family, our community and the entire Mi’kmaw Nation.”

The community even took the exceptional step last November of pledging a $100,000 reward for any information that led to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible in Bernard’s death.

Friends, family and community members have also staged multiple marches in memory of Bernard, and to raise awareness of her case. More than 100 people shut down Nova Scotia’s Canso Causeway to call attention to missing and murdered Indigenous women and in memory of Bernard. 

Cassidy’s loved one have also pleaded for information about the case. 

“Be courageous, be brave. This epidemic in our country of missing and murdered women will not stop until we can come forward and put those names to the police,” Annie Bernard-Daisley told CBC last November. 

On the anniversary of Bernard’s death, hundreds of people lined up along a section of Highway 105 next to We’koqma’q in her memory. 

Cassidy’s mother Mona Bernard said it was frustrating and heartbreaking waiting for answers.

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