7/4/08

RIP Nicotye

CBC Nunavut has been completely torn apart by grief this week.

UPDATE: A colleague of ours passed Monday night...

I only found out about her death yesterday morning, when I got back to work. I didn't really know Nicotye, just through email communication, really. When I was working in Iqaluit for that first month, she was on vacation.

I knew she had lost her daughter, but I didn't know the background behind it. In 2002, her 13-year-old daughter Jennifer was stabbed to death 30 times. One of the most brutal murders known to Nunavut. Nic was the one to find her, and it really traumatized her. She was known for saying that both her daughter's and her own lives were taken that night Jennifer was killed.

The man who plead guilty to her murder only did so a year ago... finally putting an end to the unanswered questions surrounding Jennifer's death. It came out in court that the RCMP was even using the guy undercover to try and get a confession out of Nic. Talk about traumatizing.


This is the first time, since I have moved up here, that I've been touched by suicide. Given the high incidence in the territory, I'm actually surprised it hadn't happened earlier. The stubborn part of me thinks that suicide is selfish. That while it relieves the pain of one, it just transfers it to so many others. (negative) Energy not being able to be created or destroyed... and all that

But Nicotye's story just ... is just one of such despair. And I have to wonder how ANYONE could have come out on the other side of that. And that's something I don't think we really think about much, the human effect of the justice system. We watch Law and Order and CSI... and families are always questioned, searched, investigated.... but never really think how hard that would be. To be in mourning for a loved one, dealing with intense emotional, psychological pain... and at the same time, to be a suspect in their death. It would be torture.


I guess the only thing to say is I hope Nic has found peace... and that those who loved her, and knew her, will be able to deal with their grief in a healthy way. Wounds hurt, and they bleed, and sometimes it seems like they will never heal. But they do. And the pain subsides. But the scar remains behind, a forever-reminder, so we will never forget.

RIP Nicotye.

2 comments:

KOTN July 7, 2008 at 9:19 AM  

I interviewed her while she was in the middle of waiting for the trial to begin, she had been waiting for over two years at that point.

We talked on the phone for nearly two hours, and it was clear to me that she was still in horrible pain over the death of her daughter.

I remember her talking about how hard it was for her to see her daughters friends, because they reminded her about how old her daughter would have been.

You don't get over that, and I've sat in court for much of the trial and pre-trial stuff. Horrible details I'm not about to forget either.

I'm glad they found her, so the family can have a decent burial and try to close that horrible chapter in their lives.

Matt, Kara, Hunter and Cavan July 11, 2008 at 9:54 AM  

Suicides are so hard to understand. In Kugluktuk the year I was pregnant we had 10 suicides. It was too upsetting for me and was a big part of the reason we had to leave.