Vigil to be held in memory of three Indigenous deaths on Lower Mainland

Friends, family and concerned community members are gathering in Richmond for a vigil.

The vigil is being held at Shelter Island Marina and Boatyard, on Graybar Road, in memory of two Indigenous women and one Indigenous girl who died in Metro Vancouver.

It will honour the memories of 20-year-old Tatyanna Harrison, 24-year-old Chelsea Poorman and 13-year-old Noelle O’Soup.

“Please share and help bring awareness to these cases that we all find to be very suspicious,” Natasha Harrison, Tatyanna’s mother wrote on a Facebook post.

“All of these women and girls have been found in a similar way and this shouldn’t be ignored.”

Harrison was found by police in Richmond on May 2, near the marina where the vigil is being held on Saturday.

The BC Coroners Service informed Vancouver police that she died from “drug toxicity, specifically fentanyl.”

Tatyanna was reported missing by her mother on May 3, after she had not been heard from since the end of March.

Vancouver police believe Harrison died before she was reported missing.

Twenty-four-year-old Chelsea Poorman was found on April 22, 2022 after being missing for more than a year and a half.

She was found dead outside an empty house near Granville Street and West 37 Ave., in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy neighbourhood.

Vancouver police said her cause of death may never be determined, but there was no evidence of foul play.

Poorman’s mother previously said that she was not satisfied with the police explanation.

“There’s something that I was told from the coroner, and I had to ask him twice if what he said was true. He said that Chelsea wasn’t fully intact,” Shelia Poorman said.

“She was missing her cranium, and she was missing some fingers. And they have the gall to say it’s not suspicious and no foul play.”

The remains of 13-year-old Noelle O’Soup were found by building maintenance on May 1, 2022, after being missing for more than a year.

She was found inside a SRO unit at a building on East Hastings Street and Heatley Ave.

The SRO unit was assigned to a man in his forties, who was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant, Van Chung Pham.

Global News has previously reported that Pham was an accused rapist and that he had been living alongside the decomposing remains of O’Soup and another woman for months, before he was discovered dead himself on Feb. 23.

Global News has identified the other woman as Elma Enan, a woman in her 30s.

Another young woman was found alive inside Pham’s unit when his body was ultimately discovered by Vancouver police officers.

O’Soup and Enan’s deaths are still being investigated by Vancouver Police Department’s major crime unit and the BC Coroners Service.

3:43 Wanted by police: New details on man found dead in Vancouver unit where Noelle O’Soup’s body found