James Smith Cree Nation survivors still struggle with trauma, addiction 1 year after tragedy

In the last year, Skye Sanderson says she has lost everything.

Since her husband, Damien Sanderson, was killed by his brother, Myles Sanderson, during the mass stabbing on James Smith Cree Nation on Sept. 4, 2022, her life has gone “really downhill.”

Her three children no longer live with her. She relapsed into drug and alcohol abuse. Her eldest daughter was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. She’s broke. And she can’t figure out why this has all happened to her.

“I was wondering why my life is the way it is now. What did I … where did we go wrong? We always knew to stay away from Myles. Well, I tried to keep Damien away from him,” Skye tells Global News, seated outside her new partner’s house on James Smith, in the pouring rain.

“I always wonder, what made Myles kill my husband? Like, his own brother. What made him do that to my family, my kids?”

It’s two weeks before the community is due to mark a milestone many are dreading: the first anniversary of one of Canada’s worst mass murders, when Myles Sanderson killed 11 people and injured 18 others and then led police on a four-day manhunt. He later died in police custody.

A year later, victims’ families and those still recovering from their injuries are taking stock of what was lost. To aid in the healing process, a Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) traditional health gathering was held at James Smith Cree Nation in late August.

Global News spent four days over the course of the event meeting with victims, family members of the dead and those working to make the community a safer place. Most say that the situation has not improved. Many believe drugs have taken an even stronger hold in the community. Recent “copycat attacks” have left residents on edge. Many live in a constant state of fear. Some believe another violent incident in the community is a matter of when, not if.

“It’s frustrating when you’re trying to do things and society is saying, ‘It’s OK, drugs and alcohol and all that dysfunction is OK,’” says Darryl Burns, an addictions counsellor on James Smith Cree Nation.

“Change is hard to visualize. They don’t know what a sober lifestyle is, they don’t know what a healthy relationship is. They don’t know how to live a sober lifestyle when addiction is all they know, the trauma is all they know. So trying to change that mindset in people is hard.”

Band leadership, however, says they’re trying to crack down on substance abuse in the community. Security patrols have been ramped up. Ultimatums have been given out to known drug dealers. But they acknowledge they’re facing an uphill battle.

“It’s a really long process and we have to get it right,” says Eddie Head, James Smith’s director of justice and policing.

On a sunny Thursday morning, Vanessa Burns, her sister Deborah Burns, and her mother Joyce Burns, sit in a tipi at James Smith’s culture grounds, where the FSIN traditional health gathering is taking place. Vanessa and Deborah are wearing blue ribbon skirts, the lower portions of which are covered in Toronto Maple Leafs logos. A gift for their father’s funeral, Deborah explains.

Talking about their father, Earl, is still a difficult topic for the women. Earl Burns was a prominent figure in the community — a veteran and the school’s bus driver for about 40 years. Joyce and Earl met as teenagers and dated for about a decade before getting married. This year would have been their 40th wedding anniversary.

Earl was also his daughter’s protector. He “hated” Myles Sanderson, Vanessa’s abusive former partner, according to Vanessa and Joyce.

“Myles didn’t like anybody who was sticking up for me,” Vanessa says.

Joyce nods emphatically. “(Myles) was always giving her lickings and (Earl) didn’t like that,” she says.

This is the first time Joyce has spoken publicly about the death of her husband, and the night that left her severely injured, with three stab wounds. Due to a severe stab wound to her stomach, she still has a colostomy bag. She’s on a waiting list to have it removed.

Joyce says her recovery has been slow. She’s taking each day at a time, she says, after months of sicknesses that have landed her back in hospital. Aside from severe dehydration, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, she says, but she’s been on a range of medication and is feeling better.

Previously an educational assistant at the school, she can no longer work because of her injuries and her fear of having “accidents,” if the colostomy bag malfunctions. Vanessa and her children have moved back in with her to help, but the ongoing trauma still lingers.

“It’s hard for us to even get out of the door these days,” Joyce says.

Sept. 4, 2022, was not the first time she and her husband were targeted by Myles. He attacked them both in 2015 with a knife, according to his court records, leaving Earl needing stitches and Joyce with superficial cuts.

When asked about the night she lost her husband, Joyce looks to her daughter for permission. “Can I talk about it?” she asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Vanessa replies, gently. Vanessa was in Saskatoon the night Myles went on a rampage across the community, after driving him back to the community to sell drugs. But two days before the murders, he’d beaten her up again and she’d fled.

“That morning, I heard a vehicle coming to the house. I got up and looked out the window and thought it was my brother,” Joyce says.

“So I went to the door to let him in. But as soon as he got up to the top steps I could see it was Myles. So I tried to slam the door, but he had his foot there.”

Myles was dressed all in black, she recalls, and had a brown cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He walked straight past her and began attacking Earl. During the whole attack, he didn’t say a word.

“I went to the bedroom and went and got my phone and dialled 911.

“When I came out of the bedroom, Myles was coming up the steps and I didn’t see Earl. Myles came after me as I turned around and went back to the bedroom. I shut the door and I tried to lock it but that’s when he kicked it down.”

Myles stabbed Joyce in the neck, arm and stomach. The final blow made her fall to the floor.

“And that’s when we heard the bus start up. That must have triggered (Myles) and he went running out of the house.

“I went running after him. He got in his vehicle and Earl sped after him. I didn’t see if he was injured or how badly he was injured.”

Earl’s body was later found in his school bus, which had rolled off the road and come to rest in a ditch. Three large crosses, covered in bright flowers, have been erected where his bus was found.

Losing blood fast, Joyce didn’t know what to do. Her grandchildren, who were staying with her at the time and witnessed the attack, came to her aid.

“They hauled me out of the house,” Joyce says.

Her brother then arrived and drove her to the band office, where she was placed in an ambulance with another injured man and sent to hospital.

The trauma of that day is etched on the Burns’ family’s faces as Joyce recounts her story. Deborah, Vanessa and Deborah’s daughter are sobbing as they recall finding out their father had died and their mother was close to death herself.

“My daughter called. She said, ‘I don’t know where grandad went, he left in the bus,’” Deborah says.

“And I told them to load up Granny and to just bring her to the hospital and they were like, no, she’s too hurt, we don’t want to move her.”

Deborah is now pregnant, which she describes as a source of “positivity” for the family. But they’re all struggling financially. They aren’t working and don’t know when they’ll be able to return.

A memory sticks with her from several days before the murders. Her niece had rushed into the house and gone to Earl, crying.

“My Dad was like, ‘Why are you crying, my girl?’ and she said, ‘Papa I had a dream, that you died, and someone killed you.’… He laughed it off and said, ‘Oh my girl, no that’s not going to happen.’ She was just crying and hugging him and wouldn’t let him go.”

They don’t know why Earl got in his bus. They believe he was trying to chase Myles away. Joyce still wonders why she didn’t go for help the moment Myles came to their house.

“I always think, How come I didn’t run out that door? Why? Why didn’t I go? The only reason I can think why, is my grandkids were downstairs and I didn’t want to leave them.”

Vanessa is still wracked with guilt, too. She breaks down into tears when explaining how her children have been bullied over the past year and she struggles day-to-day with her emotions.

“These days in August trigger me. These were the last weeks I spent with Myles, so it’s been emotional.

“Even though he did bad things, I still deep down care for him and just wanted the best for him and to actually help himself. I’m not 100 per cent yet. I’m not sure a lot of us are.”

The community’s attempts to heal have been hampered by ongoing threats of violent attacks and lockdowns.

There have been two attempts at so-called “copycat attacks,” in which James Smith members have threatened to “finish the job Myles started,” says Eddie Head, director of policing and justice.

In July, a 51-year-old man from the James Smith Cree Nation (JSCN) was arrested and charged after a report of being armed with a machete and uttering threats to individuals. Just over a week later, the community went into lockdown while police searched for Keenan Head, in connection with a stolen vehicle and a failure to comply with a release order. He was considered armed and dangerous. He was arrested on July 27 and received a 15-day jail sentence for breach of court-ordered conditions.

In early August, Kelly Shane Burns, Myles Sanderson’s half-brother, was arrested in James Smith Cree Nation for assault and uttering threats.

“Every night I barricade my door, I have bear spray next to my bed. I’m always scared,” says the sister of one of Myles’ victims, who did not want to be named.

“The night of the lockdown, I took my kids and left. I’m not taking any chances anymore.”

Everyone Global News spoke with in the community said the substance abuse issues were the same, if not worse, than a year ago.

For Darryl Burns, an addictions counsellor in the community, intergenerational trauma is at the root of the community’s problems. Burns is a common last name at James Smith Cree Nation; he is not directly related to Vanessa, Deborah or Joyce.

He said decision-makers needed to start talking to the people on a “grassroots level,” and those with the substance abuse issues, to figure out how to help them and where exactly federal donations should go.

“Those are the ones that have all the anger and the hurt and the pain. So how come we’re not talking to them? We don’t know. We think we do, but do we really know?

“We have to start with the youth in our community. We have to say: you’re hurting. How can we help you? What can we do? How can we teach you? So when you become a parent, you don’t hurt your children.”

But the band’s leaders say they are trying to make a difference. Eddie Head — who was also Damien and Myles’ uncle — says he returned home after eight years of living and working in Prince Albert to “help our people” after the attacks.

He’s now working to implement self-administered policing at James Smith — a goal which he believes is about 1o to 12 years away from operation.

He’s also helped to ramp up security, which now patrols the community 24/7. He says that has helped to break up “two severe domestic incidents” and saved three lives.

“We’re making a difference,” Head says.

James Smith Cree Nation Chief Wally Burns says the beefed-up security is helping to keep the peace, but he acknowledges the drug situation is “not better.” Security is working with the RCMP to monitor drug dealers and ultimatums have been issued to kick them out, he says. No one has been removed so far.

When asked what he has to say to those who believe the band leadership is not doing enough to combat the problem, he says, “We only have so (many) funds, right? But we can do what we have and try to make the best of it. I wish we had a lot of money so we could plan for every month and for anything that happens.”

Policies are “going to come around slowly, but I wish it was faster,” he says.

But many simply don’t know how to get through the next few weeks.

Creedon DiPaolo, who was stabbed nine times by Myles as he went to his mother’s aid, says his mental and physical recovery has been “up and down.”

He lifts his shirt to reveal a scar that runs from the middle of his chest to the top of his pelvis. A stab wound to one of his lungs had worsened lungs that were already struggling with the effects of asthma and smoking, and he says his doctor has told him he will need a lung transplant in about a decade.

He’d spent months “feeling sorry for myself … and making other people feel guilty for not knowing what I was going through,” but now is trying to “move on.”

His mother, Arlene Moostoos, was stabbed seven times in the attack. He says they largely avoid talking about that night because it “brings back that day and seeing her in that situation.”

His daughter, Queenie, and partner Selene, were helping him to move past the trauma. He just wishes the drugs could be eradicated from the community, to stop something similar from happening again.

“It’s getting worse, because it first started out as coke and then it slowly graduated. Now there are lots of people on it. Meth was always there but coke made a comeback all of a sudden. After that people started smoking crack, … so that’s one of them that’s taken over right now is crack. And then when that crack is not good enough, they’re going to start moving to meth.

“How do you approach that and how do you talk to somebody (about drugs)? Because a lot of people will say that they’re not or they quit it. … Like one of your own people they talk to, they’re going down a dark path.”

Looking back on the last year, Skye Sanderson, Damien’s wife, says:

“The last year has been rough. Really rough. I lost everything.”

As well as losing Damien in the tragedy, after Myles turned on his brother, Skye’s father, Christian Head, and step-mother, Lana Head, were also among the victims. Damien was initially implicated in the murders but was later cleared by the RCMP.

Armed with a dozen pages of hand-written notes, Skye tries to articulate the journey she’s been on over the past year. Her notes are a frenzied account of feeling like she’s “failing drastically,” using drugs and alcohol to “drown my pain and lonesomeness” and feeling “helpless.”

Without Damien providing the bulk of their income, she says she struggled to make ends meet, to the point her power was shut off and her sister asked to take in her children while she got back on her feet.

“It got to the point where I was trying to find gas to go to my appointments to get income. And it got to the point where my money couldn’t stretch out for us anymore and … I couldn’t financially afford to look after my kids.”

Skye has since found a new partner and left her former house because she says “there’s something bad in there.”

It’s where Damien and Myles came looking for her the night of Sept. 4, 2022, she says. It’s where her daughter’s suicide attempt took place. She feels depressed in that house.

She fell back into drug and alcohol abuse, but has now been sober for three weeks as she seeks to get her children back. She has enrolled in a cooking course. She’s trying to make amends with family members.

“I was very mean. I was vicious, pushing and really blaming everybody. And I just kept taking it out on (my sister) and my mom and saying, You know, mean hateful words, making me a real bad ugly person to the people that are actually nurturing and caring for my children.

“I wasn’t OK. I’m still not OK, but I’m trying to be OK. It’s like I have no choice to be OK anymore, because I want my kids back.”

On Aug, 31, it will be her and Damien’s 11th wedding anniversary. She says they spoke about what they would do if they ever lost each other just days before he was murdered by his brother. She told him she’d probably “lose it.” He said the same thing, she says.

“I feel sad because … I know he’s here with me, but I feel like he’s missing out on a lot. And my kids miss him so much, and I miss him so much too, because he wasn’t supposed to leave me.”