THUNDER BAY - First Nation leaders are calling on Thunder Bay Police to do more in locating missing teen, Josiah Begg, and finding answers in the death of Tammy Keeash.
At a Wednesday news conference, Nishnawbe Aski Nation officials, along with leaders from North Caribou Lake First Nation and Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, expressed frustration with the level of cooperation shown by Thunder Bay police in the search for 14-year-old, Josiah.
“Right now the family feels, we all feel, that it is not coordinated enough,” said Nishnawbe Aski Nation Grand Chief, Alvin Fiddler. “While we have many volunteers coming forward, it’s not a coordinated search.”
Fiddler said police should have utilized all available resources earlier in the search for Josiah, who was last seen on Saturday, May 6. Volunteer search efforts were organized on May 11 by NAN and the Bear Clan.
“What we heard this morning is (Thunder Bay Police) are going to be inviting their dive teams starting tomorrow, which is something the family has asked for,” Fiddler said. “They want to see more resources deployed in the search. They asked for the use of drones, for example, that there has to be more effort made not just on the ground search but also from the air and also start looking in the water ways in Thunder Bay.”
Staff Sgt. Ryan Hughes of the Thunder Bay Police Service said police requested an Ontario Provincial Police underwater recovery team to join the search two days ago and they will begin searching area waterways on Wednesday evening. Officers and members of Thunder Bay Fire Rescue searched the shores of the Neebing-McIntyre Floodway by boat on May 11.
An OPP helicopter will also be searching areas in the south side of the city Wednesday afternoon.
According to Hughes, there has been a minimum of two officers working on the case every day, with between 10 and 15 officers conducting ground searches over a four day period in Northwood that started on May 10. Searches continued around Confederation College with members of Lakehead Search and Rescue on May 16.
“We’ve been getting different statements with different sightings of Josiah,” Hughes said. “What led us down to the south end then we have another youth saying he was up in the north end. We have to follow everything up. We still have no evidence that says he went in the water, but we have to cover all our areas off, so the OPP underwater recovery unit has specialized equipment where they can search the water.”
Hughes added investigators meet daily with Josiah’s family to update and share information on the search.
“We are sharing all our information that we can with them, which is pretty much everything right now and they are providing information to us,” Hughes said. “Everything seemed to be going fine discussing with the family.”
However, according to Fiddler, daily meetings with police investigators can be a source of frustration for members of the family.
“The family feels a lot of times frustrated meeting with the police,” Fiddler said. “They feel that they are not getting enough information. While those discussions happen daily, they feel that there has to be more information that needs to be shared with them and they feel that they are not getting it.”
“It’s frustrating for the family and it’s frustrating for the police,” Hughes said. “We can’t find him. They are getting stuff from their family that they share with us, we share information with them. It’s definitely frustrating because we are all working towards finding Josiah and it hasn’t happened so far.”
Josiah’s mother, Sunshine Winter, was at the press conference and she once again pleaded for her son to come home and anyone with any information to come forward.
Keeash family does not accept police investigation into death of daughter
The family of Tammy Keeash, who was found dead in the Neebing-McIntyre Floodway on May 7, was also at the press conference, and are calling for a private investigator to look into the circumstances of the 17-year-old’s death.
A postmortem concluded that Keeash drowned, but her mother, Pearl Slipperjack, said her daughter was trained as a Canadian Junior Ranger and new the dangers of waterways.
“I don’t think she would have any reason to go to the river,” Slipperjack said. “There was no reason for her to be there at all.”
Slipperjack revealed a high level of alcohol was found in Keeash’s system at the time of her death, but she does not accept the findings of the police investigation.
“They have a hard time accepting the fact that the police did a quick investigation,” Fiddler said. “They made this determination before she was even buried. To us that’s not good enough. There should be a more thorough investigation and wait for all the results from the post-mortem that was done, and those haven’t come in yet.”
Hughes said if the Keeash family wants to hire a private investigator, he welcomes sharing any information, adding the investigation is still ongoing.
“If they have information that is passed forward to us, we are not going to refuse it,” he said. “The investigation is not closed. There are still avenues and investigative processes the officers are looking into.”
