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Finding Cleo - Episode 1

[theme]

Connie Walker: [attempting Cree phrase] It's almost like... Okay, sorry, can I have it again?

Man: [speaking Cree] Kikway ka-akawatamihk.

[Both sound out phrase]

Connie: There's a phrase in Cree that I've been practicing.

[Man coaxes Connie through phrase]

Connie: I'm not a Cree speaker, but my dad was. And I took a few classes in university, so I learned some of the basics: "tân'si," which is "hello"; "peyak, nîso, nisto," "one, two, three,"; "atim" is "dog." Clearly I'm not fluent, but after months of working on this story, I really wanted to start the season with this Cree phrase: "Kikway ka-akawatamihk." It literally means "something wanting it," as in wishing or longing for something. I wanted to learn how to say that in Cree because for the last several months, I've been immersed in the story of a Cree family from Saskatchewan. A family where nearly every single person that we've talked to has endured a lifetime of longing. "Kikway ka-akawatamihk." Longing for a home and a culture they lost, longing for healing from childhood trauma, longing for answers to lifelong mysteries, longing for the love of a family they were taken from as children, longing for a sister who was lost. "Kikway ka-akawatamihk." I'm Connie Walker and this is Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo, an investigative podcast by CBC News.

Christine: To have your family member stolen, murdered, then missing?

Jill: Oh, wait a minute. This is Cleo?!

Connie: Yeah.

Jill: [gasps] Oh, my gosh.

Christine: The government can get away with things if it doesn't-- if nobody knows, you know, what happens?

Kari: Yeah. I'm not sure that information is correct.

Johnny: She was driven away and I went the other way, and I've been looking for her ever since. Promised I'd find her, and eventually I will.

Miss Horn: She tried her darnedest to get back to Canada to see her family. She did everything within her power to get back there.

Christine: In my heart, I think that killed her.

Jill: Are you recording?

Connie: Yes, is that okay?

Jill: No, it's not.

[footsteps walking outside]

Connie: I've done a lot of reporting on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, but I've never heard a story like this before.

[knocking on a door]

Connie: Hi, Christine.

Christine: Hi.

Connie: Connie, nice to meet you.

Christine: Nice to meet you. Good morning.

Connie: This is Christine Cameron. I'm at her apartment in North Bay, Ontario. I'm here because Christine reached out to me and asked for help to find her sister Cleo. As soon as she told me about Cleo's story, I knew it was something I wanted to investigate.

Christine: Hey, Tulu.

Connie: Christine doesn't want her son Tulu to hear our conversation.

Christine: Why don't you go play in the room?

Connie: To hear the details about his Aunt Cleo's death and to hear the call that we're about to make.

Connie: So do you think that you would be up for calling him today?

Christine: Oh, sure. Why not.

[dial tone rings]

Connie: I brought a phone number with me, a number for someone that we think might have the answers that Christine has been searching for.

Connie: How do you feel about, you know, calling and asking for help and for answers?

Connie: The last time I talked to them, they weren't very forthcoming or cooperative or even supportive in any way.

Automated Voice: Hello, you've reached the mailbox of Kari Peyton, please leave a message after the tone.

Christine: Yeah. Hi, Kari. My name is Christine Cameron. I'm calling from North Bay, Ontario. My number is 705 [bleep] Um, if you could return my call as soon as possible, that'd be greatly appreciated. Thank you. Bye.

[phone hangs up]

Christine: Yeah, maybe she's just screening her calls. We'll still try to find this.

Connie: Christine says she's made calls like this before. She's left messages, written letters, but she's never been able to reach the right person. This isn't a typical missing persons case because Cleo didn't just disappear. Christine says Cleo was stolen, then murdered, and is now missing, and she has been for decades. Okay, I need to backup here and explain things a bit. When Christine reached out to me, she sent me a story that she wrote about her search for Cleo.

Christine: My sister, Cleo, died in 1975. She was 11 years old and was apprehended by the province of Saskatchewan and sent to Arkansas to a foster family where she was abused. My sister Cleo was 11 years old and remembered where she lived and who loved her. Whatever happened to her in Arkansas to make her want to leave, it wasn't good. She tried to hitchhike back to Little Pine, back home to the reserve, but was picked up, raped and murdered, and left by the side of the road.

Connie: 11-year-old Cleo was hitchhiking back home when she was picked up, raped, murdered, and left by the side of the road. But here's the thing - that's all that Christine and her entire family know about Cleo's death. They don't know where she was buried, they don't know if anyone was ever charged in her murder, they don't even know if Cleo was still her name. And although she wrote in her story that Cleo died in 1975, Christine admits that might not be true. She doesn't know exactly when Cleo died, just that it was sometime in the 1970s, after Cleo was sent to live with a family in the United States.

Connie: Do you think you could show us the picture of Cleo that you have up there?

Christine: Sure.

Connie: Do you mind taking it down?

Christine: In fact, the only concrete proof Christine has of Cleo's existence is this tiny photo.

Connie: [rustling]

Christine: There. In a silver frame in an oval on my piano is a picture of my sister. Very small, maybe an inch and a half tall, and that is all that remains. Cleo Semaganis Nicotine, my oldest sister. Sometimes I wake up and I think I'm still in a dream. Sometimes that happens to all of us. But this is a dream I cannot wake up from, wondering constantly, would she be helping me with my kids now? Would she braid my hair and have sisterly advice?

Connie: Such a small little thing.

Christine: Yeah.

Connie: How old would Cleo be here, do you know?

Connie: She would have been about nine there, nine or ten, because she was 11 when she died.

Connie: The picture looks like a classic school photo. The first time I saw it, it immediately grabbed me. I felt like I recognized her, like maybe she could have been someone I knew growing up on the reserve. I think she looks a little bit younger than Christine says, maybe six or seven years old. It's old and faded, so hard to say for sure, but no doubt Cleo is a cute kid. She's wearing a striped turtleneck. Her dark hair is cut short and her little bangs are cut crookedly over her big brown eyes and she's looking straight into the lens without even a tiny bit of a smile. I know it's just a photo, but Cleo looks like a serious child. As soon as I saw the picture and read Christine's story, I wondered how something like this could have happened. How could a family go on for so many years without knowing what happened to their sister? I knew that I wanted to help find Cleo and to find out the truth about her life and death.

[solemn music]

Christine: I do not know her birth date. I do not know her full name. I do not know her resting place, nor the exact date of her death. I do not know how she might've liked her eggs in the morning or what her favourite colour was or what she liked to sing. But I do know that my kids would have loved their Aunt Cleo, would have reveled in her presence. These people that look like me.

Connie: Christine is in her mid-forties now, and although she was very young when they were separated, Cleo is still such a huge part of her life.

Christine: Cleo's spirit is very much alive. She stares at me across time, asking to come home. Over and over again, I'd dream of her and try to find something new to find her grave. It may even be unmarked. It's such a mystery, such an impossible task to find her and bring her home, but I still have hope.

Connie: Along with her son Tulu, Christine has three other older kids and helps look after her granddaughter.

[Christine laughs along with a baby]

Connie: but she dreams of going back to school to study art.

Connie: Can you show me something?

Christine: This one here is a work in progress. I did that. That's a painting of Cleo and what I think she would look like if she were older, because I looked at that picture and tried to envision what she would look like if she were still alive.

Connie: The painting is of a woman with brown skin and brown eyes. Her dark hair is long and there are streaks of silver that start at her bangs. Christine says this is a painting of Cleo, but I think it looks exactly like Christine.

Christine: Yeah, people say that, but I wasn't trying to paint me. I was trying to paint my sister.

Connie: Looking at Christine's vision of Cleo makes me wonder if her longing to find answers about her sister is also a longing to find answers about herself, about her own childhood. Because when Christine was just a baby, she and Cleo and all of their siblings were taken from their mother by child welfare authorities and put up for adoption.

[solemn music]

Connie: So what was your name when you were born?

Christine: Crystal Marie Annabel Semaganis.

Connie: And how old were you when you were taken into foster care?

Christine: I was less than a year old.

Connie: You guys are scattered all around.

Christine: Yes. Yes we are.

Connie: Christine is the baby in her big family, the youngest of six kids: Johnny, Mark, April, Annette, and Cleo. After all of the Semaganis children were apprehended by child welfare authorities, they were put in temporary foster homes until they were all adopted into white families. The Semaganis kids ended up in towns and cities across North America.

Christine: Is there anyone on this planet who can help us? Please, I cannot do this alone. Help us find her.

Connie: In the story she wrote, you can hear Christine's pain and longing. It's raw and fuels her desire to find Cleo; and for justice, because Christine believes that she and Cleo and all of their siblings never should have been taken away from their biological mother. Christine believes that if they had stayed with their mom, Cleo would still be alive.

Christine: When we were originally apprehended, my adoptive mother had told me that I was abused. I said, "What?" She goes, "Yeah, your bum was blue." And she goes, "But then we started realizing that when the spot stayed there and you were three years old, four years old, it was still there. Then we realized, no, no, you weren't abused."

Connie: I know what Christine is talking about - I've seen this birthmark that looks like a bruise. It's called a Mongolian spot. Apparently it's quite common in Indigenous kids, but it goes away as they get older.

Christine: I said, "Well, why didn't you say something and give me back?" "Because we didn't have to." That's what they told me. "Oh, okay."

Connie: Christine grew up a few hours from where she was born, in a small town in rural Saskatchewan.

Christine: So I was a very quiet child, and I tried to make things up by excelling in school and joining all these clubs. I tried to overcompensate by, you know, just to be accepted.

Connie: Christina has always wondered what her life would be like if she hadn't been adopted, if she hadn't grown up a brown girl in a white family.

Christine: Well, here's a couple of pictures of me growing up. That's me as a Girl Guide. See, look, little Miss Brown Face amongst all these, all these non-native. And then there would be a few instances too when you know, other kids would say stuff, call me like wagon burner. [quiet, emotional] And I wouldn't know the origin of that, or squaw, or stuff like that. It was all a mystery to me.

Connie: But you knew the intent behind it.

Christine: Yeah, I knew I was different.

Connie: Squaw and wagon burner. So much of Christine's story resonates with me, because I also grew up a brown girl that stood out among the white students in a small town in rural Saskatchewan. I remember hearing my first racist taunt on the playground, but Christine didn't have anyone at home who could really understand what that was like and what she was going through.

Christine: I remember growing up, my grandmother used to say, "When we adopted you, you became a white person." That might've been how my family perceived me, but that's not how society saw me. Because you know, my family's got blue eyes, my mother has light brown hair and my father was Scottish. He had black hair and blue eyes, and I look nothing like them. I always knew.

Connie: Hearing Christine talk about how different she felt makes me think of Cleo. Did she feel like an outsider in her adoptive family, in her school, in her community?

Connie: Did your parents tell you anything about why they adopted you?

Christine: [emotional] My mother was pretty blunt about things, about why she adopted me. She said if they waited for a little white girl, they'd be waiting for five or six years, but they could have me right away. They told me that they would never have to pay for my education, and that's why they adopted me. [crying and sniffling]

Connie: Christine’s parents told her they’d never have to pay for her education, and that’s why they adopted an Indigenous child. Christine’s relationship with her adoptive parents eventually broke down, and she doesn't speak to them anymore.

That’s something I’ve actually heard quite a bit with Indigenous kids being adopted into non-Indigenous homes. Some researchers say that most adoptees become estranged from their parents; it must have been that way for Cleo as well. Why else would she try to leave her adoptive family and get back to Saskatchewan? Growing up, Christine felt the same longing to reconnect with her biological family. The desire to know who she was and where she came from only intensified.

Connie: Did you ever talk to your parents about any of that? I imagine those would be difficult conversations if you did.

Christine: I was close with my dad, not so much my mother. But, in a way I didn't want to hurt them by asking them. Right. Even though I really, really wanted to know. Because I’m not saying they’re horrible. I’m just saying some of their attitudes and world views about Native people didn’t really jive with who was living in their house. So I didn’t really want to hurt them when I was living there, in their house. So I didn't really ask, even though I really, really wanted to know. And then when I turned 18, they had an envelope filled with all the information. They just left it on the buffet in the kitchen and said, "It's there if you want to look at it."

Connie: Whoa.

Christine: So I left it there for a couple of weeks before I actually opened it.

Connie: Did you know that that was going to happen when you turned 18?

Christine: No.

Connie: Did you, did you know what was in the documents?

Christine: No, I just left it there for a while because you know, there's your whole life sitting in an envelope. You look at it or not.

Connie: What made you decide to finally look at it?

Christine: Overwhelming curiosity.

Connie: Christine was finally going to get some answers about her biological family. But the information she found in that envelope didn’t satisfy her curiosity, it fuelled her desire to learn more.

Connie: So what was in the envelope in you when you opened it?

Christine: It was my adoption papers, it was a couple little photographs, and it had my original name. And that was the first time I learned of my original name. I remember thinking, I could be reading about this about any Joe Blow on the street, right? It was just so detached and weird. My entire life just reduced to five or six pages and a couple of little clippings of photographs of things that could have been... it was just very surreal.

Connie: In those papers, Christine learned she had biological siblings and a mother she could meet.

Christine: I think the first time I met her was when I was 19. I knew it was her because she looked like me.

Connie: Oh my gosh I have a huge lump in my throat, I can't imagine what that was like. That was when you were 19?

Christine: Yeah. She just kept saying I love you. And she was happy. I remember just staring at her for a long time.

Connie: Christine’s mom’s name was Lillian Semaganis, a Cree woman from the Little Pine First Nation in northern Saskatchewan. Not long after reconnecting with her mother, Christine learned that her sister Cleo had been murdered. After meeting more of her biological family, Christine heard about the day that Lillian got the news that Cleo had died.

Christine: All I know from family members is that it was 1975 or 1976.

Connie: There was a powwow happening in their community and Lillian showed up, distraught. And she was carrying a letter informing her Cleo had died.

Christine: Apparently it happened in Arkansas.

Connie: But no one in the family knows exactly who wrote that letter to Lillian or when she got it.

Christine: She was trying to hitchhike back and she was picked up, raped, and murdered, and she was buried in Arkansas.

Connie: I looked at a map of the United States. If Cleo had started in Arkansas,

the journey back to her small reserve in Northern Saskatchewan would have been 27 hours by car. And if she was hitchhiking, she could have passed through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas before even entering Canada. No one knows which route Cleo took, or how far she made it, or even when she left. And not having those details makes it really hard to search for any information.

Believe me, I tried searching, "girl killed in Arkansas in the ‘70s" and I came across terrible stories. But nothing that sounded even remotely like Cleo.

Christine: Nobody knows her adoptive name. Nobody knows her birthday.

Connie: Christine hasn’t been sure about where to turn for answers about Cleo’s death, but she believes she knows exactly who is responsible.

Christine: I don't blame my mother for what happened in our lives. I blame the Canadian government. That's where I squarely place blame.

Connie: Why?

Christine: Because the Canadian government sought to assimilate Native children by saying you are better raised in a non-native home and not by your own people. So, in denying a whole race of people a whole generation of kids like me and to the other scoopers, denying us a community, a heritage, a culture, a language, a whole lifestyle that we were made for. We were dumped into something foreign, something unwelcome, something abusive; something segregating, something isolating.

Connie: When Christine says 'scoopers', what she is referring to is something called the Sixties Scoop. It’s when tens of thousands of Indigenous kids in Canada were taken from their homes by child welfare authorities and adopted into white families in Canada, the United States, and beyond. In Saskatchewan, where the Semaganis children were born, the government actually placed the kids they wanted to adopt out in ads in newspapers, on the radio, and on TV.

[advertisement plays]

Announcer: Have you ever considered adopting a child? Many couples have found their happiness through AIM.

Connie: It was part of a program called AIM: Adopt Indian & Metis. Essentially, the goal was adopting out the large number of Indigenous kids they had in the child welfare system. Children lost their connection to their families, their language, their culture, and many experienced abuse and trauma. I want to find out more

about why the Saskatchewan government created the AIM program that would lead to so many broken lives. Christine believes the government’s goal was to assimilate Indigenous kids.

[advertisement continues]

Announcer: It isn’t AIM that makes children happy, it’s you! [dreamy music]

[advertisement ends]

Christine: So that's why I blame the government. They could have made other choices. They could have sought to, you know, empower the native community by giving them better services, by allowing the extended family to care for their children like they do today. But you know, the government knows best.

Connie: As much as Christine blames the government, she realizes that the only place she can go to for answers about Cleo is back to the same people that took her away in the first place: the Saskatchewan government’s social services.

Christine: Yeah. The post adoption registry or what is, what did I call them back then, Adoption Support Centre of Saskatchewan. They're not very supportive.

Connie: But getting the information she wanted wasn’t that simple. Christine was told that in order to get answers about Cleo, she needed her biological mother’s cooperation.

Christine: They said, "Okay, well, there's a package you need to fill out, all your mom has to do is sign it." So I took this big package, I don't know, about 70 pages, I filled the whole thing out as much as I could. And that's when I brought it to my mother about a month or so after and said, "All you need to do is sign," and she refused to sign it.

Connie: She just, she said, "I'm not doing that"?

Christine: Yeah. She said, "You're going to have to wait until I die."

Connie: Did you wonder why?

Christine: Not really, because I think human beings do the things they do for a reason and that it wasn't my choice, it was hers. And in all the life she had with no choice, I could at least allow her one choice to make and respect that choice.

Connie: Lillian Semaganis died in 2014. For years, out of respect for her mother, Christine waited to find answers about Cleo. But after her mother’s death, she began calling and writing letters to the Saskatchewan government but was never able to get any information about her sister.

Connie: Do you have any consolation that they're trying to follow a process, I would imagine they would say to protect people involved?

Christine: I think the people involved with Cleo are the people still asking questions like me and my brothers and my sister who want to know. We've always been asking those questions. But I'm an Indian woman. My sister was an Indian woman. She's been dead for 40 years. And the government said, basically continues to say, "Well, we'll get around to it." You know. Dismissive paternalistic authoritative attitude towards my inquiries.

Connie: But today, we gave Christine the name and number of the person who works at social services in Saskatchewan who actually has Cleo’s file. And when she calls back, Christine says she’s not taking no for an answer.

[phone ringing]

Connie: This is them. Yes! Government of Sask.

Christine: Oh, my gosh.

[answers phone]

Christine: Good afternoon, this is Christine speaking.

Kari: Hi Christine, this is Social Services in Saskatchewan.

Christine: Yeah, hi. I'm calling to obtain information about my deceased sister Cleopatra Nicotine Semaganis. We are all adopted in the mid-Seventies...[fades out]

Connie: Christine tries to explain to the woman from the Saskatchewan government this complicated story of her family’s search for Cleo. The government of Saskatchewan has had thousands of First Nations and Metis kids in care over the past 40 years, but we have no way of knowing if they’ve ever encountered a situation like this before.

Christine: We really want to obtain any information regarding her adoption, where she was placed and where she might be. Because right now, we don't have anything at all.

Kari: Okay, so you're not aware of the adoption agency in the States.

Christine: No clue. I couldn't, I can't even-- last time I spoke with the post adoption registry, they told me that because she was officially adopted in the state of Arkansas, that she was their responsibility and they had no authority to tell me anything.

Kari: Her name was Cleopatra?

Christine: Yeah.

Kari: Can you tell me her last name?

Christine: It would have been Nicotine-- I mean, Semaganis Nicotine. Semaganis was my birth mother's maiden name.

Kari: And then do you know her date of birth?

Christine: I know absolutely nothing, other than the fact that she existed. All I have is a little picture of her.

Kari: So would you share a birth father with her then?

Christine: No, no, no, we had different fathers.

Kari: Different fathers.

Connie: Okay, I want to stop here and explain why we’ve never mentioned Cleo’s father. It’s basically because we have no idea who he is. In Christine’s story, she says Cleo’s full name is Cleopatra Semaganis Nicotine, so we’re assuming that Nicotine was her father’s last name. But we don’t actually know.

Kari: I am going to be looking into what other information we can share. Right now, the regulations don't allow us to share, like, file information between siblings.

Christine: Okay.

Kari: But I'm going to I'm going to check with legal and see if there is a way that we can get that information to you. It might involve a little bit of research on finding out where she was adopted. So we'll have to work with them and see if they'll either release that information to us or to you in order to share it.

Connie: Arkansas? Or in Saskatchewan?

Christine: You mean Arkansas?

Kari: Um…

Christine: If, well, from what I understand, that's where she was adopted, officially adopted.

Kari: Right, from the place where she was adopted.

Christine: Okay. What would happen if there is a father listed on her birth certificate?

Kari: We would actually do a search to see if he's still alive. And if he is, we will be providing information to him or get approval to release it.

Christine: Oh, okay.

Kari: Yeah.

Christine: Okay.

Connie: Essentially, what I think she’s saying is that biological siblings aren’t really entitled to the same information as biological parents. Christine might need permission from Cleo’s father first. And even if she is able to get Cleo’s birth certificate, and even though she was adopted from Saskatchewan, Christine will have to go to the gov’t of Arkansas to get more information about her death.

Christine: Okay, let's say things don't go well. What's the worst case scenario in regarding my inquiries and pursuit for information for my sister?

Kari: Worst case scenario?

Christine: Mhm.

Kari: Um...I guess that the information wouldn't be able to be shared.

[Christine makes disappointed noise]

Kari: Yeah, it's hard for me to say right now. I'm sorry.

Connie: And just before the call ended, Christine asked one last question. And I was shocked when I heard the answer.

Christine: One of my final questions is, has your office had any experience dealing with Arkansas adoption agencies to facilitate the successful transfer of information?

Kari: With Arkansas?

Christine: Yeah.

[eerie, soft piano music starts]

Kari: I don't recall another instance with Arkansas, no.

Christine: Hmm. Okay.

Kari: I just - yeah. I'm not sure the information is correct.

Christine: Oh. Well, how do you know if it's correct or not?

Kari: Yeah. Pardon?

Christine: How would you know it's correct or not?

Kari: Because like I said, we have some of the information from your file.

Christine: Oh, well it would be nice to have some sort of information, you know, as a sibling. You know, it's been 40 years.

Kari: Yes.

Christine: [breaks down] And for 20 years you've told me nothing.

Kari: I know.

Christine: This is my sister. Her body’s in the States, you know.

Kari: Mhm.

Christine: Do you have a sister?

Kari: I do.

Christine: Well, then maybe think about how I feel and really try your best. Because if you know she's not in Arkansas, then find a way to tell me where she is.

Kari: Okay. That's what I'm going to work on.

Christine: Please.

Kari: Okay. So I'll call you by tomorrow at the latest to let you know where I'm at.

Christine: All right.

Kari: Okay?

Christine: Okay.

Kari: All right. Thanks for calling.

Christine: Thank you.

Kari: Yeah, bye bye.

Christine: Bye. So they do know, they're just not telling me. [crying] They know where she is. They know where she is.

Connie: Cleo might not have been adopted into Arkansas? If not there, where did she end up?

Christine: Okay, she's not in Arkansas, then. I wonder where she is. They know. They know where she is. Well that's kind of hopeful, kind of infuriating. So she probably has the whole file and all my old letters and all the answers right in front of her.

Connie: I'm just shocked that she said that might not be correct.

Christine: Oh yeah, I picked up on that right away. How do you know it's not correct? Because in my heart, I believe they know where she is. I’ve always believed that.

Connie: I've only been involved in this for a very short time, but I just can't imagine waiting till the even the end of tomorrow to find out what information you'll be able to get.

Christine: Whatever information, I'll be grateful for. You believe this whole thing your whole life. The very least they could do is tell me the truth.

Connie: Christine is convinced that based on that conversation with Social Services, her family has been wrong about Cleo’s death. That she wasn’t adopted into Arkansas. And if that information isn’t correct, what else could they be wrong about?

Connie: Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo is written and hosted by me, Connie Walker. It’s produced by Marnie Luke and Jennifer Fowler. Mieke Anderson is our audio producer. And our senior producer is Heather Evans. To subscribe to the podcast, search Missing & Murdered: Finding Cleo on iTunes or your other favourite podcast app. Or you can listen on our website: cbc.ca/findingcleo. To see the only photo that Christine has of her sister, visit cbc.ca/findingcleo.

[music fades]

TRANSCRIPT: Missing & Murdered - Season 2, EP 1

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