Unsolved murders of women under review by Winnipeg police

The Winnipeg Police Service isundertaking anextensive review of all unsolved murder cases in the cityinvolving women, the CBC has learned.

Chief Keith McCaskill said the process will help investigators determine if there are any common traits between the unsolved files.

"Right at this stage we don't have any information to suggest that they are linked, however, as investigations continue and as we look at them, there will perhaps be more information we don't know. We just want to be as thorough as we possibly can," he said.

McCaskill said the Winnipeg Police Service will release more details on the initiative later in the week.

A police spokesperson said the number of cases under review would likely be part of that announcement.

The police service is following in the footsteps of the RCMP, which announced last month that it intends to perform a comprehensive review of its unsolved cases.

The cases under review involve at least 30 women. The review was prompted by mounting pressure from the families of the victims to solve the crimes.

Technology has evolved so much since many of the deaths occurred that police anticipate they might now be able to solve some of them, said RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Line Karpish. The review has only just begun, and it will take a long time to complete, she said.

There have been calls this week for the province to establish a task force to look at cases of missing or murdered women.

Conservative justice critic Kelvin Goertzen said on Monday the police and provincial officials should adopt methodsused by other Prairie provinces and dedicate resources to capture and prosecute offenders responsible for such crimes.

The NDP government needs to establish the task force to "ensure that women at high risk are not easy prey," Goertzen said.

Raven Thundersky is the chair of Sisters in Spirit, a campaign launched five years ago by the Native Women's Association of Canada to raise awareness about violence against aboriginal women. There is an urgent need for such a task force, she said,as well as for more resources for education and safe houses for young aboriginal women.

Nahanni Fontaine, director of justice for the Southern Chiefs Organization, an advocacy group for First Nations people in southern Manitoba, said her group has been asking for a task force for years, but one that would probe the cases of missing as well murdered women.

'There is a group of us women that are going to get together and sit down and talk about what can we do, like what can we do as a community, as mothers, as sisters, as aboriginal women here, because not enough is being done.'Jessie McKay

The concerns have been heightened due to the recent discoveries of two bodies a little more than a month apart.

On July 1, the body of Cherisse Houle, 17, was uncovered by a construction crew working near the shore of Sturgeon Creek in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, northwest of Winnipeg. Police have not ruled her death a homicide and are still investigating.

The body of Hillary Angel Wilson, 18, was found Aug. 20 on a dirt path in a sparsely populated area in East St. Paul. The RCMP, which confirmed her identity following an autopsy on the weekend, are treating her death as a homicide.

The two aboriginal women were friends and both were involved in the sex trade and lived at-risk lifestyles. That shouldn't cause people to dismiss their deaths, said Jessie McKay, a friend of Wilson.

"She shouldn't be labeled. She is a young aboriginal woman whose life has been taken; she has been murdered," said McKay. "There is a group of us women that are going to get together and sit down and talk about what can we do, like what can we do as a community, as mothers, as sisters, as aboriginal women here, because not enough is being done."

Wilson is one of six aboriginal girls in Manitoba who have gone missing in the last year. Over the last two decades, 75 aboriginal women have gone missing, according to aboriginal groups.