Speaker 1: On February twenty fifth, nineteen ninety three, police were called
Speaker 1: to a house in a remote area in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Speaker 1: They arrived to a horrific and bloody scene. Seventy year
Speaker 1: old Joseph Dolph was lying face down on his bedroom
Speaker 1: floor dead. He had been beaten and stabbed multiple times.
Speaker 1: The house was in shambles and there had obviously been
Speaker 1: a violent struggle that morning. O'delia and Nerissa Cusance and
Speaker 1: their cousin Jason Kashane were picked up by police. The
Speaker 1: sisters were held at the station for five days and
Speaker 1: questioned repeatedly without counsel.
Speaker 2: These were two young Indigenous women trying to cope with
Speaker 2: police officers. White police officers, all male.
Speaker 1: The interrogations were not recorded, and after days of questioning,
Speaker 1: both women signed statements admitting to taking part in the killing, and.
Speaker 2: On the basis of those unrecorded statements that the police
Speaker 2: alleged they gave. After a trial before a jud John,
Speaker 2: of course, not surprisingly in all white jury, they were
Speaker 2: convicted the following year.
Speaker 1: From LoVa for good this is wrongful conviction with Maggie
Speaker 1: Freeling today Odelia and Narissa Cusance o'dellia, Narissa Cusants are
Speaker 1: sisters born two years apart and members of the Salto
Speaker 1: First Nation. They grew up on the Keiscous Reserve in Saskatchewan, Canada,
Speaker 1: along with an older brother and three other sisters.
Speaker 3: And growing up in Kiscoose. We all were called the
Speaker 3: village kids. We lived in a village.
Speaker 1: This is Odelia, the older of the two, born in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 3: Me and Narissa did not have our mother involved in
Speaker 3: our life, but our father was involved in till the
Speaker 3: day he passed. He was always there for us.
Speaker 4: I never actually knew my mother, but my dad was.
Speaker 4: He was the best thing for me.
Speaker 1: And that's Narissa. The sisters have always been close and
Speaker 1: both girls adored their father.
Speaker 3: He was.
Speaker 4: He was quite a big man. I guess he's six
Speaker 4: footy three.
Speaker 5: He was.
Speaker 4: He's really into sports. He's a hockey player himself, a
Speaker 4: basketball player, and he used to be coached on a
Speaker 4: team on a reserve. I mean, we didn't have nothing
Speaker 4: to eat or no power, you know, as long as
Speaker 4: he was there, and that's that's what mattered to me.
Speaker 3: He did his best. He wasn't perfect. Nobody's perfect.
Speaker 1: Life for the girls growing up was rough, Canada's Indigenous
Speaker 1: populations have long faced systemic racism, poverty, violence, and substance
Speaker 1: addiction were rampant on the reserve where they lived.
Speaker 3: Seeing people relatives trying to commit suicide, being babysat while
Speaker 3: our father trusted someone, and then having a relative commit
Speaker 3: suicide shoot himself.
Speaker 6: And we were.
Speaker 5: Little kids getting put.
Speaker 3: In a pat and you know it's we had a
Speaker 3: tough life.
Speaker 1: But the cues On siblings looked out for each other.
Speaker 1: Odelia especially tried to protect her younger sisters.
Speaker 3: I love my sisters, and I remember times where we
Speaker 3: did go hungry. We always used to tell each other
Speaker 3: to stay, you know, be strong, be strong.
Speaker 5: Sometimes times it was tough.
Speaker 1: Like generations of family members before them, Odelia and Nourissa
Speaker 1: were sent away to residential schools at a very young age, like.
Speaker 3: My dad couldn't raise all of us kids on his own,
Speaker 3: And then we were sent to our grandparents and then
Speaker 3: to the residential schools. We went to the Bread Boarding School,
Speaker 3: and and there's one called Maraval Boarding School that we
Speaker 3: went to on Cows's first nation. You know, we were
Speaker 3: as saying it was only eight and I don't even know,
Speaker 3: I was so young when I went, and all I
Speaker 3: remember is loneliness.
Speaker 1: Canada's Indian residential school system, as it was called, was
Speaker 1: established in the eighteen seventies with the goal of assimilating
Speaker 1: indigenous children into white society. The schools were run by Catholic, Anglican, Methodist,
Speaker 1: and Presbyterian churches. For children like Odelia Nourissa, who had
Speaker 1: grown up surrounded by extended family and tribal elders on
Speaker 1: the reserve, being dropped into a Christian school education system
Speaker 1: was total culture shock.
Speaker 3: They take away your esteemed, they take away everything because
Speaker 3: it's like it's an institution and you know, all a
Speaker 3: bunch of young kids that are you know, were just
Speaker 3: children being being told to get up at certain time
Speaker 3: in the morning, going to church, going doing all this stuff.
Speaker 1: In your kid students were forced to sing and pray
Speaker 1: in Latin while their own cultural and spiritual beliefs were
Speaker 1: stifled or beaten out of them. For those who didn't conform,
Speaker 1: punishment was swift and harsh.
Speaker 3: And I remember though, like one time wanting to go
Speaker 3: to the bathroom and you know, I got put in
Speaker 3: the middle of the dorm hat to nail for hours.
Speaker 3: You know, as a child I used to, you know,
Speaker 3: like eight seven years old, wanting to wishing to die.
Speaker 5: That's terrible. Well who do you turn to, you know?
Speaker 5: But we survived it. We survived it.
Speaker 1: Many survivors of the resident school system recall being severely
Speaker 1: beaten and repeatedly sexually assaulted by supervisors and then nearissa.
Speaker 7: I think I've read that you actually you have like
Speaker 7: a spine problem with your back because of what happened
Speaker 7: to you at residential school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, from trauma from my body is not wasn't quite developed,
Speaker 4: so my bones are kind of whatever.
Speaker 7: And that's from being attacked at the school, from being beaten, like.
Speaker 4: Every blows to my body. It wasn't formed or I guess.
Speaker 4: I remember even as a child, I used to wonder
Speaker 4: why God was so mean? Now took a kid.
Speaker 1: The last of these schools was closed in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: but not before generations of Indigenous children had been permanently scarred,
Speaker 1: both physically and emotionally by their treatment. This arguably contributed
Speaker 1: to the system disenfranchisement of Indigenous people in Canada, creating
Speaker 1: a highly vulnerable population.
Speaker 6: How old were y'all when you left the school and
Speaker 6: how did you get out?
Speaker 1: Of there.
Speaker 3: My mother passed died when I was fourteen, and I
Speaker 3: think I don't know how fifteen when I left boarding school.
Speaker 1: Ohdelia dropped out of school and moved to Edmonton to
Speaker 1: live with family.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: She continued to try to look out for her little sister,
Speaker 1: but Nourissa was still having a hard time at school,
Speaker 1: and she'd been getting into trouble with the law starting
Speaker 1: at age thirteen.
Speaker 6: What did you go to prison for the first time?
Speaker 4: First time was I was the young a founder me
Speaker 4: for a stolen vehicle and that's where it escalated. There
Speaker 4: was nothing violence. I never had any violence on my
Speaker 4: record this till my adult charge.
Speaker 1: Her time spent in prison started Noriissa on the road
Speaker 1: to alcohol and hard drugs at a young age.
Speaker 4: I never was introduced that till I went to prison.
Speaker 4: Like sure, I used to smoke to odd joints once
Speaker 4: in a while, but like take the odd pill. You know,
Speaker 4: I became an addict in prison.
Speaker 1: By nineteen ninety three, O'delia was twenty one and Norissa
Speaker 1: was eighteen. They had both moved back to the Keyscous
Speaker 1: Reserve and were living with their sisters Orlina and her
Speaker 1: husband and kids. Their fifteen year old cousin, Jason Kashane,
Speaker 1: lived across the road. On the night of February twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, Jason stole fifteen tablets of the drug
Speaker 1: Restoral from his grandma. He Odelia, and Norissa all took
Speaker 1: the sedative, which is used to treat insomnia. It can
Speaker 1: cause severe drowsiness and went combined with alcohol periodic blackouts.
Speaker 1: Later that evening, Jason called an acquaintance, seventy year old
Speaker 1: Joseph Dolph, to come and pick them up. Dolf had
Speaker 1: worked as a maintenance man at Saint Philip's, one of
Speaker 1: the residential schools they had attended. He was known to
Speaker 1: regularly invite young Indigenous women and girls to his home.
Speaker 1: That night, Dolf wanted to party and they all got
Speaker 1: in his car.
Speaker 2: He picked them up brought them to his fairly remote
Speaker 2: home in Comsuck, Saskatchewan. I fact was very remote, and
Speaker 2: provided them with beer and whiskey. This is James Lockyer,
Speaker 2: I'm Innocents Canada's Council for the Cuzan's Sisters, Adealer of Nursa.
Speaker 1: With the restaurant already in their systems, the sisters became
Speaker 1: more and more inebriated. Later, they would have a hard
Speaker 1: time remembering everything that occurred that night. Jason later testified
Speaker 1: that Dolf and Odelia left to go get beer. When
Speaker 1: they returned, they all continued drinking, finishing off a large
Speaker 1: bottle of whiskey Dolf provided, and it seemed he had
Speaker 1: an agenda.
Speaker 2: And during the course of the evening, Dolf tried to
Speaker 2: persuade Adelia.
Speaker 8: And Nerissa to have sex with him.
Speaker 2: They refused and it led to some dispute between them.
Speaker 1: Around one o'clock in the morning, they persuaded Dolf to
Speaker 1: drive them all home, and.
Speaker 2: On the way home, Dolf realized that he had three
Speaker 2: hundred dollars missing from his wallet, and he decided to
Speaker 2: turn around and go back home.
Speaker 1: Back at the house, Dolf accused the three of stealing
Speaker 1: the money from him. They denied it, and an argument ensued.
Speaker 1: The next day, the police were called to Joseph Dolf's home.
Speaker 1: When they entered, they found the place completely trashed, with
Speaker 1: furniture turned over and talcum powder sprinkled all around. Dolf's
Speaker 1: body was face down in the bedroom. He'd been stabbed
Speaker 1: over a dozen times in the chest, abdomen, back, and
Speaker 1: left arm. A knife was still in his stomach and
Speaker 1: a phone cord was wrapped around his neck. There were
Speaker 1: blunt force injuries on his head and a fracture near
Speaker 1: his right eye. When the police started asking around the
Speaker 1: community about who could have been involved.
Speaker 2: They quickly ascertained that the two Cusant's sisters and Jason
Speaker 2: hab been at his house that night.
Speaker 8: They were all three arrested.
Speaker 1: That morning. O'delia, Nourissa, and Jason were taken to the
Speaker 1: Kamsack Police Detachment by the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Speaker 1: The sisters were stripped to their underwear and placed in
Speaker 1: concrete cells with only raincoats to wear. Later, they were
Speaker 1: given sweatpants and sweatshirts. Both women spoke with lawyers who
Speaker 1: told the police that their clients were not to be questioned.
Speaker 1: The next day, the Justice of the Peace ordered that
Speaker 1: the cis be remanded to the nearest jail. This was Friday.
Speaker 2: However, the police ignored that order and kept them until
Speaker 2: the following Tuesday in the police detachment, so that they
Speaker 2: were a matter of eight steps from numerous all white,
Speaker 2: all male police officers in the Camsack detachment in Canada,
Speaker 2: If you want to hold someone for more than twenty
Speaker 2: four hours in police custody, you have to get judicial authorization.
Speaker 2: And they were held in the cells there for a
Speaker 2: total of five nights. And on these most unpleasant cells
Speaker 2: which I've seen, they have a seventeenth century appearance to them.
Speaker 2: Very thick white concrete walls, probably twelve to fifteen inches thick,
Speaker 2: with bars going from ceiling to ground, and you know,
Speaker 2: hard cold steel bunks with no bedding, so you know,
Speaker 2: a very its very nature, highly intimidating for both of them.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, their cousin, Jason, was also being questioned, and on
Speaker 1: the very first day.
Speaker 2: Jason confessed to the homicide, and his confession was recorded
Speaker 2: on tape, a tape recording that somehow was not available.
Speaker 2: When it came to the questioning of Nourissa and Adelia
Speaker 2: to being the one who did the.
Speaker 1: Stabbings, the sisters were told that Jason had confessed to
Speaker 1: the murder and that he implicated them as well, which
Speaker 1: was later found not to be true. The two were
Speaker 1: questioned repeatedly by the RCMP over the next four days.
Speaker 2: They have memory being extremely scared, of course, and frightened
Speaker 2: around all these men. These what to them were big,
Speaker 2: burly white men, continually bringing them out of the cells
Speaker 2: and questioning them again, and putting them back in and
Speaker 2: questioning them again.
Speaker 8: Over day after day. They had no lawyers, and the
Speaker 8: police knew what they wanted, They knew what they were doing.
Speaker 8: They had to.
Speaker 2: Get these two girls to say things that somehow tied
Speaker 2: them into mister Dolph's murder. The police alleged that they
Speaker 2: gave verbal statements not recorded that slowly but surely amounted
Speaker 2: to more incriminating statements. So as I say, they got
Speaker 2: ad Elia to admit one stab wound out of more
Speaker 2: than forty, how did they get.
Speaker 7: The girls to confess to this?
Speaker 2: There's no doubt there was intimidating taxics used. These were
Speaker 2: two young Indigenous women trying to cope with police officers,
Speaker 2: white police officers.
Speaker 8: All male.
Speaker 2: More than that, they were both victims of the residential
Speaker 2: school system. They were highly vulnerable individuals. Well never really
Speaker 2: know exactly what happened because none of it was recorded,
Speaker 2: they had no lawyers. It was made clearer than what
Speaker 2: they wanted to hear. The policeman wrote out what they
Speaker 2: claimed the girls were saying. One of Nourissa's statements was
Speaker 2: clearly not her words, and on the basis of those
Speaker 2: unrecorded statements that the police alleged they gave, they were
Speaker 2: convicted the following year after a trial before a jud
Speaker 2: Johann of course, not surprisingly in all White Jury.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling.
Speaker 1: You can listen to this and all the Lover for
Speaker 1: Good podcasts one week early and ad free by subscribing
Speaker 1: to LoVa for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Adelia and Nourissa testified at their trials. The trouble is
Speaker 2: that they had it made clear to them that it
Speaker 2: was not in their interest to try and challenge the
Speaker 2: versions of events given by the RCMP officers in front
Speaker 2: of the jury, because if they did, they'd be disbelieved.
Speaker 1: After the years they'd spent at residential schools, the girls
Speaker 1: were conditioned to succumb to authority and believed no one
Speaker 1: would help them.
Speaker 2: They were told to stay in line as to how
Speaker 2: they were treated by the police, who of course testified
Speaker 2: that they treated them well, etc. Etc. For those five days,
Speaker 2: even though they shouldn't have been in the police station
Speaker 2: for four of them, and no one really seemed to
Speaker 2: see much wrong without a trial.
Speaker 8: Certainly the trial judge didn't.
Speaker 2: Her name was Justice Gunn was her name. So they
Speaker 2: tried to fall into step, you might say, with what
Speaker 2: the RCMP officers said. Not entirely, but they did their
Speaker 2: best to so that they're claim that they had not
Speaker 2: been involved in mister Dolph's murder will be.
Speaker 8: More likely believed.
Speaker 2: And this was classic for those times that Indigenous people
Speaker 2: were told by their own lawyers that you know, if
Speaker 2: it's your word against the police, no one's going to
Speaker 2: believe you.
Speaker 7: So for people in the US who don't know about
Speaker 7: the systemic abuses of Indigenous people in Canada, can you
Speaker 7: describe that a little bit.
Speaker 8: Well, it's not unlike your country.
Speaker 2: It's very much a colonial history where we colonize the
Speaker 2: original peoples are part of the continent, and you did
Speaker 2: the same in your part of the continent. The RCMP
Speaker 2: has in the past and still to this day, engages
Speaker 2: in systemic racism towards Indigenous peoples. That's acknowledged publicly, i
Speaker 2: might say, with some reluctance, but nevertheless acknowledged. The case
Speaker 2: of Adelia and Urus are just smacks of this. Here
Speaker 2: we have two young girls, both indigenous. I mean if
Speaker 2: you or I had been the ones arrested in February
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety three, they wouldn't have held us in
Speaker 2: the police cells for five days in complete violation of
Speaker 2: a judicial order. They're victims of systemic discrimination, and it
Speaker 2: obviously includes within it then the failure of the police
Speaker 2: to make any attempt to record any of the interviews,
Speaker 2: despite the fact that the recording equipment was right there
Speaker 2: in the police station. Their failure to obey a judicial
Speaker 2: order for day after day after day, their failure to
Speaker 2: in any way document the conditions of both a dealer
Speaker 2: and Urissa, that their level of intoxication on arrest, their
Speaker 2: level of drug taking, and overall the fact that it's
Speaker 2: become known in the last twenty years that false confessions
Speaker 2: are a regular feature of wrongful convictions, and false confession
Speaker 2: above all come from those who are vulnerable in the
Speaker 2: first place.
Speaker 1: Okay, So going back to the trial, o'delia and Narisso
Speaker 1: were tried in the Court of Queen's Benson, Yorkton before
Speaker 1: Madame Justice Ellen Gunn, And as you said earlier, it
Speaker 1: was an all white jury, and we've heard how the
Speaker 1: sisters were basically forced to incriminate themselves at trial, But
Speaker 1: what did their lawyers present in defense.
Speaker 2: Their defense was that the two women were both drunk
Speaker 2: at the time and therefore their responsibility meant they should
Speaker 2: only be convicted of manslaughter. It was like a sort
Speaker 2: of a semi surrender defense.
Speaker 1: So they didn't bring up a foss confession.
Speaker 8: No, they did not.
Speaker 2: Jason was called by the Crown as a witness, and
Speaker 2: indeed when he testified at trial, he implicated himself and
Speaker 2: said that he was the one who had stabbed mister Doff.
Speaker 1: At trial, Jason told a more complete story of what
Speaker 1: happened that night. Jason said, once they all returned to
Speaker 1: the house, Joseph Dolph went looking for his missing money.
Speaker 1: They all got into an altercation and Narissa hit Dolf
Speaker 1: on the head with a porcelain ornament, which broke in
Speaker 1: a tea kettle. O'dela hit him with a whiskey bottle.
Speaker 1: Jason punched Dolf, who was going after Narissa, then followed
Speaker 1: him into the bedroom and choked him with a telephone cord.
Speaker 1: Then he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and stabbed
Speaker 1: Dolf repeatedly, finally leaving the knife in his body. He
Speaker 1: said o'delia and Nourissa were in another room together crying.
Speaker 1: After Jason finished assaulting Dolf, the three trashed the house.
Speaker 1: Then Jason took Dolph's keys and drove them all home.
Speaker 1: It would later come out that Jason was told to
Speaker 1: implicate o'dela Noarissa by saying they had hit Dolf. According
Speaker 1: to Jason, they actually hadn't. He had been the sole attacker. However,
Speaker 1: Jason's testimony did corroborate the sister's assertion that they were
Speaker 1: not the ones who had killed Joseph Dolph. He was.
Speaker 2: He'd already pleaded guilty to the crime. He was a
Speaker 2: fifteen year old, so he pleaded guilty under the Young
Speaker 2: Offender's Act and received a sentence of five years. So
Speaker 2: the real killer was in for five years, and at
Speaker 2: his age, he shouldn't.
Speaker 8: Have been in for longer than that. I would hasten
Speaker 8: to add.
Speaker 7: Was he asked directly if the girls did and did
Speaker 7: he say no or was he just not yes?
Speaker 1: Okay? And he said no, they did not.
Speaker 8: Yes, he said he's the winner stabbed them.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 7: So even though they were not implicated at the trial
Speaker 7: by him, they're still convicted. Yes, on February fourth, nineteen
Speaker 7: ninety four, Odelia and Narissa were convicted of second degree
Speaker 7: murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility
Speaker 7: of parole in ten years. While she was incarcerated, Odela
Speaker 7: stayed connected with her partner, Jay, whom she'd known since
Speaker 7: she was eighteen.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and one, she gave birth to their
Speaker 1: daughter and six years later twin girls.
Speaker 3: My oldest daughter, Hayley, she lived in prison for two
Speaker 3: years with me.
Speaker 6: What was that like living with your daughter in prison?
Speaker 5: I was just grateful she was there with me.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was like, you know, but do you know
Speaker 3: what my daughter today, she's very outspoken, and she had
Speaker 3: a lot of Auntie and Cook Coombs in there to
Speaker 3: take care of her, you know, like she was allowed
Speaker 3: to be a child in there.
Speaker 6: Were there other were there other women with kids?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Wow?
Speaker 7: And so once your daughters, you know, left prison and
Speaker 7: were older, who were they living with And what was
Speaker 7: that like to try and parent from behind bars?
Speaker 3: My daughters they were living with their father and he
Speaker 3: took care of them and he brought them to visit me.
Speaker 3: I read a couple months.
Speaker 5: I talked on a phone with them a lot.
Speaker 6: How do you do being a dad?
Speaker 3: I think he did pretty good.
Speaker 5: Kind of spoiled their girls, but in a good way though.
Speaker 1: While in prison, Odelia also earned her ged, completed a
Speaker 1: number of programs, and worked in the library, horticulture, kitchen,
Speaker 1: and daycare. She grew to be respected as a leader
Speaker 1: by both prisoners and staff. Norissa earned a degree in
Speaker 1: adult education from the University of Saskatoon while at the
Speaker 1: Edmonton Institution for Women, the first incarcerated person to graduate
Speaker 1: from the university and attend her own convocation. She also
Speaker 1: earned a degree in animal welfare and worked as a
Speaker 1: dog trainer. Nearly ten years into their sentence, the sisters
Speaker 1: hit a milestone, so.
Speaker 2: As of February twenty fourth, two thousand and three, they
Speaker 2: were eligible for Pearl.
Speaker 8: They didn't get it, and when they did.
Speaker 2: Release them a couple of times they imposed these onerous
Speaker 2: conditions on them, which not surprisingly, they violated. So in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty abyve the time David Milgard came to me.
Speaker 2: They both served more than they were actually by then.
Speaker 2: That's served twenty eight years of their sentences.
Speaker 1: In James, can you explain who David Milgard is and
Speaker 1: how he became involved in this case.
Speaker 2: David was a person who had spent twenty three years
Speaker 2: in prison in Canada for a great murder he did
Speaker 2: not commit, and ever since his exoneration, continued to advocate
Speaker 2: for the wrongly convicted and Nourissa and Adelia Cusance approached
Speaker 2: him in I think in the summer of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: and David then asked me if I would take on
Speaker 2: their case?
Speaker 1: So, why did you believe in their innocence? What convinced
Speaker 1: you of that?
Speaker 2: Taking into account the whole systemic racism involved in this,
Speaker 2: it wasn't a hard one. Once I had a chance
Speaker 2: to read the trial transcripts, the case to me stank
Speaker 2: when I saw that they had been held in custody
Speaker 2: in the police station for five days. That that in
Speaker 2: itself did it for me. I'd never heard of such
Speaker 2: a thing, never.
Speaker 1: And so what was your strategy for getting them out?
Speaker 2: Adelia and Nurissa had had their appeals dismissed in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety five, a year after their convictions four paragraph judgment
Speaker 2: of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, which kind of shows
Speaker 2: you how much attention was given to their case. The
Speaker 2: only method of challenging a conviction in Canada. After all
Speaker 2: appeal processes have been exhausted, and after their appeals have
Speaker 2: been lost, their only avenue of recourse was to go
Speaker 2: to the Minister of Justice who's in our capital city
Speaker 2: in Ottawa, and ask him to review their convictions and
Speaker 2: determine whether they constituted theous charriage of justice.
Speaker 1: So you did that in twenty twenty two, and then
Speaker 1: what did you present to the minister.
Speaker 2: We gave a whole list of reasons as to why
Speaker 2: these convictions constitutedious charriage of justice. We pointed out that
Speaker 2: Canada's treatment of Indigenous peoples and this case was a
Speaker 2: classic abuse of Indigenous peoples, especially women. We talked about
Speaker 2: the impacts of systemic discrimination on the two of them
Speaker 2: in the investigation.
Speaker 1: And so to this day, does Jason still maintain that
Speaker 1: o'delia and Nurissa were not involved.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've met Jason a couple of times. Of course,
Speaker 2: he's now in his mid forties. He's had a pretty
Speaker 2: difficult life since and bears besides the guilt of stabbing
Speaker 2: mister Dolph, for the guilt of having implicated Nurisa and
Speaker 2: Adelia by what he did. But yes, he maintains they
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with it, and his statement to
Speaker 2: that effect, which he put in writing, enabled us to
Speaker 2: bring a release application for them until the Minister made
Speaker 2: his final decision.
Speaker 8: And I'm glad to say that on March.
Speaker 2: Twenty seventh of twenty twenty three, more than thirty years
Speaker 2: after their original arrests and imprisonment, they were released on
Speaker 2: bail and they're both presently on bail.
Speaker 1: The situation these two women found themselves in is unfortunately
Speaker 1: not unusual. According to Canada's Office of the Congressional Investigator,
Speaker 1: over fifty percent of incarcerated women in Canada are Indigenous.
Speaker 1: Indigenous people are historically more likely to be arrested for
Speaker 1: serious crimes, are rarely tried by their peers, and are
Speaker 1: more likely to be convicted. And like at the residential
Speaker 1: schools where they were first institutionalized, Indigenous people continue to
Speaker 1: face systemic racism and abuse throughout the prison and parole system.
Speaker 7: Does the law in Canada seem to be more understanding
Speaker 7: now of the plight of Indigenous folks and what they
Speaker 7: have gone through and suffered, you know, particularly like o'dellia
Speaker 7: Narissa winding up in a situation like this because of
Speaker 7: the systemic abuse.
Speaker 2: To some extent, the answer is yes. Having said that,
Speaker 2: we have a huge problem in Canada because the Indigenous
Speaker 2: percentages in the prisons are going up and up and
Speaker 2: up year by year by year. The denials of parole
Speaker 2: for the Indigenous are going up and up and up.
Speaker 2: The number of Indigenous being found to be dangerous offenders
Speaker 2: and subject to life sentences are going up and up
Speaker 2: and up. So whilst there may be more recognition, particularly
Speaker 2: with the present government that talks a great deal about
Speaker 2: the need for truth and reconciliation with our Indigenous people,
Speaker 2: at the criminal justice level, things are just terribly.
Speaker 8: Wrong, right.
Speaker 7: You know, parole here is pretty awful as well. How
Speaker 7: is it in Canada? Why is it so bad if
Speaker 7: you're Indigenous?
Speaker 8: Because they don't release you. That's the SATs. I mean,
Speaker 8: there are many reasons for this.
Speaker 2: But a very simple part of a systemic discrimination is
Speaker 2: they have ah whole system whereby they assess what they
Speaker 2: call the criminogenic factors of the individual, the likelihood that
Speaker 2: they will re offend if released, and the assessments are
Speaker 2: conducted according to the thinking and customs of the white man,
Speaker 2: not the thinking, customs and cultures of the Indigenous, and
Speaker 2: it's been proved very clearly that that means that the
Speaker 2: Indigenous are always overassessed in terms of the likelihood of
Speaker 2: their reoffending, which automatically is then used to justify denying
Speaker 2: them parole. And then when they do release you, they
Speaker 2: release you on conditions that are almost bound to be violated.
Speaker 2: No alcohol, no drugs, curfews, those kinds of things which
Speaker 2: people who are Indigenous likely not very stable, don't have
Speaker 2: stable environments to return to, are going to be living
Speaker 2: potentially on reserves, almost bound to violate drinking, and you're
Speaker 2: on a life sentence. You're back in two three years
Speaker 2: before you're next entitled to even be considered for parole.
Speaker 1: Even though Odelia and Narissa were released in March, they
Speaker 1: have not been exonerated of Joseph Dolf's murder. They're still
Speaker 1: living under parole conditions while they await ministerial review, hoping
Speaker 1: for the decision that would finally allow them to live
Speaker 1: fully free.
Speaker 5: For me and my sister at this time, like I know,
Speaker 5: all I have is to wait and is waked and wait.
Speaker 1: Odelia is now back at home with Jay and their
Speaker 1: twin daughters. Nourissa is living with a good friend, an advocate,
Speaker 1: Kim Bowden and his wife Rhonda.
Speaker 4: He's the Congress of Amagual People of Canada Vice president
Speaker 4: and yeah, he's myself is I just love him and Rohnda. No,
Speaker 4: he's a great man, and I usually have a hard
Speaker 4: time trusting man.
Speaker 1: After nearly three decades in prison, both sisters, now fifty
Speaker 1: one and forty nine, are doing their best to adjust
Speaker 1: to life outside of prison walls while on parole.
Speaker 4: But for myself it's a real it's different because I'm
Speaker 4: so institutionalized that I'm used to everything coming. Like if
Speaker 4: I had to go see the doctor, I just had
Speaker 4: to go across across the road and or go get
Speaker 4: groceries just across the hallway. Maybe so, and now here
Speaker 4: it's it's hard to do. I kind of I've only
Speaker 4: ridden on a bus once since I've been out here.
Speaker 4: I have really bad anxiety, and I noticed that I
Speaker 4: get really irritable and stuff like that, so I don't
Speaker 4: really like being around people.
Speaker 7: I understand that you were You were in a prison
Speaker 7: with a lot of people for a long time.
Speaker 6: How about you, Adelia, what kinds of things that you're
Speaker 6: a mom?
Speaker 1: What's that like.
Speaker 3: It's been a challenge because I've been away from them
Speaker 3: for so much many years. So it's rekindling with my
Speaker 3: daughters and getting to know them.
Speaker 9: And you know, there's there's a lot of resentments, you know,
Speaker 9: and I feel them like I we have a good relationship,
Speaker 9: like I try to be my best fights my girls
Speaker 9: and you know, give them what they want.
Speaker 5: But it's hard. It's hard to.
Speaker 3: Be honest, you know what.
Speaker 5: I feel useless.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I feel like I, you know, so went down institutionalize.
Speaker 10: I don't know what to do on my own. Sometimes
Speaker 10: I want to do things, make things different. I'm still
Speaker 10: hopeful about, you know, my future. But like I said,
Speaker 10: it's it's hard. It's a struggle when you.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, like great, now I'm starting to get getting
Speaker 3: getting out of my bedroom as I'm so used to
Speaker 3: being in a room.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's what I do too. I spend a lot
Speaker 4: of room time. I do a lot of sull time.
Speaker 7: Still, yeah, yeah, I understand that. I hear that from
Speaker 7: a lot of people who have been inside. It's it's
Speaker 7: it's scary.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I always tell myself, you're okay, you're safe. Now, You're okay.
Speaker 3: It's going to be okay.
Speaker 5: I always tell myself that my younger solf.
Speaker 1: Of Delia and Nerissa have found strength in going to conferences,
Speaker 1: meeting other axonnarees and telling their story.
Speaker 3: I want to help people and I want to be
Speaker 3: an advocate for women and children.
Speaker 4: I remember when I was younger, when I was in jail,
Speaker 4: like even before I went to BC, I used to say,
Speaker 4: one day, I'm going to climb that mountain, you know,
Speaker 4: And that's what it meant for me. It is like,
Speaker 4: you know, one day I'm going to get there to
Speaker 4: the top, you know.
Speaker 6: So where is the top of that mountain for you?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm there already.
Speaker 1: Just as they did when they were children, the Q
Speaker 1: Zone sisters are still looking out for each other, and
Speaker 1: as they continued to fight for their innocence, both of
Speaker 1: them credit their own faith as it was taught to
Speaker 1: them by their elders, with keeping them strong.
Speaker 3: I follow my traditional native spirituality, so I pray, we
Speaker 3: call the Creator, So I do a lot of prayers
Speaker 3: in offering tobacco, and I teach my daughters so.
Speaker 4: Prayer is powerful. That's all we have when you're in
Speaker 4: prison is prayer.
Speaker 3: And prayer is powerful because I know Nobody's greater than
Speaker 3: that creator.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, more than fifty unmarked graves were discovered
Speaker 1: on the grounds of two residential schools near the Keyscus
Speaker 1: Reserve for Pelly and Saint Philip's. Investigation is ongoing into
Speaker 1: who those children were, how they died, and how many
Speaker 1: more graves are yet to be discovered. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Wrongful Conviction with Maggie Freeling. Please support your
Speaker 1: local innocence organizations and go to the links in the
Speaker 1: episode description to see how you can help. I'd like
Speaker 1: to thank our executive producers Jason Flamm, Jeff Kempler, and
Speaker 1: Kevin Wortis, as well as senior producer Annie Chelsea, producer
Speaker 1: Kathleen Fink, story editor Hannah Beale, and researcher Shelby Sorels.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Jackie Pauley, with additional
Speaker 1: production by Jeff Cleiburn and Connor Hall. The music in
Speaker 1: this production is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms
Speaker 1: at Lava for Good and at Wrongful Conviction. You can
Speaker 1: also follow me on all platforms at Maggie Freeling. Wrongful
Speaker 1: Conviction with Maggie Freeling is a production of Lava for
Speaker 1: Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number one