GUILTY Canada - Vicious assault on Marlene Bird, Prince Albert, SK, June 2014

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saska...rips-prince-albert-in-unsolved-case-1.2673948

"The vicious assault of Marlene Bird in a Prince Albert, Sask., parking lot has put the city on edge, leaving many residents fearful that no one has been arrested after the homeless 47-year-old suffered burns so severe that both her legs had to be amputated.

Bird was found June 1 in a shopping mall parking lot in downtown Prince Albert.

"Half of her face was off," Lorna Thiessen, Bird's aunt, told CBC News on Thursday. "It was cut from the centre forehead down the side of her nose, her mouth, and her chin, so they surgically put that back on."

Bird was also severely burned from the waist down. She's being treated at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton.

"She's had an amputation to a leg when she came [to the hospital] Monday morning," Thiessen said Thursday. "She's going to be undergoing another amputation on her other leg. She has third-degree burns from her lower bottom back, right down to the bone of her legs."

Family members confirmed to CBC on Friday morning that both her legs have now been amputated."
bbm.

http://www.paherald.sk.ca/News/Loca...3769185/Reward-offered-in-Marlene-Bird-case/1


“Until the individuals or individuals are caught, we’re worried about Marlene’s safety,” he said.

Ensuring she remains safe, only individuals on a list of approved names are allowed to see her at the Edmonton hospital where she remains in recovery.

Bird is off of life support but continues to face surgeries and has already had both legs amputated.

Banding together with the Prince Albert Grand Council, Montreal Lake Cree Nation is offering a $2,000 reward to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to the conviction of the person (s) responsible for Bird’s current condition.

Emergency personnel found her outside of the Margo Fournier Centre at about 10:20 a.m. on June 1."

She suffered severe facial lacerations and burns to the lower half of her body. Both of her legs have since been amputated and she remains in an Edmonton hospital where she continues to undergo surgeries.

“Everybody had nightmares after they came out of the hospital room to see Marlene,” said Thiessen. People “need to know how serious this is. It could happen to anybody.”

Read more: http://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/police-...-in-marlene-bird-case-1.1877666#ixzz35JyPFjFH
bbm

"The Sisters in Spirit support group will be walking for Marlene Bird and abused women in conjunction with National Aboriginal Day on Saturday in Prince Albert.

“We’ll have a little prayer, then we’re going to walk up to the park, and we’re having National Aboriginal Day at the same time,” said Donna Soles, volunteer coordinator of the Sisters in Spirit.

Soles says she remembers seeing Bird at the Friendship Centre and YWCA our house often, and remembers her as a kind woman.

“I couldn’t believe that somebody could do something to a person like that,” said Soles. “When I saw her picture in the paper I started crying, like I couldn’t believe somebody could do something like this. She was harmless, she didn’t bother anybody.”

With the walks that Sisters in Spirit have been doing for the past five years, Soles said she hopes to bring more attention to violence against women.

“We trying to let people know that this is not right, that people can go around and hurt somebody else,” said Soles. “You have to respect a woman, because that’s where you come from. It doesn’t matter if you’re aboriginal or non-aboriginal.”

She adds that sometimes women are scared to talk or stand up for themselves."
bbm
http://www.panow.com/node/457866

No video, no leads, no suspects?! LE isnt saying anything?! This attack was horrific. I don't understand the silence. Jmo

Edmonton can be a hard cold city. Marlene is alive maybe the police do have information, i hope they do. jmo

Yoda said:

No video, no leads, no suspects?! LE isnt saying anything?! This attack was horrific. I don't understand the silence. Jmo

Click to expand...

"Police confident arrest will be made in Marlene Bird case"



" Sgt. Brandon Mudry with the Prince Albert Police Service said investigators are waiting for the results from a forensic analysis of evidence obtained at the crime scene.

“That takes time” said Mudry.

Thiessen said she’s confident in the police, but felt compelled to walk the streets of Prince Albert to ask her own questions.

“I needed to do that. People started talking, like people on the street talk. They don’t talk to reporters or police, but they talk to those of us who have been there,” Thiessen said.

The Prince Albert Grand Council and residents from Marlene Bird’s home reserve in Montreal Lake are offering a $2,000 reward for anyone with information that leads to an arrest."

Read more: http://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/police-...-in-marlene-bird-case-1.1877666#ixzz35KaA0rn0

bbm.

Thanks for making this thread.

This case makes me very upset, on a deep level -- I have a very hard time thinking about what pain and terror poor Marlene has gone through, and what her life will be in the future.

I wonder if I am seeing hints in MSM that this was done to her by a partner? Or is "abused woman" a term used for stranger attacks, too? Also, the restricted visitor list at the hospital hints to fears her attacker might go there, which I'm thinking perhaps a random attacker would not do?

At least Marlene can maybe help police find him. Though omg, her quality of life.... I am still highly traumatised by a sickness that almost cost me a leg, because the pain was so bad... that was years ago now and it still makes me want to cry thinking about it. I cannot begin to imagine what Marlene's going through. I don't think I want to.

May she heal, in time. And always have people there to help her.

http://panow.com/node/457183

"By Thia James
paNOW Staff

Family members of 47-year-old Marlene Bird have been retracing her steps and gathering information about the attack that has left her in an Edmonton hospital.

Her aunt, Lorna Thiessen has received texts since the June 1 assault from people offering information. She’s been “following up” on leads, and on Friday night, she and a friend hit the streets in Prince Albert.

Thiessen said they walked around and spoke to people they didn’t know.

“Just kind of got the general feel of what they were saying and certain names keep popping up. We pretended we weren’t from PA and that we were on the street and we were just new there and stuff like that,” she said.

The people they spoke to were people too scared to speak to police, she said.

“They know information, but they’re too scared,” she added. “Because they’re too scared to get picked up, they’re too scared to get interviewed and all this other stuff and when you’re on the streets, you kind of know that.”

They’ve been turning over their findings to the police. They’ve been hearing a lot of hearsay and information that may or may not be credible.

But the process is helping them get a sense of what Bird was doing in the lead up to the assault."

Godawful. It will be interesting to know what the motive is. I wonder if she was dumped off at the centre I would think so.

PA is a nice town but historically there have been racist crimes like this famous one:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/lachance-shooting-remembered-in-prince-albert-1.1089247

If you search a bit you will find something by the guy who has the site on Mindy Tran he says Nerland (killer in above link) was given a light sentence and taken into the witness protection program as an informant presumably concerning Canada's far right. There were links between these guys and Toronto/Ontario people in the insane far right like Droege who is now dead (murdered).

There is a good journalistic book on on topic now a bit old Web of Hate Inside Canada's Far Right.

No idea how common the name Lachance is but there is an unsolved murder of a woman with that name from same area Big River and a missing man with that name from same place there is an excellent video from cold case unit it is up on Youtube. I think his name is Bernard Lachance and it is obvious they think he is dead.

It would be great if Toronto could study those videos being done in Sask. and emulate them. Far superior to anything you see from Toronto .

NOT jumping to the conclusion it is a racially motivated crime though. There have been terrible crimes against the homeless all over North America.

And it could be personal in some way we don't know about but I doubt it.

Hopefully she can tell them who it was yes.

nao said:

Edmonton can be a hard cold city. Marlene is alive maybe the police do have information, i hope they do. jmo

Click to expand...

This didn't happen in Edmonton thou, it's about 7 or 8 hours away from Prince Albert - just saying...

yea, i see that now, well Prince Albert is'nt any nicer, the prairies, harsh weather, they got rough sad streets out there, lots of problems jmo

This is beyond cruel and awful.

Was the intent murder or torture? Did they start her on fire thinking she was dead & they would destroy evidence of murder?

Was this one of those random attacks on homeless people? I guess we'll know soon enough since the police are confident an arrest will be made.

What did they use as fire starter? lots of people carry knives or x-acto blades, but not usually fire starter. I did homeless in winnipeg, i live west coast now, but the praires, they have their own unique problems. i hope they find this person, cause they are one angry messed up human. jmo

What a horrific crime. I pray an arrest is made soon.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news...+plight+shows+need+inquiry/9964072/story.html

"The sedation and tubes down her throat have rendered Bird incapable of explaining what happened to her that night. At the time this article went to press, there had been no arrests. But if statistics are anything to go by, there is a 50-per-cent chance that whoever did this will never be brought to justice.

Bird is an Aboriginal woman, a survivor of the residential school system, homeless and struggling with alcoholism. Her survival is a miracle, but the fact is she was left on the streets to die. If a bottle picker hadn’t seen her from the parking lot and called police that morning, she almost certainly would have."

bbm.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Cooper+Homeless+vulnerable+violence/9965056/story.html

"Her face was partially cut off, and her legs were burned to the bones. She was rushed to the University of Alberta Hospital, where her legs were amputated.

Other than being in a secluded area of downtown P.A., she seemed to have done nothing wrong. Prince Albert Police Chief Troy Cooper is quoted in several media reports saying that Bird's lifestyle had nothing to do with her being attacked. From the information that was public at the time of her attack, it seemed as if she was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and paid the price for it."

http://ckom.com/story/witness-recounts-finding-marlene-bird-after-her-assault/376975

"On June 1, Free and a friend had left a Tim Hortons and were walking downtown when they came across a man trying to get into Nesbit Apartments. The man saw them and asked if they had a phone.

“He said ‘I need an ambulance, a woman’s been burnt,’ or something,” she said. “We just quite didn’t understand him and we were trying to talk to him. We just weren’t understanding what he was saying, so my friend called 911. But we couldn’t direct the 911 people to the area because we weren’t there, so we had to go to where she was.”

Bird was located outside of the Margo Fournier Center near the rear of the building. Free was walking behind her friend who reached the site before her. Free says his face was white. She ran over to Bird who was still alive; Free knew so because Bird looked right at her.

“She talked to me for a minute there,” Free said. “I’m sure she recognized me. I just stayed right where she could see me until everybody got there, which was within a minute, maybe even less.”

She said that when Bird spoke, she said “help me, help me.”





http://cjme.com/story/marlene-birds-aunt-retraces-nieces-steps-brutal-attack/371166
“They’ve got access to all the officers in the service, and of course, if the investigation takes us outside of the city, they have access to resources of other agencies as well.”

The city’s police department has already tapped into its partnerships with all police agencies in the province when it comes to their intelligence units, Cooper said. The Prince Albert police have also consulted police services nationally where crime labs are concerned.

The police are currently waiting for forensic results they’ve already sent to crime labs.They are also reviewing hours of video surveillance footage after putting out a call to the public. Cooper said their request was wildly successful.

Officers are reviewing the video, looking out for Bird’s movements, as well as for people who may have been with her and for people who may have been in the area.

“That’s taking us some time, but we did get a great response from the community when we asked for it,” Cooper said.

The video is also helping the police confirm the witness accounts they have been provided.

A number of people have spoken to police. A lot of people cared about Bird and a lot of people knew her, Cooper said."

I am glad there is such a large response to this horrific crime. Often homeless people get one inch in the paper and that is it. Someone will talk. I also like what the family and people have done in walking around and asking questions of street people who wouldn't talk to police.

http://www.paherald.sk.ca/News/Loca...6/Marlene-Bird-well-on-the-road-to-recovery/1

"Bird has been in hospitals for almost a month, since a June 1 assault in downtown Prince Albert left her with life-threatening injuries.

After numerous surgeries and the amputation of both of her legs, Bird isn’t out of the woods yet, although her situation has improved drastically.

Initially silenced by tubes that ran down her throat, Bird has been speaking for about a week, Thiessen said on Friday.

“She’s very cognitive of what’s going on and what has happened,” Thiessen said.

“She understands that she will live without her normal legs, and we told her about prostheses and all the other stuff, and all the fundraising that are going on.”

Her face, which was badly cut on June 1 and sutured shortly thereafter in Saskatoon, is “healing really well and looks good,” Thiessen said."