00:00:01
911. What's the address of the emergency? >> Hey, um I like to report a blue truck
00:00:07
that was stolen earlier today. >> Is it your truck? >> No. Um he's my friend and he stole it
00:00:13
earlier today. >> Days after 15-year-old Tina Fontaine made that call. She was murdered. But at
00:00:20
the time, police didn't even know that 911 call existed. So, they didn't [music] know to look at the very man she
00:00:28
named in it. So, how did things go so wrong? And how did they end up catching him? Well, buckle up and let us [music]
00:00:36
tell you. I'm Ashley Flowers. >> And I'm Britt. >> And this is Crime Junkie. Britt, we know the ripple effect of
00:00:48
homicides [music] extends beyond the victim themselves. It changes the lives of dozens, maybe even hundreds of people
00:00:56
as they have to adjust to their new reality. Not only the reality that someone is now gone, but also that
00:01:03
someone else was evil enough to take their [music] lives. And just like a ripple on water, it starts with one
00:01:09
thing, like one moment that breaks the surface. And for Tina Fontaine, that moment happened far before her own
00:01:16
murder. It was actually on October 31st, 2011. And that's the day that her father
00:01:22
Eugene was beaten and left to succumb [music] to his injuries behind a shed on the reservation where he lived in
00:01:29
Manitoba. The two men who killed him were arrested, charged with manslaughter, and eventually found
00:01:35
guilty. But that was cold comfort to a then 12-year-old Tina, who was facing down the barrel of a whole life without
00:01:41
her dad. Now, Eugene hadn't had custody of Tina and her little sister Sarah. Their mom, Valentina, wasn't really in
00:01:47
the picture either. Both of them had struggled with substance use disorder. So, the girls lived with their great
00:01:54
aunt Thelma, who already had a long career as a foster mother. And despite Thelma showering the girls with all the
00:02:01
love she could muster, love can only go so far in a situation [music] like this.
00:02:05
And slowly over the following years, Thelma witnessed the big-hearted little girl that she'd raised start to change.
00:02:12
According to Joanna Jolly's book, Red River Girl, she started having trouble in school and then she started skipping
00:02:19
school and then she started running away. And Thelma was trying her best, even tried getting professionals to help
00:02:24
manage her grief and growing behavior concerns, but help just was not readily available. After the murder of her
00:02:31
father, victim services never offered grief counseling. And Thelma reached out herself about getting something set up
00:02:37
with victim services, but nothing happened. And the one time Tina was actually referred to a counselor by
00:02:42
Child and Family Services or CFS, the sessions were too far away from their home on the Sagin First Nation Reserve
00:02:49
to actually be able to go. Between late 2013 and April 2014, Tina ran away three
00:02:56
times, always to Winnipeg, which is about an hour and a half southwest, and sometimes to her mom, Valentina's home.
00:03:02
Now, Valentina had sort of reappeared in Tina and Sarah's lives after their dad's
00:03:07
murder. And despite Thelma's concerns, the girls desperately wanted their mom to be a part of their lives. And so when
00:03:14
Tina asked Thelma if she can go visit her mom in Winnipeg for a week in late June of 2014, Thelma says yes. Now, she
00:03:21
still doesn't love that Valentina has made her way back into the girl's lives. But as far as Thelma knows, Valentina's
00:03:28
doing well. The last time Tina and Sarah went to visit a few months ago, she'd called Valentina's social worker, who
00:03:34
assuaged a lot of her worries. She [music] had stable housing and Valentina herself said that she was working on
00:03:40
getting custody of her other children who would have been Tina and Sarah's half siblings. And so according to Nancy
00:03:45
McDonald's reporting for Mlan, she gives Tina $60 and a phone card telling her to
00:03:50
call if she needs anything. And then she's off being driven by Thelma's daughter and son. [music]
00:03:55
>> Just Tina. Sarah doesn't go. >> No. So, she was actually supposed to, but she decided last minute to stay
00:04:00
back, which honestly was probably a blessing because no one could have guessed that [music] an hour and a half
00:04:06
away, Tina and her aunt and uncle would pull up to an empty home. Like Valentina's not there. Neither are her
00:04:13
kids. And of course, like Tina's relatives are a bit worried, but I guess Tina's like cool, calm, collected. She's
00:04:20
[music] like, "Listen, just drop me off at Valentina's sister's house. Like nothing to be concerned about. Plus, she
00:04:25
has plenty of family in the city that will watch out for her. So, she's confident she's going to be okay.
00:04:30
Valentina is going to come and get her. So, her aunt and uncle agree to that. They agree to let her stay, trusting
00:04:36
that Valentina and her family will watch out for the 15-year-old in their care. So, they drop her off and drive off. And
00:04:44
the weeks pass and Thelma's waiting back home, not really hearing anything from Tina or Valentina all week. Not that
00:04:52
she's really even expecting to. But when she calls Valentina's house, she can't get through because the phone line has
00:04:59
been disconnected. And listen, how many times she calls, who else she reaches out to, unclear. But the long and the
00:05:05
short of it is that when Thelma can't get a hold of Tina or Valentina on the phone, [music]
00:05:09
she knows in her bones that something is wrong. So, she and her husband Joe drive
00:05:14
down to Winnipeg, pull up in front of Valentina's house, only to find that [music] Tina isn't there. Neither is
00:05:20
Valentina or any of Tina's half siblings. Because what Thelma hadn't known when she approved the trip, what
00:05:27
maybe even Tina hadn't known was that Valentina wasn't doing well. In the time between Tina and Sarah's last visit and
00:05:35
now, she had slipped back into addiction, losing both her home and custody of her other kids.
00:05:41
>> Had Valentina actually ever met up with Tina after she got to Winnipeg? >> Yes. So, eventually Thema learned that
00:05:48
Valentina had picked Tina up, but where they went is anyone's guess. And Belma does not trust that Tina will be safe in
00:05:56
her mom's care at this point. In fact, she's worried that Valentina maybe even abducted Tina so that she wouldn't leave
00:06:01
Winnipeg. >> Had she threatened to do that before? >> I don't think so. But like, I think
00:06:05
anything's on the table right now. And the idea that Valentina had something to do with Tina's sudden ghosting only
00:06:11
grows when Thelma gets a Facebook message from a guy saying that he's worried that Valentina's using drugs
00:06:18
with her daughter and that Tina might even be being sexually exploited. >> Who is this guy exactly?
00:06:25
>> This guy is named Larry. He dated Tina earlier that year. That's who's messaging her. They broke up, but
00:06:32
they're still like friendly or whatever. Though, I will say that there were some
00:06:35
sources that called him Tina's current boyfriend, but I don't think that's accurate. So, Thelma contacts CFS, who
00:06:41
then tried to find Valentina, which they do, and I'm not sure where she is when CFS tracks her down, but one thing is
00:06:47
clear, Tina's not with her. Does she say where her daughter is? >> She says she doesn't know. She says that
00:06:52
she's barely been with Tina this whole time. Her story is that she picked her up from her sister's place. They hung
00:06:58
out for a bit, a few days maybe, and then poof, like Tina left or Valentina left, but basically they separated and
00:07:06
she hasn't even heard from her daughter since. Well, it turns out there's a little more to the story. So Tina's
00:07:12
sister Sarah pipes up and shows Thelma a message that she'd gotten from Tina. And
00:07:17
I can't find the exact date that this was sent. This was sometime within the last 11 days or so, but it was a selfie
00:07:24
from Tina. And in it, she had a black eye. She had scratches on her face and she said that it was their mom that had
00:07:32
been the one to hurt her. And then in another message, she told Sarah to tell Thelma and her husband that she loved
00:07:38
them, but she wasn't ready to come home yet. So Thelma goes and contacts various
00:07:43
CFS agencies. She even contacts the police, anyone to help find Tina. According to the book Red River Girl,
00:07:49
she and her husband even go to Winnipeg a second time to look for her. places at
00:07:54
like the mall, local shopping areas, but they can't find her, and none of their extended family seems to know where she
00:08:00
is either. By July 17th, over 2 weeks after she last saw Tina, Thelma is at her wit's end. So, she makes the
00:08:08
decision to let CFS officially take Tina into their care, hoping that they would
00:08:13
maybe find her and keep her safe, get her the help that she needs or get her to an environment that might be more
00:08:19
suitable for her. >> I guess I don't get it. What does transferring care to them help?
00:08:24
>> I didn't understand either and I didn't know like you have so much like and granted this is the Canadian system like
00:08:29
but you have so much like more knowledge of like the foster care system like >> I didn't see how that would help cuz
00:08:35
there it's not like they're not looking for her like >> and they are involved with her.
00:08:39
>> Yeah. So I didn't know our team tried to get [clears throat] in touch with the or
00:08:42
even people at CFS to have them like try and help us understand but no one has gotten back to us or anyone we have
00:08:49
talked to. They haven't been able to explain it any better than that's just what happened. But transferring care,
00:08:54
long and short of it is it didn't have the outcome I think Thelma was hoping for. Because on August 17th, one of
00:09:01
Thelma's relatives tells her that they'd seen a Facebook post. And in this post,
00:09:08
it says that Tina had been found, but she wasn't alive. And Thelma doesn't believe it at first. Like, I mean, this
00:09:14
is a Facebook post, right? Like, and they haven't heard anything. But the next day, police are there
00:09:21
knocking on their door, delivering the news that she had been praying to never hear. [music] And what the investigation
00:09:28
into Tina's death reveals is that she fell through every crack possible, was failed by every adult meant to protect
00:09:37
her. She wasn't flying under the radar during this time. She was right there, able to be helped again and again and
00:09:44
again, [music] which made it easy for investigators to retrace her last steps through CFS and police reports. The
00:09:51
first one being on July 17th [music] The first time Tina came into contact with someone in a position of authority
00:10:21
was on July 17th. That is when she was picked up by the Winnipeg Police Service after someone reported seeing her
00:10:27
screaming while she was being dragged down the street by an older guy. And once police arrived, they found Tina and
00:10:34
the guy that she was fighting with, this 18-year-old named Cody Mason, who was identified as her boyfriend,
00:10:40
>> her current boyfriend. >> Right. Not Larry, who messaged Thelma. >> Got it. >> So, when police found Tina and Cody,
00:10:47
they're both drunk. So, police took them into custody and sent them to separate detox facilities to dry out. Now,
00:10:54
because Thelma had given up custody by the time of this incident, Tina was discharged into the care of child and
00:11:00
family services. A piece from the Manitoba Advocate called A Place That Feels Like Home: The Story of Tina
00:11:06
Fontaine [music] states that CFS put her up at a local hotel until a placement became
00:11:11
available. But it seems like they did that without supervision or anyone to stay with her and make sure she was
00:11:19
okay. This 15year-old, and I know this because she was there one night and then she left. I've never heard of any sort
00:11:29
of like child protective services leaving a minor. >> I know. I feel like like my first
00:11:34
thought goes to like the fact that they're probably like all child protective services agencies like
00:11:40
>> wildly understaffed for sure. >> But that doesn't mean you just leave the kids alone.
00:11:46
>> I thought that I was reading it wrong when I first like was looking into this
00:11:49
because I like I could not imagine that happening here. But apparently leaving her alone in a hotel was fine. Like
00:11:57
right in line with policies and procedures at the time. Now later CFS ends up removing this as an option.
00:12:04
Yeah. >> So it's no longer in practice today, but because it was then, Tina was able to
00:12:11
leave. So the next confirmed contact was a few days later. That's when Tina called CFS basically just to say that
00:12:18
she was okay. She was staying with her boyfriend, but no workers actually put eyes on her or could find even a
00:12:26
placement for her. So then on July 23rd, Tina showed up at a CFS office in Winnipeg with Cody, her boyfriend, after
00:12:34
which she went to a youth shelter. But then she bounced in and out of youth shelters, one of which reported her
00:12:40
missing, but then cancelled the report when she turned back up to that same shelter. And on nights when she wasn't
00:12:46
in a shelter, she would crash on a relatives or even a friend's couch or sometimes with Cody. And at one point,
00:12:52
she even stayed with Cody's dad. So she's >> wait family members. Her family members
00:12:58
know she's technically missing. >> This is what I was saying. This is what's so frustrating. Like some of them
00:13:03
do. And I think this is one of the sadder parts of this story because it's not just the system and CFS who's
00:13:10
failing her time and time again. it was her family and the other adults in her life because I guess when she would show
00:13:16
up and again they knew people were looking for her they were basically like you know what she looks happy she looks
00:13:22
sober she's fine and again maybe it's cuz they knew she had nowhere to go I don't know but yes she was popping up
00:13:28
and there were sightings of her by family members in this time now in early August she was again in contact with a
00:13:36
CFS worker and they talked about finding a placement for her but all that was available was another youth shelter and
00:13:43
CFS workers told her to bike there herself. So in and out, in and out of youth shelters. Missing persons reports
00:13:51
get filed and then taken back until August 8th when Winnipeg police pulled over a drunk driver and they found Tina
00:13:59
inside the car. Now, at first she gave them a fake name, but she eventually told them her real one. And even though
00:14:07
there was an active high-risk missing person's report filed for Tina at that time of this encounter, the officers let
00:14:14
her go. >> Why? Well, one of the officers who pulled them over was new. So, they said
00:14:21
they like just missed the report and for some reason they thought she looked 18 anyways. So, I don't know. I don't know.
00:14:30
Again, I every crack she fell through. Now, the same day that she has this encounter, Tina was found back behind a
00:14:38
building unconscious with her skirt pulled down and no underwear. Now, we know this because she gets taken to a
00:14:45
hospital where she tells people there that she had been [music] drinking, been taking pills, and using other drugs, but
00:14:51
she wouldn't talk about how she ended up in the alley. She told a doctor that she
00:14:56
was going to go meet up with this guy named Sebastian, who she said was going to get her a bike. And when the doctor
00:15:03
asked who Sebastian was, Tina apparently just kind of like shrugged her shoulders
00:15:08
and said he was a quote 62-year-old meth user that she sometimes liked to chill with. So she gets discharged that
00:15:16
afternoon and put up in a hotel again. This time I know she was being supervised, but by the next day she's
00:15:23
gone again. How if she's being supervised? Well, even the supervision that she had, apparently it wasn't like
00:15:30
24/7, so it was easy for her to slip away when she wanted to yet again. Now, when she didn't return to that last
00:15:37
hotel, police issued a citywide bolo on August 9th and several more times in the
00:15:43
next week. And this is what kind of finally gets things in motion because eventually Winnipeg police, child and
00:15:50
family services, and street outreach [music] teams made a real effort to search for her. And they were supported
00:15:57
by the Canadian Center for Child Protection, which runs the missing kids.ca program. But now, over a month
00:16:04
after she'd last been seen by Thelma, no one is able to find Tina. Not until August 17th when a man and his
00:16:12
son come across a bodyshaped object wrapped in what appeared to be a blanket along the bank of the Red River in
00:16:19
Winnipeg while scoping out fishing locations. Now, when they find this, they didn't open the blanket up or touch
00:16:24
it. They like ran immediately and contacted police. And it doesn't take long for police to respond because while
00:16:30
this guy and his son had been out there, they had actually seen a bunch of police
00:16:33
boats and divers. [music] According to coverage from CBC News, those crews had been on the water all
00:16:39
weekend looking for a man who'd been reported struggling in the water on the Friday before. But this obviously wasn't
00:16:46
the missing guy that they were looking for. [music] And none of the crews that were out there like were any part of the
00:16:52
search for Tina. But when the man reports this discovery, that's who they've now found. Though it does take a
00:16:59
minute to actually figure that out because when they find her, she's pretty decomposed. So, it is a tattoo on her
00:17:05
back with her father's name, Eugene Fontaine, that eventually leads them to who Tina is. And when they unwrap what
00:17:13
they find to be a duvet cover around her, weighed down by rocks, they saw that she was fully clothed. And there is
00:17:19
no evidence of sexual assault. No clear cause of death. I mean, she has a few bumps and scratches, but nothing that
00:17:27
would have been fatal. No broken bones, no sign that she'd been in any kind of a
00:17:31
struggle. and the toxicology results don't support a drug overdose or even alcohol poisoning. Now, she had some
00:17:38
cannabis in her system, but the tests are negative for other hard drugs. And in the end, the pathologist rules that
00:17:45
Tina's cause and manner of death are undetermined. Now, the pathologist does say that the circumstances of her death
00:17:53
are highly suspicious, though. >> Yeah. She's wrapped up and weighed down by rocks.
00:17:58
>> Definitely. And even though that's like the official word, right? like undetermined. Detectives are convinced
00:18:03
that she actually was murdered and the community is also convinced and detectives are facing extraordinary
00:18:11
pressure from every direction to solve this case. According to Katie Dangerfield's reporting for Global News,
00:18:17
after Tina's death, more than a thousand people marched in the streets calling for a national inquiry into missing and
00:18:24
murdered First Nations women and girls. Because Manitoba where this is all happening, it's kind of the epicenter of
00:18:32
this crisis. And in fact, Joanna Jolly's book reports that the reserve that Tina's from, Seing First Nation, that
00:18:39
reserve had the highest number of missing and murdered women and girls of any First Nations community in Canada.
00:18:47
The problem here is it's hard to solve a case when you have no cause of death or
00:18:53
no witnesses, no crime scene. Except they actually had their best lead right in front of them all along. And it took
00:19:03
a witness coming forward to show them what was right under their noses. Because once public interest in Tina's
00:19:09
case picks up, tips start coming in. People who'd seen her or interacted with her leading up to her death. And it led
00:19:17
police to learn that Tina had been sex trafficked and she'd been using drugs on and off. And it also pointed them at
00:19:24
some suspicious people who ultimately get excluded. But it was one tip from this dude named Robert that really
00:19:32
changes everything. And this guy's like, "Hey, I actually saw Tina on August 6th
00:19:38
and she seemed really upset. She bummed a cigarette off of me." And this guy says that when they got to talking, she
00:19:45
said that she'd been hanging out with some friends at a house nearby, and they'd left her alone in a room with
00:19:49
this older dude, and he was clearly coming on to her, creeping her out big time. And when she told this guy that
00:19:55
like, "No, she's not interested," he got aggressive and started yelling at her. And by the way, this guy's like, "Oh,
00:20:03
there's this other thing." Right before Tina came over and started talking to me, I noticed her make this call from a
00:20:11
nearby pay phone. Now, I don't think the guy overheard the call, but based on the
00:20:16
location and the time, investigators were able to figure out exactly who she called that night.
00:20:23
>> 911. What's the address of the emergency? >> Hey, um I like to report a blue truck
00:20:29
that was stolen earlier today. >> Okay. And do you know who stole it? This guy named Sebastian.
00:20:36
>> Is it your truck? >> What? >> Is it your truck? >> No. Um, he's my friend and he sold it
00:20:43
earlier today. >> Okay. You need to call the police directly at 986. >> Yeah. >> 62.
00:20:51
>> Yeah. >> And when you get the recorded message, press 8. That'll take you directly to a
00:20:55
person. >> Okay then. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> Bye. >> Bye. Sebastian's the guy she was going to get
00:21:02
the bike from when she ended up unconscious behind that building. Right. >> Correct.
00:21:07
>> And what's the deal with this truck? >> They don't know at the time, but like
00:21:11
they need to find like like that call didn't result in anything basically. So they need to track the Sebastian guy
00:21:16
down to kind of piece things together. And I know they track him to a house where he was apparently living in like a
00:21:21
tent out back. [music] And when they go there, this young woman answers the door. They ask for Sebastian. And she's
00:21:27
like, "Who? Who are you talking about? I don't know a Sebastian. And they're like, "Oh, we heard you had this guy
00:21:33
Sebastian living in a tent in your backyard." And she's like, "Oh, are you talking about Frenchie?"
00:21:39
>> Frenchie? That's what she said. She's like, "Yeah, we've got a guy in a tent or had a guy in a tent, but we know him
00:21:44
as Frenchie." And the mom there tells police that she had offered this Frenchie guy basically to let him stay
00:21:49
in a tent like sometime in July. But she started really hating the way that Frenchie acted around her 15year-old
00:21:57
daughter. He was like staring at her, offering to get her drunk or high, like just terrible things, which is why no
00:22:04
one was super sad that they hadn't seen him in a while. But they recommend police go visit the local scrapyard
00:22:09
because they knew that he was a regular there. So they go there and when they describe Sebastian/Frenchy
00:22:16
to the woman working at the front desk, hoping she'd seen him recently, or more importantly could give them his last
00:22:22
name, she tells them she doesn't know Sebastian. She doesn't even know a Frenchie. But then when police describe
00:22:28
his physical appearance, this white guy, early 50s, long grayish hair, she's like, "Oh yeah, no, I know him, but like
00:22:35
his name isn't Sebastian or Frenchie. His name is Raymond Cormier." Police learned that Raymond Cormier is a
00:22:47
[music] 52year-old with a long criminal record and a bunch of outstanding drugrelated warrants. According to
00:22:54
reporting in the Globe and Mail, Raymond had basically drifted all over Canada and was in and out of prison on a bunch
00:22:59
of different convictions, including robbery, assault, theft, and fraud. [music] And this guy spent a lot of years, like
00:23:07
years and years and years in prison, not to mention his time on parole. So, they
00:23:12
start going on the hunt for this guy. But the problem is, it's like he's vanished. Now, thankfully, an out ofthe-
00:23:18
blue call from an inmate at a local prison gives them a lucky break. So, this inmate, his name is Ernest the
00:23:25
Wolf. He's been locked up since August on theft charges, which is just like the latest in his own string of convictions.
00:23:32
But Ernest tells investigators like, "Hey, I'm not sure if anyone's told you this yet, but you should really look
00:23:39
into this guy named Raymond Cormier for Tina's murder." And mind you, this is completely unprompted. They haven't
00:23:46
mentioned Tina. He's the one that does that. And they haven't even mentioned Raymond either. Like, he's the one
00:23:51
bringing him up. And he tells investigators he'd known Raymond a long time, like many years. They were kind of
00:23:58
off and on like friends, but they'd reconnected [music] again just that summer, and he'd even hung out a few
00:24:04
times with Raymond and Tina and another couple at a house in Winnipeg. So Ernest
00:24:10
says that it was obvious that Raymond had sexual interest in Tina, and that just never sat right with him because
00:24:17
Tina is quite literally a girl. She's a 15-year-old girl and Raymond is an old ass man. And he heard the two of them
00:24:25
had gotten into some kind of altercation or fight. And I don't know that it was physical, but basically gotten into it
00:24:31
over a stolen truck [music] one night. And the next thing he knew, he was seeing the headlines about Tina's
00:24:38
murder. >> Okay, we need to pause for a second. I'm starting to put the pieces together.
00:24:43
>> It's messy. Like the timeline is is is I get it. Okay. So, August 6th, she calls
00:24:48
911 to report a truck stolen by Sebastian, who we now know is Raymond. >> Sebastian Frenchie Raymond. Yes.
00:24:54
>> Got it. Then that same night, she told that Robert guy she'd been at a house and there was an older man who made her
00:25:00
feel like >> came under >> uncomfortable. TBD Sebastian Frenchie Raymond. >> Yeah. Then on the 8th, she was found in
00:25:10
the back alley saying she was going to see this Sebastian Raymond because he was going to get her a bike. So he's
00:25:17
like involved in all these moments, >> right? And then on the 9th, that's when they had their last sighting of her by a
00:25:23
witness. I hadn't told you that part, but like so we know she's seen on the 9th, but yes, he's like clearly like in
00:25:27
her life in all these events, >> right? So Ernest had seen Raymond at least once after all of that went down.
00:25:36
And Raymond told him about the stolen truck, about this argument that he'd had with Tina. Basically, she was pissed
00:25:42
that he'd stolen it, which made Ernest super wary because he didn't want to be in the vicinity of a stolen truck
00:25:48
because like he and Raymond were doing a lot of drugs at the time. Like he didn't
00:25:51
want this stolen truck acting like a beacon leading police straight to where they were.
00:25:55
>> But he says that Raymond's like, "Listen, like don't worry about it. I've taken care of the problem." Uh the
00:26:02
problem being the truck or the problem being Tina? >> You tell me. Right. Like and listen,
00:26:08
this thing he's saying, like it's not the hard evidence that they're hoping to find, but it's not nothing. Especially
00:26:14
since Ernest was able to give them another missing piece of the puzzle. They had been looking for the house of
00:26:21
these supposed friends of Tina's named Sarah. Not her sister Sarah, but Sarah and Tyrell. because I guess Cody had at
00:26:28
one point told investigators that he and Tina had spent some time there, but at and this is still looking for her at the
00:26:34
time. They couldn't find it. Cody couldn't remember the address, whatever. Well, fast forward, Ernest does them a
00:26:40
solid because he knows the address. So, that's where they go next. Again, we're just trying to get more info. So, when
00:26:46
they get there, they find Sarah, but not Tyrell. And she says he doesn't live there anymore. But, she does agree to go
00:26:51
with them to the station to answer some questions. And they're like, this is crazy. They're like just getting into
00:26:57
the car when investigators see someone open the back door to Sarah's house to put out the garbage. And I have to
00:27:04
imagine like the first thing is they're like, "Oh, you liar. It's Tyrell." >> Because she like hadn't said anyone was
00:27:10
there. They didn't realize anyone was going to be there. It's not Tyrell, by the way. And she's like, "Oh, yeah,
00:27:14
yeah, yeah. I have a friend staying with me [music] at the moment." And they look
00:27:18
up and they like really look at him and they realize like, "Oh my god, this is Raymond staying at her house." So they
00:27:25
like went there to try to find any information that she may have about and they find him.
00:27:30
>> Raymond, according to Cameron Mlan's reporting for CBC News, Raymond tries to
00:27:35
run. They end up chasing him down, arresting him on some outstanding warrants. And when they talk to him,
00:27:40
Raymond insists that he had nothing to do with Tina's death. And he tells police they're wasting their time
00:27:45
focusing on him. Now, he admits that he had a sexual interest in Tina when they first met, but he says like once he
00:27:51
found out she was under 18, like he he didn't anymore. he wasn't attracted to her, which like come on, like no, that's
00:27:57
not what they've been hearing from everyone else. They're with him in an interview room for like 8 hours [music]
00:28:02
on and off. And the longer they're in there, the more hostile and aggressive he gets, [music] and the grosser his
00:28:10
comments about Tina get. It turns out his interest in her did [music] not die down when he learned that she was just
00:28:16
15. And as the night goes on, police see more and more of what they think is the
00:28:22
real Raymond. [music] this hotheaded sexual predator with a history of violence. And they end up holding him
00:28:29
there and then convicting him on a theft charge. So, he's in jail while they try
00:28:34
to firm up their case against him for Tina's murder. But their case against him for that murder is really weak. I
00:28:42
mean, there was some physical evidence collected from the duvet cover that Tina was found in, like some hairs that they
00:28:47
did get like eight different DNA profiles from, but none of them are Raymond's DNA, [music]
00:28:54
though. I mean, that's to say like none of them are necessarily from a killer, though, right? Like,
00:28:58
>> right. Anyone could have left them there, >> right? So, the DNA, his DNA being on
00:29:02
there would have been a nice to have, but it would not have sealed the deal in any kind of way since he admitted to
00:29:08
knowing her, right? >> Being around her, stuff like that. >> Yeah. So there isn't anything that
00:29:13
investigators can tie to Raymond as far as physical evidence goes. So what do they have on Raymond then?
00:29:20
>> Other than the stories they've heard, not much. So they I know they start showing like the duvet like a picture of
00:29:27
the duvet cover around and witnesses they interview say like, "Yeah, they recognize it. Yes, we think it's
00:29:34
Raymond's. It's not in his possession anymore. So that's suspicious, but again, not a slam dunk by any means.
00:29:42
>> Still, Winnipeg police are sure that they have the right guy, but they know that if they're going to get this case
00:29:48
across the finish line, what they need is a confession. The jail time he'd been serving didn't seem to be inspiring him
00:29:55
to [music] talk. So when he gets out, investigators decide to try another approach, a Mr. Big Sting.
00:30:04
And I know we've talked about these on the show before, but like for our newbies or for a refresher, Brett, you
00:30:09
want to give the people the lowdown on what a Mr. Bigsting is? >> Gladly. So, a Mr. Bigsting is when
00:30:15
undercover officers pretending to be part of an organized crime group have a kind of meat cute with a suspect during
00:30:22
which the undercover officers basically say, "Hey, you want to make some money? We've got some jobs for you." The jobs
00:30:29
start small, like helping someone move or driving a car from one place to another, but that leads to bigger jobs
00:30:36
and more money, kind of bringing them into the fold of this fake crime [music] syndicate, making them feel trusted and
00:30:43
important. And eventually, there's some kind of meeting with the head of this organization, Mr. Big,
00:30:50
>> who finds out about this [music] police investigation in question and the person's role as a potential suspect.
00:30:58
and they use that information to kind of say like just tell me what happened. Tell me the whole truth and we'll take
00:31:05
care of you. I can protect you. >> Or sometimes like I've even seen them do it where it's like well you need to like
00:31:10
give us something so we can like trust you. Here's what we've done. >> Yes. And if everything goes well, the
00:31:15
suspect will confess everything that actually happens. And what always floores me is it has a pretty high
00:31:22
success rate between like 75 and 95% success rate. Well, success rate TVD because like like I think about like the
00:31:32
way people view success rates of confessions here in the US like which we now know like not that all confessions
00:31:38
are but like when they're coerced or like false confessions. >> Well, that's the thing. This is really
00:31:42
controversial >> bordering on coercion like you were saying. >> It's actually illegal here in the US but
00:31:49
this case is taking place in Canada. >> Yeah. So these stings are like very elaborate, very expensive, and very
00:31:56
risky. >> Mhm. >> And they take time. Like this one took 6 months. Joanna Jolly's book on this case
00:32:04
goes in down like this like playbyplay like of this sting. So if you're really interested, I recommend you check that
00:32:10
out. And listen, I know we've talked about Mr. Big Stings on the show before and like every single time
00:32:15
>> I'm shocked at how the whole thing works. Like I can't believe they've been doing this for so long in Canada. It
00:32:21
seems like the fact that like it's so wellnown and people know like how does anyone fall for it anymore? I know. But
00:32:28
>> this wasn't your typical sting operation because Raymond is not your typical suspect. What is most interesting to me
00:32:35
about this particular sting is how close Raymond came to figuring the whole thing
00:32:40
out. Like he was sus right from the start. Within a couple of weeks, he was saying that he thought the police had
00:32:47
undercover officers spying on him at his employment assistance office. And by the
00:32:52
end of the operation, Raymond was legit pointing out actual undercover officers,
00:32:58
saying like he's pretty sure like I'm pretty sure that guy's following us. And he's like, I think he's watching me. He
00:33:04
was he caught on. He was calling at you. I know. And typically what happens in a
00:33:08
Mr. Big Sting is that there's like this big come to Jesus moment where the Mr. big guy demands the person come clean
00:33:16
and confess because it's the only way the organization can protect him. But Raymond just keeps saying like, "I
00:33:22
didn't murder her. I didn't murder her." Even as the pressure builds and builds and builds and by the end of it, he is
00:33:28
legit saying to Mr. Big, "This doesn't add up. Like something's not right. The police are up to something. He doesn't
00:33:38
know how far that they'll go to get him to admit to killing Tina. So, he doesn't
00:33:44
confess. Not in the classic Mr. Big Way. No. But as part of the staying, they bug
00:33:52
his apartment. And on those tapes, he admits that he had [music] sex with Tina, which of course he had denied
00:34:00
before when he was speaking to police. According to Joanna Jolly's book, police also hear like through this bug. They
00:34:07
hear him talking to a young woman about Tina, saying that she quote got killed because we found out I found out she was
00:34:15
15 years old. End quote. >> So he killed Tina because he found out how young she was.
00:34:21
>> Well, so this is the thing like he never says who got killed or who killed her.
00:34:27
like he's very vague, equally as vague when he talks about being haunted by something and how he threw someone into
00:34:36
a body of water. And their surveillance also shows Raymond's interest in young girls. Like he would often bring young
00:34:44
indigenous girls back to his apartment, give them drugs in exchange for sex. In fact, he told one of them to be careful
00:34:52
and not overdose, or else he would wrap her up in a carpet and throw her in the river. And there is also tape of him
00:35:01
screaming at a woman that he was dating, saying that there's a little girl in a grave someplace, screaming at the top of
00:35:07
her lungs for him to finish the job. And he did finish the job. >> But that's still not an actual
00:35:14
confession. >> No, Raymond never says, "I killed Tina." But investigators feel that they have
00:35:20
enough to charge him with Tina's murder, which they do on December 9th of 2015. Raymond's trial begins just over 2 years
00:35:28
later in January of 2018. And while they don't have an eyewitness [music] or DNA
00:35:34
evidence or a smoking gun, what they have is a pile of circumstantial evidence [music] pointing to Raymond,
00:35:41
the only person they know of who had both the means and the motive to kill Tina. But I'm going to cut right to the
00:35:48
chase. It's not enough. After closing statements, the jury deliberates for less than a day before finding Raymond
00:35:55
not guilty. And the public's [music] response to the verdict is one of outrage. And much of
00:36:03
it is directed at the complete failure of this system that everyone feels like should have protected Tina, but like
00:36:10
failed her right up until the very end. [music] Raymond Cormier died in 2024, taking with him any secrets he might
00:36:18
have been harboring. But in the wake of this tragedy, many people have tried to come together and fill in the gaps that
00:36:25
were found, where the system did fail. A volunteer group called Drag the Red was
00:36:30
formed to drag the Red River, searching for bodies or evidence of like even other murder investigations. The Bearcan
00:36:37
Patrol was reignited to help organize searches and crime prevention in Winnipeg's North End. and an
00:36:43
organization called Endinoway, which is dedicated to supporting indigenous youth
00:36:47
in urban settings. They launched a program called Tina's Safe Haven, which provides safe places for young people to
00:36:55
do things like laundry or eat a hot meal and just like be a kid in a safe space.
00:37:00
We've made a donation to the organization. And if you would like to join us or learn more, we're going to
00:37:07
have the information to that organization in the episode description. Hi, crime junkies. [music]
00:37:15
Thank you guys for joining us for this story and for caring about these cases with us. And before we go, we wanted to
00:37:21
show you a little bit of behind the scenes here at Audio Cheek offices. And we want to take a moment [music] to
00:37:25
thank our friends at Ashley for the furniture that they helped us update our offices with. [music] You guys know we
00:37:32
spend a lot of time in the office. It's where basically every Crunky episode is created from start to finish. And having
00:37:39
a space that feels comfortable and functional and truly us has made [music] such a difference.
00:37:44
>> Yeah. Currently, we are in one of our lofts that we often use for content capture. It's what you might see on
00:37:49
social media. And working with Ashley, we have really been able [music] to bring a new look to this space. So,
00:37:55
we're talking cozy chairs, this comfy [music] couch, and pieces that don't just look great on camera, but work for
00:38:01
real life, too. So, huge thanks to Ashley for helping us bring our vision to life.
00:38:05
>> Yeah, we can't wait to share more of the space with you [music] all soon. But for
00:38:08
now, we have some more content to capture. Bye. Reminder, you can find all the source
00:38:16
material for this episode on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram,
00:38:21
crimejunkiepodcast. [music] And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.