Firstly I would like to start off by apologizing for the delay in getting Helen’s story out. I did meet with the current case manager in the major crime unit with the Hamilton police to

1. Let him get to know me so he knows my intent on asking questions and to hopefully build a working relationship based on mutual trust. I could tell in my first calls and communications with him during the research phase for Audrey Gleave’s story that he was trying to determine “my angle”.
2. The second reason for meeting was to informally speak about Helen’s case over a cup of coffee and one of our trusted Tim Horton’s spread all over the country. And get a few recorded answers and statements on Helen’s case for this case.

Everything went well with that. I did end up going to the crime scene where Helen’s body was discovered and to be honest I was very uncomfortable there, even in the day light, so I can only imagine how I would feel at night or very early morning. I did take some photos and completed some voice recordings while there and it will be included into the podcast.

The last thing I needed to do before starting the script to this next episode was to try and learn everything I could about Helen, and what the early news articles reported after her murder. For this I tried reaching out to a few people on social media, however my requests for interviews went unanswered, which is too bad because I would have loved to learn more about her. I had a little more success with the early news articles as the local newspaper articles are archived at the central library of that city on microfilm. So this was another trip into this particular city to visit their local library.

I did have a couple of follow up questions for the case manager, however he is off until after labour day weekend. The answers to these questions won’t hinder getting Helen’s story out though.

I am mostly done writing the script, I just have a few more things to add in, including some information on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’s report. Helen was of aboriginal decent and her name was added to the approximate 1400 names of missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. Sadly an issue that has been long running rampant in this country and is finally being vocalised, although nothing seems to be put into place to combat this issue.

Helen was a particularly vulnerable person in our society, a society who views sex workers and people of indigenous decent has sub-human. I’m not saying that all people view people meeting this criteria in this same way, but a lot of society does.

As something new, I will be posting the script as a blog entry every time the episode is released, the link to the episode is already a widget in this website.

Here is a snippet of the script for the next episode that is being released this week:

“If Helen was alive today, she would be 43. Maybe she would already be a grandmother, with two adult daughters aged 26 and 24. Maybe somehow in the years between 1995 and 2019 she would have gotten the help she desperately needed to set her life on the right track. Maybe she would have gotten her GED, a reliable job wouldn’t be struggling to just have a roof over her head. What would have happened in Helen’s life, we’ll never know. She was murdered. “

Thanks everyone for your patience.

–Genevieve Germaine