THUNDER BAY – It’s been nearly 24 years since Sharon Johnson’s sister was murdered.
Now, after many years of vocal calls for a long-awaited inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women finally being paid off after the federal Liberal government announced the first phase on Tuesday, she hopes it can help the thousands of families affected find some peace and answers.
“I do feel hopeful something good will come out of it for our families because there are so many of us. There are so many it’s hard to comprehend the number of families and family members,” she said on Wednesday.
“I can only speak for myself when I say how difficult it’s been to live with the unresolved grief and no answers, no closure for my family. Just seeing how some of my closer relatives still struggle with the hurt, all I can do is do my little part in continuing to share my sister’s story.”
It was on Feb. 13, 1992 the body of 18-year-old Sandra Johnson was found on the ice of the frozen Neebing-McIntyre floodway.
The case remains unsolved and it’s been difficult to deal with many different false starts along the way.
“Over the years, and I guess at the very beginning after my sister was murdered, we’ve had people come and tell us they wanted to help, that they wanted to do something to help solve the case or something to lead towards an answer,” she said.
“We’ve had experiences where we’ve had our hopes up and nothing happened or those people just went away…I guess after a while we decided we’re not even going to accept these offers by different people who wanted to help because we felt let down over and over again.”
Despite the pain from those past experiences, Johnson is determined to keep pushing.
For the past seven years she has organized a Valentine’s Day memorial walk to pay tribute to those lost and earlier this year participated in a federal roundtable with premiers, federal ministers, First Nations leaders and families.
Johnson said she plans on being involved in the inquiry’s consultation discussions.
“As family members we want our voices to be heard first before any decisions are made,” she said.
