Pathways Journal is a publication dealing with the impact of violent crimes on the families of the victims. Wilma Derkson was editor of Pathways in 1999 when she interviewed us for the journal. With Wilma's permission, the following is an excerpt from the January 2000 edition.

Stolen Justice

The call came late in the afternoon. "I've read Pathways," the voice said. "We live in Fort Frances but we would like to drive into Winnipeg. We would like to talk to you." Then she tells me why. "It's about the book, Stolen Life." she says and we set a date.

Two months later on a cold Friday afternoon in late October I drive to the arranged place- Wendy's near Polo Park. The restaurant is almost empty of the noon crowd but the tables are still littered with trays of crumpled serviettes, cups and hamburger boxes. I look for someone in a black leather jacket with a teenager. I recognize them by the anticipation in their eyes- smiling- waiting- sitting at a corner table. Karen Chaboyer extends her hand and introduces me to her fifteen-year-old daughter Amanda and a friend Kirsty.

"I have a lot of feelings," Karen says, "because of the book being published and everything."

I glance at Amanda. She is watching me carefully, sipping her coke, nibbling on left-over fries. She nods slightly then smiles nervously, revealing beautiful white teeth covered with braces tinted a soft pink and blue. There's a clip in her hair. If she were walking in the mall, she would be just another one of many trendy teenagers, slim and pretty. It's her father we have come to talk about. His name was Chuck Skwarok and he was murdered in Wetaskiwin, Alberta ten years ago by Yvonne Johnson and her common-law husband, Dwayne Wenger, her cousin, Shirley Ann Salmon, and a friend Ernie Jensen. The details of the murder have been published in a book co-authored by award-winning writer Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson who was sentenced to twenty-five years for the first-degree murder of Amanda's father.

At first Amanda doesn't say much- waiting for her mother to tell the story. Karen begins, "In 1983 I met Chuck through a cousin of mine in Brandon, Manitoba. We just met in a food court and I went out with him and started living with him." At the time she had four children and Chuck became a father to her children. Soon Amanda was born.

"We had a lot of good times," says Karen. "Chuck was an outdoors person. In the summer he liked barbecuing and going on picnics. In the winter it was skating and sliding. He realty got along with all my kids. At that time 1 was such a controlling parent that when my kids would come home late, I would be mad- no excuses. But he showed me how to be more at ease. He went all out at Christmas time. At that time, I didn't even know about stocking stuffers but he insisted on them, little games and things to fill stockings."

Chuck C. joins us with his girlfriend, Jen. "Yeah," he says. "Chuck was my dad during those important years, and he taught me a lot. He always wanted me to smile. He was like a big kid within an adult body, you know. There were days when mom was either out working or something and we'd be in the house playing guns. He'd be running all over the house with me. Christmas was spectacular. We had so many gifts that if you moved the presents, the tree would fall over. I'm told that I picked up on his sense of humour. He was always joking. Since I didn't have my birth father around me, he was basically my father image. There were times when he disciplined me but there were a lot of times when he got me out of... you know... mom's evil eye when I did stuff." The family laughs. Karen is smiling. It's hard to imagine her with anything but warmth in her eyes.

Then Chuck C. sobers. "I have to accept that Chuck's gone. I can accept it because I know he still lives within me." After four years of living with Chuck, Karen decided to change the direction of her life. She had embraced a new faith and asked Chuck to move out. He decided to move to Edmonton. Karen didn't want him to move to Edmonton-just to move out. Because she had too much pride to tell him how she felt about his move, she watched him go out of her life. It is something in hindsight she now regrets. However, even though he had left the family, he was still involved with them. He would come on long weekends and at Christmas.

Amanda is nibbling on her food - watching, listening. Being only four when Chuck left, she remembers very little of him. "I remember his face," she says.

Life continued to be difficult for the family. Karen found out that Amanda had been sexually abused. Karen contacted Chuck and told him of the incident, hoping to have his support.

In September of 1989, Karen was notified that Chuck had been killed. She remembers the day vividly. "After work I went to the police office and they told me that he was murdered. They didn't go into any detail. They said that his family didn't want to contact me because I was no longer a part of the picture but they thought I should know because I had his daughter Amanda with me. All the officer told me was that it was a gruesome death and then he left the office to give me time alone to look through the file. I wanted to look but I was too scared. I was all by myself. I had no support. I just grabbed my purse and left. Amanda was only five. We were embroiled in a court case about the sexual abuse. I put off telling Amanda about her father's death because I figured she was going through too much already. She kept asking when her daddy was going to come for Christmas and I said, `He's not coming.' Then I told her that he had died. I denied Chuck's death because I had so much to deal with. I wanted to support Amanda yet I had my own issues too."

Just because she was victimized that doesn't give her the right to kill….

Karen had also been abused by seven men as a child. "To try and understand it, I took the Social Worker Program. But I found it very stressful because everything at work was always thrown back in my face... all the violence... everything."

Amanda shoves her drink aside. "My mom says that when l heard the news as a five-year old, I didn't cry. I guess I didn't really understand. I just remember being teased a lot about my dad. I had a close friend and she said, 'Your dad didn't die. He just left you.' She called me a little orphan and everything. She would say, 'Your mom's going to die too.' After that I never really told anyone about my dad. If someone asks me about my father, I just say, `He died.' And if they say, `How?' I just say, `He died.' I don't go into details."

But she admits that denying it hasn't stopped it from being a reality in so many other ways. "I've been having dreams about that... like every night lately. I'm terrified. Even when I'm alone I can't really concentrate."

Karen nods. "When I leave her alone, everything in the house is shut. She's just paranoid someone's out there." In July of this year, Amanda confided in her counselor that she wanted to know more about her father. The counselor began to search through the Internet and the Edmonton library for information about where her father might be buried. The counselor was unsuccessful. However, Rhonda, Karen's oldest daughter, also became interested in finding out where Chuck was buried. She hooked up with a librarian in Red Deer who discovered a book entitled Stolen Life, written about the murder. The family was both horrified and terrified. "I was just scared," Karen says. "At first I didn't want to believe it, but my daughter Rhonda called me and showed me it on the Internet. The Chuck in the book was murdered in the same month and was born in the same year as my Chuck. I knew it had to be him."

A week later when Amanda was going to a concert in Winnipeg, they stopped at a bookstore and bought the book. "We went to the nearest place we could sit and read this book. My daughter, Rhonda, looked through the book and quickly read parts of it. Then she said to me, `Oh, Mom. You don't want to read this.' And she started crying. I said, 'Rhonda, I can't stay away from it any more... I've got to know.' Then she got up and left me alone in the food court to read the details of his death. I knew I had to tell Amanda."

Amanda remembers the moment. "I was watching TV with my friend when my mom said, 'Come here. I've got something important to tell you: And she told me about the book and I wanted to read it... like more than they did. Like I wanted to know. But they wouldn't let me because they thought... you know... I was too young. They did not know that while we were in Winnipeg I had about ten bucks with me so I borrowed twenty-five bucks off of my friend and I went and bought that book myself."

…My mother has been through just as much…and she wouldn't. Abuse doesn't give her the right to kill.

She is sitting low in her chair. "That book is really sick...you know." Her eyes are big. "I didn't have any bags with me so I was afraid my mom would see the bookstore's bag and know that I had bought it. So I went in the bathroom and ripped off the cover and all the other pages I didn't think I needed. So it was really thin," she laughs. "I didn't read it and shoved it under my bed when I got home. I just kept on looking at it. I'd open it and read a couple of lines then I'd close it. I just didn't have the courage to read it because... you know... it's kind of scary for me. I only read the part where they killed him. I didn't read the whole thing. I just... I can't get into it. It's just boring. But the stuff I did read- Oh my God! I was really mad... like I was... holy cow... like... I had been in a good mood that day but when I read that I was in a bad mood for a couple of days." She pauses. "I'm still mad."

Chuck C. remembers his first reaction to the murder. "When I first found out Chuck was killed, I wanted to kill her... you know... but my actions then would have been no different from hers. There's another method... you know... it's a pay back. Instead of going out and killing her, I'll let her live with the shame and guilt. That's more traumatizing to the mind anyways." He has read part of the book. "It feels like an exercise of justification. Why justify your actions when you have to accept them anyways? She [Yvonne] sits down and says, 'I've been through this, this, this, this,' but that gives them no reason to do what they did."

I don't even know what she took away from me. I don't know anything that a dad would do. I've never had one.

To Karen the book also feels like an exercise of justification. All references to Chuck in the book feel slanderous and degrading. "Chuck didn't deserve to be murdered," she says softly. "Chuck didn't deserve to die like that. Another thing that angers me in there is that AFN, Assembly of First Nations, is backing her up. It doesn't tell the truth. In that book they keep calling Chuck "this large white man"...when I know his mother and she was native. He had blond hair and hazel eyes but he's part native.'

The fact that Chuck Skwarok was accused of being a pedophile doesn't change their love for their father.

"The author Yvonne Johnson's own father was a pedophile, her grandfather was a pedophile," says Karen. "I remember how Yvonne writes that incest is rampant in our culture. It is. I could write the same book. But that doesn't give me the right to kill anyone," she says.

"We're strong," says Chuck C. "We aren't proud of the hurt we cause each other, but that doesn't mean we don't love each other."

After finding the book, Karen realized that Amanda needed to know more about her father to find some kind of closure. They decided to go to Dauphin and visit Chuck's grave.

"And we seen his grave," says Chuck C. "But I was very angry when I went there because he's been lying there for ten years and he still doesn't have a headstone. There was just a wee little card that said, 'Chuck Skwarok 1953 - 1989.' No bigger than a cigarette box. We almost didn't find it. It was degrading." Amanda is nodding her head. "I want to go and see her. I want to talk to her and I want to tell her, 'If you are sorry, then you'd get that headstone for us.'" We are all surprised by her courage. "What else would you want to say, Amanda?"

"I would tell her what she took away from me," she pauses. "I don't even know what she took away from me because I don't know anything that a dad would do. I've never had one." Then Amanda straightens her shoulders. Suddenly, as teens often do, she sheds her youth and becomes an adult. "I told my mother, "she says, "you should go out and kill someone right now and get famous. You'll only have to go to jail for some time and then you'll be able to go out and you'll be rich. It seems like that you know. Just because she was victimized doesn't give her the right to kill. My mother has been through just as much... maybe even more- and she wouldn't. Abuse doesn't give her the right." Then she gets up and leaves for the bathroom.

Karen watches her with a worried look. Her eyes are those of a wounded mother. "Amanda's different from other kids," she says leaning forward, her voice low. "She doesn't go to a regular school. She's being home schooled. And she doesn't really know how to socialize. She has a lot of fears. She has a lot of anxiety. She gets panic attacks. She's had flashbacks within the last couple of years. She's been through a lot. And now this book... she's only 15! It hurts me to see her go through that."

The publishing of the book has already had other ripple effects. This September, Chatelaine magazine featured Yvonne Johnson in an article, Spirit Behind Bars; A Native Woman Seeks Justice. Amanda saw it lying on her dentist's reading pile, took it, went to the bathroom and ripped out those pages then put the book onto the coffee table. "I just wish I could do that to every magazine," she says. "I wish I could buy every book so people wouldn't read those things about my father." -WLD.

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First Words

When we began to plan this Pathways issue on justice revictimization, we wondered how we could introduce and cover such a huge, unmanageable issue as the justice system in our limited pages. This is why we are adding Thresholds.

Thank you, Amanda for having the courage to tell your story. Your story illustrates it all. You remind us that the justice issues don't only impact the primary victim, your father, and the offender, Yvonne. They impact you the next generation. It behooves us all to do our justice well not only for the immediate satisfaction of re-establishing order and safety, but because we are defining justice, morality, and social standards for our youth.

In this case, it isn't only the justice system but a published book that has complicated the healing justice that needed to happen for the victim family. In the beginning of the book, Rudy Wiebe claims that the book is "based on what Yvonne Johnson holds to be her own truths about the life she has lived." With the help of Rudy, she does this well. But the book is about so much more. It is also about justice and the integration process of a lifer back into society. It is also about Chuck Skwarok and the brutal ending of his life. On these levels the book is incomplete. Psychologists tell us that the measure of integration and healing is revealed in the telling of the story, and what is not said is just as important as what is said.

From the victim's point of view, this book like the courtroom, continues to revictimize the victim. The horrid details of the murder in the courtroom and in the book publically desecrate a man who isn't here to defend himself and give his side of the story. Amanda, his child, is our beacon to redeeming justice. As we enter the millennium we have already travelled through eight of the fifteen elements of murder. We have talked about the fragmented story, the enormous fear, the displaced grief, the identity crisis, the need for information, the time warp, the uncontrollable rage, the guilt and now revictimizing justice that victims of homicide are dealing with. Thank you to our loyal readers for journeying with us. To those who are being introduced to Pathways, we welcome you aboard.

We also want to introduce our new columnist, Heidi Harms Friesen. Heidi is bringing a fresh, young voice to this journal for the younger readers who are starting to read Pathways. It is with deep regret that we are saying farewell to Myrna who is finding her full-time career choice very demanding. We thank you for your insightful contributions and your continuing support.

Many thanks to the wonderful affirmation we have been receiving from so many.

Wilma Derksen, Editor.

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The Need & Hope for Justice.
Disillusionment with the Justice System.

After a violent act such as murder, we have hope that the established justice system which we, as taxpayers, have supported for many years will come to our rescue and set our world aright for us again. We hope that the confusion of guilt and innocence resulting from violence will be sorted out in an orderly and truthful way. We hope that the guilty offender will be contained and held accountable. We hope that all of us who have been victimized will be vindicated and compensated. We hope that after the trial process we will feel safe again, valued and healed. Unfortunately, most victims experience the criminal justice system as a cold, unfeeling institution more concerned with the offender's rights and well-being than their own. They often feel powerless, diminished and used by those within the system. The justice process itself revictimizes. When a trusted person or institution fails us, it can hurt just as much as the initial violent act. It's the feeling of being kicked when we are already vulnerable and down.

Underlying reasons for this revictimization.

The Criminal Justice System has been designed to hold the offender accountable. In the courtroom it remains the Queen versus the defense. Even when the personnel in the Criminal Justice System exercise extreme sensitivity, the process itself can revictimize the victim. When we, who have always perceived ourselves to be law-abiding citizens, suddenly find ourselves under suspicion, cross-examined by the defense, we will feel betrayed by the system we expect to be on our side. During the prosecution, we might find ourselves used as witnesses to build a case with little regard for our own stories and needs. We realize with shock that we don't have legal guidance or someone advocating for us the way an offender does. The length of the trial process can keep us on hold which can complicate our lives immensely. Most personnel within the system need to work with some degree of professional detachment. This can feel very uncaring and painful to us when we are traumatized. For us as surviving victims, Socrates has said that justice starts with truth. In our system, justice begins with a lie. When victims hear the plea of not guilty and they know the evidence against the offender, that plea feels like a deliberate lie.

Coping mechanisms.

So often I hear the questions: How do I continue to live and carry on a normal life if my hope of justice has been shattered? How can I feel safe and walk the streets knowing that the offender is going to be free in a few years, possibly more angry than before? I have met people who have experienced horrendous crimes and still carry on. What are some of their coping mechanisms? Here are a few statements I've heard them say?

• One woman said, "It was my son's time. We all go when it is our time." In this response, justice isn't as necessary to give closure to her grief.
• Another woman said, "The justice system did the best it could. It's limited but at least we got the maximum sentence.
• Another said, "The judge said that it was wrong, I felt that the judge was at least on our side. But his hands were tied.
• For some, the experience has been a wake up call to action and they have gone on to change the system. This is how the victim impact statement came about.
• Many have a "What goes around comes around" attitude. Another way of saying it is, "What you sow, you will reap." Or "Time will tell. Truth will win in the end."
• Many turn to their faith and rely on their God, Creator or Higher Power to mete out justice.
• Over time, some survivors feel that they don't need "justice" as much any more. The black and white issues have turned to grey with time.

More and more victims are saying, "There has to be another way." Lately I have heard leading academics say that we need a victim-centered justice system. There is hope. -WLD.

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The Narrative Voice Book Review

Rudy Wiebe and Yvonne Johnson.
Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman.
Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

Beginning with Peace Shall Destroy Many, Rudy Wiebe's past writings have drawn attention to the plight of aboriginal people in Canada. With Stolen Life he has documented the horrific details of the life of a Cree woman, Yvonne Johnson, who wrote to him from prison after she had read The Temptations of Big Bear. Big Bear, she said, was her great, great grandfather. Consequently, she and Rudy Wiebe collaborated on her story, using her journals, letters, court records and her long conversations with him. Visits with lawyers, family members and acquaintances also proved a rich fund of information for the authors.

Wiebe noted her gifted language skills and mentored her through an often torturous process of documenting her story. This book is not for the squeamish. Suffering a double cleft palate, Johnson had been unable to speak and express her needs in her formative years until a compassionate judge ordered medical help for her. In addition to her physical disability and her abusive home environment (rape, incest, alcohol abuse), she suffered from the ostracism of the community's racial prejudice.

A brief review cannot do justice to this account of one native woman who somehow seems to embody all that has gone awry with aboriginal people. One could deal with the backwash of traditional family life and structure here still evident: the constant restless wanderings from one home to another, the rigid patterns of family authority, the tradition of hospitality that has deep cultural roots and which, however, has often become an onerous obligation.

...a powerful account of one native woman who seems to embody all that has gone awry with aboriginal people

Furthermore, the justice system as portrayed here would be ample material for reflection on Stolen Life. The book also evokes other intriguing questions. For example. Yvonne's strong mother, Cecille, a descendant of Big Bear, could shed some light on Yvonne's life story. She appears unsupportive of Yvonne's efforts toward revealing the past.

What of the murdered man, Charles Skwarok, his family, friends and acquaintances? What were their responses to his unspeakable death? The gossip held him to be a pedophile. How true was this assessment of his character? What are his family's feelings about this judgment? -Agnes.