Stacks upon stacks of documents, written statements, photos, newspaper clippings and video recordings fill a room in the home of Bernice and Wilfred Catcheway on Skownan First Nation north of Winnipeg.
Their daughter, Jennifer Catcheway, disappeared on June 19, 2008 – the night of her 18th birthday. Monday marked 15 years of gripping heartache for the couple.
“It’s a roller-coaster ride that’s never-ending. You want to get off this ride because some days it’s low, some days it’s high,” Bernice told Global News while sitting at her kitchen table.
“It’s very emotional, you know. It’s going to be 15 years, it doesn’t seem like 15 years at all.”
“With Jen’s case, there’s no closure,” Wilfred said. “So how can we give up searching? You can’t. And we’ll never give up. As long as we’re alive. We’ll never give up.”
June 19, 2023, would have been Jennifer’s 33rd birthday. The anniversary of Jennifer’s disappearance brings mixed emotions, including fond memories of the person she was. Her parents both describe Jennifer as a spontaneous teenager, full of life and love, who loved her family, and especially her nieces and nephews.
“Jen – she was loved, and she loved,” Bernice said.
“She should be enjoying her life. I don’t know what her future was, but I see her with a future. She could be married, have children, all that was taken away from her.”
Bernice says Jennifer and her father had a special bond.
“I gave her a car for her birthday, a few days before that,” Wilfred said. “She was sitting in (the car) last time I saw her, that was the last time I saw her.”
But the anniversary of her disappearance also brings painful emotions rushing to the surface.
“You carried this baby for nine months, you raised her, we raised her. I was there when she was sick, I was there when she was teething, I was there when she fell and got hurt, to kiss her when she was hurting,” Bernice said through tears.
“I was there to see her little heartaches growing up when she was a teenager, to say she’s in love, just a teenager. I was there. I was there for her. We were there for her.”
Bernice says she often feels shocked or surprised to see her daughter’s face and name on a missing persons poster.
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“It’s the unknown. It’s a nightmare, it’s a nightmare (and) you just want to wake up, you want to wake up and just find it’s a bad dream,” Bernice said.
“Sometimes I’ll see her poster somewhere and for a quick moment, for just a quick brief second I’ll think ‘What are you doing there?!’ She shouldn’t be on a missing poster. Nobody should be there. But there’s too many, too many women and girls, men and boys who have gone missing, too many.”
A decade and a half later, the family still has more questions than answers surrounding the disappearance of their daughter.
“She was a happy and loved girl,” Bernice said. “Why would somebody want to hurt her, why would somebody want to take her life, you know? She was just a lovely girl in our eyes. Somebody else thought different though.”
A devastating day: June 19, 2008
June 19, 2008, is a day seared into Bernice and Wilfred’s minds forever.
The Catcheways were living in Portage la Prairie at the time. Bernice received a phone call from Jennifer, excited about it her 18th birthday.
She says Jennifer told her she was in Skownan First Nation, more than three hours north of Portage la Prairie. The Catcheways had lived in Skownan before moving to Portage la Prairie when Jennifer was about six years old.
Bernice said she asked Jennifer where she was, and she could hear her turn the phone to ask someone else where they were. Bernice doesn’t know who Jennifer was with or speaking to during that phone call.
“There was no sound, there was no radio, there was no voice, there was no nothing, but she was talking to someone, she was asking someone,” she said.
“And I said ‘Jennifer, where are you?’ and just like that, suddenly, a sharp pain in my stomach, like a pain like my stomach was being twisted and such fear came over me.”
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“Fear gripped my heart, gripped me. And she was just talking away like she didn’t know she was in danger. Had I known she was in danger, I would have kept her on the phone,” Bernice said, adding what happened next is something she would regret forever.
“I said ‘Jennifer, you get home! Do you understand? You get home!’ And I hung up the phone … I hung up the phone, which I’ve regretted for years and years, because I didn’t know that was the last time I would talk to her. Had I known, I would have kept her on the phone, I would have talked to her as long I could. But I didn’t … I hung up on her. I hung up on her … ’cause I was so full of fear. And I regret that, hanging up on her. And that’s the last time I spoke to her.”
Jennifer never returned home. And that gut-wrenching feeling of unease during the phone call would turn into the Catcheway’s worst nightmare.
The last sighting of Jennifer was in Grand Rapids; a community about three hours north of Skownan First Nation and about four and a half hours north of Portage la Prairie.
15 years of searching
It was the start of 15 years of searching for their loved one. The Catcheways have walked for miles and miles through forests, fields and swamps and have searched bodies of water, looking for clues that could bring their daughter home.
But thousands of tips and 15 years later, the Catcheways still have no answers.
The family says they haven’t heard any recent updates from the RCMP, and have voiced frustrations with authorities handling the case.
“To date, I don’t know who is on our case, which detective is on our case. We don’t know where they’re at in the investigation,” Bernice said.
“So we don’t wait for that call. We don’t wait for any call but we go and we do what we have to do.”
In an emailed statement to Global News, a spokesperson for the Manitoba RCMP says while time is an obstacle, it hasn’t stopped investigators from working on Jennifer’s case.
“To this day, officers are continually assessing all tips and information that they receive about possible locations of Jennifer’s body. If they believe, based on what they know about the case, that the information is credible, they will act on it,” the statement said.
“We have always maintained that one additional piece of viable information could lead to obtaining facts about her final moments and where she is located. We believe someone knows what happened to Jennifer and we continue to ask anyone who may have information to come forward and to contact the RCMP.”
Bernice and Wilfred have also voiced concerns about inequalities on cases for murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. The couple has spoken with local, provincial, and federal governments and forums on MMIWG.
“We can’t get in the mindset that ‘Oh, it’s just another one missing, oh she probably deserved it.’ Nobody has the right to take anyone’s child,” Bernice said. “Whatever colour your skin is – nobody else has the right to go and take someone else child and do whatever they done.”
Last August, Bernice and Wilfred moved back to Skownan First Nation from Portage la Prairie. Bernice is regaining her strength after a serious case of COVID-19, which put her in an intensive care unit for months.
“For one thing, we’re not giving up. We’re not even close to giving up,” Bernice said. “I just overcame a very serious sickness of COVID, the doctors gave me two hours to live, and my family was called in to say their goodbyes. My children never gave up on me, they prayed. My husband never gave up on me. The doctors phoned him to unplug me (from) the life support and he said no.
“So they gave me two hours which turned into three months in a coma, and three months of learning to walk, talk again. So I’m getting stronger and I’m not about to give up, I said when Jennifer first went missing, in an interview in 2008, I said as long as I have breath, as long as my legs can carry me, we’ll be out there. We’ll search for Jennifer.”
Bernice and Wilfred say they’re hoping to find the missing piece to the puzzle that can bring Jennifer home.
“I know one day we’ll find that missing piece and bring her home,” Wilfred said. “In the meantime, we just keep searching and we’ll never give up. How can you? That’s my girl. How can anyone ever give up on their girl or son, you know? We live this life. Well never forget Jennifer, never.”
The Catcheways are still holding out hope that someone will come forward with information, that can give them closure in their daughter’s disappearance.
“Somebody out there is carrying that missing piece, and I’m pleading with that person – Tell me where she is, tell me where Jennifer is. It’s been 15 years, how many more years? How long must we wait to bring our daughter home?” Bernice said.
“If you know, you can end this today, you can end our heartache, our nightmares, you can end it. You have that missing piece, help us bring her home.”
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