The Edmonton Journal
Saturday Nov 29, 2003
Chris Purdy

EDMONTON - Everyone has heard of Paul Bernardo. But John Crawford?

The serial killer murdered four poor aboriginal women and was suspected of killing at least three others in Saskatoon in the early '90s. But his trials and the lives of his victims have garnered little interest by the police, the press and the public.

Larry Wong, The Journal

Saskatchewan journalist and author Warren Goulding was honoured Friday night by the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women. Goulding wrote a book about a serial killer in Saskatchewan who targeted prostitutes

Saskatchewan journalist Warren Goulding covered the case and wrote a book about it, Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada's Indifference.

He believes society's indifference has continued, despite the recent high-profile cases of murdered aboriginal women in Edmonton and Vancouver.

"I don't really think things have changed that much," Goulding said Friday while in Edmonton to receive an award.

"I don't get the sense the general public cares much about missing or murdered aboriginal women.

"It's all part of this indifference to the lives of aboriginal people. They don't seem to matter as much as white people."

The Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women has honoured Goulding for his book, which was published in 2001, and presented him with its social justice award at a reception Friday night.

Muriel Stanley Venne, the Edmonton-based group's president and founder, agrees attitudes towards female aboriginal victims still need to change.

"We're really on a long journey here," she said.

In his book, 53-year-old Goulding reports that nearly 500 aboriginal women were reported missing in Western Canada between 1990 and 1994.

Earlier this month, Alberta RCMP announced it would form a task force to investigate 83 cases of murdered and missing women, many of them aboriginal, dating back to 1982. The remains of nine of the women, who led high-risk lifestyles which sometimes included prostitution, were found in rural areas outside Edmonton.

In Vancouver, Robert Pickton has been ordered to stand trial on 15 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of 15 missing prostitutes, many of them aboriginal. Another 48 women are still missing.

Crawford met his first murder victim, Mary Jane Serloin, in a Lethbridge bar two days before Christmas in 1981. He was convicted of the killing and released from prison in 1989 and three years later murdered Shelley Napope, Eva Taysup and Calinda Waterhen in Saskatoon, Goulding said.

Crawford is serving three concurrent life sentences in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary in Prince Albert.

cpurdy@thejournal.canwest.com 

Just Another Indian, A serial killer and Canada's Indifference
By: Warren Goulding

http://www.fitzhenry.ca/r1894004515.htm

Chapter 1- Just Another Indian, A serial killer and Canada's Indifference
http://www.fitzhenry.ca/JAIchapter1.htm

Journalist seeks to expose true identity of a serial-killer's victims - First Perspective
http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/201/300/first_perspective/2001/05-10/other6.html