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He had no means of transport. He didn't have a
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car or a bike, and public transit would have been
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fairly limited at that time of night, especially in an
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industrial area that was not particularly populous. So how and
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why did he end up there? Despite what might seem
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a charming nickname, nothing can prepare you for the horror
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that is a starlight tour. Hi, Cassie, Hi, Caitlin, Hi,
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Creepy people, hellou Lou. This is PNW Haunts and Homicides
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where we chat about true crime, the paranormal and all
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things creepy in the Pacific Northwest or the.
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P and W.
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If you're nasty, If you're nasty and we know you are,
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and we also do a nasty Tarot reading at the
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end of every episode for a little deeper insight into
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our topic.
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Is the tarot reading nasty? Specifically?
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I feel like the true crame ones are they can
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get They can get pretty nasty if they're not like
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hopeful or feel like they're about the person the sad
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thing that we're talking.
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I completely lost what I was saying. Did you see
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what just happened?
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I one in the middle of a sentence, forgot what
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I was talking. About and I tried to make where
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its happen, and I was just like, I don't, this
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is not making sense. I knew where you were going.
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You like a general sense of it. Yeah, no, Taro read.
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Sometimes they're nasty, sometimes they're not. Okay. I want to
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rewatch that and just see that idea fly out of
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my brain, Like I want to see the moment in
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my eyes where I completely lost it.
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You're like, I don't what was I saying?
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But anyway, that's you. That's my impression of you. Just now,
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that was my impress I was just doing an impression
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of you. Wow.
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So I'm doing an impression of you doing an impression
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of me.
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It's impression exception.
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Pretty meta.
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Wow. Well, this isn't really a paranormal spooky episode. I
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don't think unless you're surprising me today. No, and you
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know what, I.
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Hope that you are well stopped from the holiday.
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I am not opening. I have nothing, nor do I
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want to drink because I drank for two days straight
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and I am not feeling the best.
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Oh No, I've actually been on very good behavior and
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this is my reward.
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I'm so proud of you. Thank you been on my
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worst behavior. Literally, and I am so proud of you.
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Hey, we said we.
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Were taking a vacation, a break, a mini break, so yeah,
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break hard. I breaked hard, so hard I broke my body.
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Well, cheers, humid are okay, I'm just going to start now,
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I'm really gonna You can't stop me. We're listening Neil
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stone Child. It's hard to know what to say about
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this young man. How does one even approach the task
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of adequately encapsulating all the multitudes that a single person contains.
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For decades, many of his loved ones have tried. His
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older siblings Erica and Marcel, his mother Stella big Nell,
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and younger brother Jason have frequently spoken fondly of the
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seventeen year old that they knew to be friendly, outgoing
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and caring. It's a bit dawn trying to put all
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of the complicated facets of someone into words that do
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justice to their unique complex humanity. Who was this person?
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What was it like to know them? Neil was an
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accomplished bantamweight wrestler and was even the inspiration for a
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beautiful mural, a series of murals actually created by one
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of his best friends, Jeffrey Crow at Kilburn Hall.
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In the early nineties. That sounds really cool to you
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have pictures. Yes, Oh wow, they're really unique. They are.
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They're very colorful.
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They really seem like, just looking at them at a glance,
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like they really feel like like they're about something.
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Yeah, do you know what I mean?
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I know, like all art is supposed to be about something, right,
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but they just feel like they have like there's more.
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Yeah.
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I don't know how to like really put that into words.
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That's what I was like having. I was trying to
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say something to describe like what like what these are?
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I don't know, and I can't do it.
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It's hard to like put your finger on what exactly
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is like the right word for them.
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They're beautiful, they're interesting. I'd like to sit there and
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look at them more.
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I know.
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At the time of Neil stone Child's disappearance, two things
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were true. He'd been attending AA meetings without fail for
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some time, and he'd also been drinking on that fateful night.
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His personal experience trying to navigate a healthy relationship with
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substance use and his Soto First Nation's heritage made him vulnerable,
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certainly to the.
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Pitfall of prejudice.
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It's easy to see how those prejudices likely contributed to
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both his untimely death and the widely criticized handling of
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the inquiry that followed. Neil was about fourteen or fifteen
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when he began to test boundaries. Not that I claim
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to be an expert, but for both younger children and teenagers,
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pushing limits is such a normal part of development and growing.
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Up, right, and then like the beginning of high school age,
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that's like especially I feel like.
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Yeah, and I mean, at this point kind of where
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our story takes place, he's seventeen, and so he's really
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like beginning to kind of come into his own as
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an adult. And part of what ultimately has to happen
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is you really do like have to you know, find
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your place as your own individual person in the world.
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It is it's rough times at certain ages. Evaluating potential
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consequences isn't something that we do adeptly. It's often only
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with the benefit of hindsight that young people.
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See where they have aired.
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Though his offenses eventually rose to a level classified as criminal,
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they were never characterized as violent. His juvenile record consisted
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of breaking into entering charges, which on the surface, actually
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I feel like sounds much scarier and far more serious
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than it sounds like they were in his case, and
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they had resulted in his placement or sentencing to a
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group home for juvenile offenders. In particular, it's important that
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there's access to resources that support their continued development, and
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that when necessary, rehabilitative services are readily available. Neil seemed
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to be trying to take positive steps in his life,
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and nothing he'd done was something that he couldn't come
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back from, especially in light of seemingly having honestly a
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really great support system. He had a lot of friends
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and family that were very close to him. They cared
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very deeply about, you know, making sure that he was
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safe and his needs were met, and that he knew
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that he was loved.
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It's very important for a young adult. It is absolutely anybody, honestly,
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like literally everybody.
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Yes, Yeah, just for general peopling. That's that's a really
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basic requirement. Cassie's Wisdom of the day. There you go, Yes,
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the more you know. On November twenty fourth, nineteen ninety,
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Neil stone Child disappeared. He was with his best friend,
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Jason Roy. According to a statement provided by said friend
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five days after the disappearance, the pair had consumed the
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better part of a forty ounce or four our friends
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to the Great North. That's a one point four leader
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bottle of vodka. Oh ada vodka. Yeah, that's a bit.
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That's a bit. That's a bit. It's not a judgment.
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It's more of an assessment of a task that I
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could not personally probably undertake right. Jason Roy's report stated
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that the pair had parted ways at around eleven thirty PM.
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According to Jason Roy, he had blacked out that night
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and had no recollection after the point of their separating.
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Okay, I mean, I know that happens, But did you
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drink that much? Yeah?
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If if you know, you have a night of you know,
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kind of partying, heavy drinking, whatever you want to call it.
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It wouldn't be until roughly a decade later that Jason
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Roy would change his statement. In his revised account, Jason
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would state that when he last saw his friend alive,
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he'd been bleeding profusely, a wound to his face gushing
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blood as he was stuffed into a police cruiser handcuffed.
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He stated that his friend Neil's parting words were, Jay,
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help me. They're going to kill me.
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Oh that's not good. No.
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Neil made that chilling statement on the very same night
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of his parents that November evening, the temperatures were below
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negative twenty eight degrees celsius or negative eighteen degrees fahrenheit.
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I have no frame of reference for that, but it's cold.
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I've never experienced anything remotely near that type of frigid
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weather like, yeah, and I can only imagine that, like
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especially like when you think about the wind chill, I mean,
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that's not only is that it's just so extremely cold,
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but it's it's very, very dangerous. Yes, it's truly unfathomable
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to me personally. That's a kind of cold that I
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just it does not compute. Findings of a much later
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inquiry found that on November twenty fourth, nineteen ninety, Constables
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Bradley Sanger and Larry Hartwig responded to complaints of a
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disturbance at a local seven eleven as well as the
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snowburied Down's residential community, reportedly involving Neil stone Child. This
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was shortly before midnight at eleven fifty one. It was
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a handful of days later, on November twenty ninth, nineteen ninety,
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that two local men, Richard Harms and Bruce Myers made
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a shocking discovery. The pair, who were constructing a fence
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on the property adjoining the Hitachi plant on fifty eighth Street,
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found a body lying face down in the snow. Renee.
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I really wish I had looked up a phonetic pronunciation
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guide something for your name. I didn't. You're a relatively
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minor character in the grand scheme of things for me. Sure,
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you're a nice fella. Rene Lagameder, at the time serving
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as a constable, now a sergeant, was dispatched to the
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scene and carried out a preliminary investigation. When the body
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was turned over, there were a number of heartbreaking discoveries.
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Number one, the decedent's jacket sleeves were pulled down over
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his hands, clearly in an attempt to keep his extremities warm.
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However, possible.
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Number two, and this is the fact that everyone specifically mentions,
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and it's that one of his shoes was missing, which
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I would argue is almost certainly never ideal, But the
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official report goes a step further documenting a detail that
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I found even more sad, the wool sock on his
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right foot, which was the one that was missing. His
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running shoe was so worn in the heel that only
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that not only was his skin exposed, but it had
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clearly become discolored by treading over dirt and gravel. An
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autopsy was subsequently performed at Saint Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon,
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which is thank god, It's like one of the most
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fun words to say. It's kind of the only bright
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spot in this I'm not gonna lie. The pathologist concluded
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that the cause of death was hypothermia, which makes me
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feel like maybe I could be a pathologist. You've probably
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already guessed. This poor soul was later I identified as
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Neil's stone Child. It would be made clear in hindsight
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that it wasn't the first, nor would it be the last,
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time that an Indigenous man, woman, or child would be
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left out in the cold by law enforcement in an
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intentional and incredibly cruel act. Though Neil's body had been
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recovered from an undeveloped field in an extremely isolated industrial area,
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the Saskatoon Police Services investigation into Neil stone Child's death
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determined that there was no evidence of foul play. Officially,
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his death has never been ruled a homicide.
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Okay, I mean I I'm sure you're going to tell
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us more evidence, right, because the things you've told me
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so far don't I can't remember anything sounding like he
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couldn't have just wandered away.
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But m.
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Yeah, this is usually not why we're here.
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So yeah, yeah, no, that's fair, that's a fair assessment.
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Here's the thing, And I've heard a lot of accounts
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from people that live in or around the area where
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he was discovered and where he lived. I actually listened
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to another podcast that they went and visited the field
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where he was found. Neil had no reason to be
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in that area where he was found. It was at
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least twelve kilometers away by car from where he was
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previously or last seen. You're not walking that that's very far.
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It's almost eight miles at minimum. He had no means
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of transport. He didn't have a car or a bike,
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and public transit would have been fairly limited at that
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time of night, especially in an industrial area that was
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not particularly populous. So how and why did he end
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up there? Despite what might seem a charming nickname, nothing
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can prepare you for the horror that is A starlight
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tour in the Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta provinces of Western Canada.
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Law enforcement became known for the practice of picking up
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or otherwise detaining Indigenous people, in some cases for fabricated crimes,
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only to later abandon them in isolated and often extremely
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treacherous conditions. Why because racism. I just I don't understand it.
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I don't want to understand it. I feel like that's
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the thing, is that it truly is one of I