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How the System Failed Tina Fontaine · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Picture the glow of a payphone cutting through the heavy,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: suffocating heat of a late summer night.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the humidity just hanging in the air.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's August sixth, twenty fourteen. A fifteen year old
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: girl picks up the receiver. She dials nine to one one,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and her voice is deceptively steady, you know, as she
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: reports a stolen blue truck.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Right, and she names the thief, right, a man she
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: simply calls Sebastian.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: She does, and on the surface, it feels totally mundane,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: just a routine dispatch call about property theft in a
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: sprawling city. But just days later, that same young girl
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: would be brutally murdered.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It's a profound tragedy, especially compounded by the fact that
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: at the time she made that call, the police didn't
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: even know it existed in the context of her disappearance, right.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: They had no idea they needed to be looking for
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the very man she had just named.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I mean, that brief, desperate call echoing into the
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: dispatch center, it would eventually become one of the most
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: crucial haunting clues in this massive investigation.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So today we are taking a deep dive into the
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: harrowing story of fifteen year old Tina Fontaine. We have
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: a massive stack of sources on the table in front
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of us.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hundreds of pages official case files, unsealed trial transcripts,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: forensic pathology reports, and those exhaustive provincial inquiries into child welfare.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Our mission today is to reconstruct her timeline for you,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: walking you step by step through the labyrinth of this investigation.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We're going to examine the agonizing series of systemic failures
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that allowed a highly vulnerable teenager to slip through every
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: single crack.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: And we'll get into the intense, high stakes undercover operation
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: that sought justice for her. We're really going to dissect
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the legal and forensic mechanisms at play here.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Because this isn't just a story about a crime, is it. No,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: not at all.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: It is a chilling examination of what actually happens on
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: a procedural level when the safety nets we all rely
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: on just completely evaporate into bureaucracy.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: So to understand how those safety nets dissolved, we have
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to go backward. The ripple effect of a tragedy like this,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: It always starts with a single stone breaking the surface.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Always, and for Tina, that fracture point happens long before
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: she ever picked up that payphone.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: We have to flash back to October thirty first, twenty eleven.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Tina was just twelve years old. Her father, Eugene, was
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: brutally beaten and left to die behind a shed on
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: a First Nations reserve in Manitoba.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And that event, I mean, that is a clear catalyst.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Tina and her younger sister Sarah didn't live with their
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: father and their mother, Valentina, was struggling with a severe
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: substance abuse and was largely out of the picture right.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So the girls were being raised by their great Anthelma.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: She was incredibly loving, you know, she had a long
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: history as a foster parent.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: But love, no matter how profound, cannot magically rewire a
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: child's brain after the violent murder of a parent. It
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: just can't. No.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Unaddressed trauma is a lot like a slow leak in attire.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: You might be able to drive on it for a
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: little while, keep moving forward, Pretend the handling is fine.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: But eventually the rim is going to hit the.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Pavement exactly, Sparks are going to fly, and you were
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: going to end up stranded. After her father's murder, you
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: see this big hearted little girl fundamentally change. She starts
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: skipping school, that she starts running away.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: And when we look at the case files, this is
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: where the first massive systemic failure actually occurs.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Right, I mean, how does the system completely ignore a
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: child dealing with a homicide.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Of a parent. Well, it comes down to a complete
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: breakdown in rural health care accessibility and honestly bureaucratic jurisdiction.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Victim Services never proactively deployed grief counsels to Tina.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Which is mind boggling. So when Felma desperately reached out
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: for help, what happened?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: The single counselor that child in Family Services or CFS
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: referred her to was located off the sag King First
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Nation Reserve. It was hours away. Oh wow, Yeah, it
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: wasn't a matter of them refusing to go. The sheer
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: logistics made it physically impossible for a grieving twelve year
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: old to attend those sessions.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So the system essentially drew a ggrap boundary around her
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: trauma and just left it.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: To fester exactly, And that festering trauma drives her to
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: seek out the one person she thinks can fix it,
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Her mother.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Right between late twenty thirteen and April twenty fourteen, Tina
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: runs away to Winnipeg three separate times. Finally, in late
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: June of twenty fourteen, she asks Selma if she can
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: go visit her mom, Valentina in the.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: City, and Thelma is terrified, naturally, but she checks with
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Valentina's social worker, and the social worker actually assures her
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: that Valentina has stable housing and is doing well, so
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Felma reluctantly agrees.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: She gives Tina sixty bucks a phone card and tells
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: her to call if she needs absolutely anything.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: But we have to look at why that social worker
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: provided false assurances. In underfunded welfare systems, social workers are
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: drowning in case loads.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, they just don't have the time exactly.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: They often rely on outdated paper files or unverified secondary
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: reports rather than physically inspecting a home. The worker likely
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: looked at a file that said Valentina was housed weeks
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: prior and just pass that information on as current fact.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: And the result of that paperwork error is just devastating.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I want you to imagine the isolation of this moment.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Tina gets a ride to Winnipeg, expecting a reunion. Instead,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: she arrives to find a completely empty house.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Just standing on the porch of an abandoned home.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Valentina isn't there, her half siblings aren't there, but Tina,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: trying to play it cool, tells her relatives to just
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: drop her off. She's confident her mom will come back
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: for her.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: The relatives drive away and for weeks. Thelma waits back
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: on the reserve, trying to call the house, only to
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: hear a disconnected dial tone.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So Felma knows something is terribly wrong. She and her
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: husband drive an hour and a half to Winnipeg, only
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to find the house abandoned right.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Because Valentina had slipped back into severe addiction, lost custody
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: of her other children, and basically vanished completely. After a
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: brief fleeting encounter with Tina.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Then the red flags start flying up everywhere. Felma gets
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a terrifying Facebook message from Tina's ex boyfriend friend Larry,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: warning that Tina is being sexually exploited and using drugs, and.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: It gets worse. Tina's sister Sarah receives a selfie from Tina.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: In the photo, this fifteen year old girl has a
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: black eye, and Tina claims their mother gave it to her.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: At this point, Felma makes an agonizing decision. On July seventeenth,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: she officially transfers care of Tina over to Child and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Family Services, legally making her award of the State.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: She assumed the agency had the vast resources and legal
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: authority to pull Tina off the streets.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: But bringing her into the system only documented her descent.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, the near misses over the next few weeks
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: are staggering when you analyze the bureaucratic mechanisms that allowed them.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: To happen are absolutely staggering. On July seventeenth, the exact
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: day Thelma transfer's custody, police respond to a street disturbance.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Right they find Tina being dragged down the sidewalk by
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: an eighteen year old named Cody Mason. Both are heavily intoxicated.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: Please send them to separate detox facilities. But because Tina
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: is now officially awarded the state, she gets discharged back
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: into the care of CFS.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And what does CFS do? They place this highly vulnerable,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: intoxicated fifteen year old in a local hotel room, completely unsupervised,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to wait for a long term placement.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's their protocol.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I have to push back on this legally procedurally. How
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: on earth is an unsupervised hotel room considered a placement
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: for a ward of the state who is just dragged
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: down a street.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: It is the dark reality of a system operating way
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: beyond its capacity. When youth shelters are full and foster
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: homes are unavailable, agencies utilize commercial hotels as overflow holding areas.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: The protocol dictates that a worker checks them in, but
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: there is no legal framework or funding to post a
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: guard at the door. So you have a child who
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: legally belongs to the state place in a commercial space
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: with a key card and a revolving door.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: So, unsurprisingly, Tinae just walks out. It is literally a
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: waiting room for disaster, and the systemic blindness just continues.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It really does. On July twenty third, she physically show
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: at a CFS office.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: They don't secure her in the building. They tell her
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: to get on a bike and pedal herself to a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: youth shelter. Then comes August eighth.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: This one is hard to hear. Police pull over a
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: drunk driver. Tina is sitting right there in the passenger seat.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: At this exact moment, there is an active high risk
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: missing person's alert out for her across the entire province,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: but the officer who pulled the car over misses the alert.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: He assumed she's eighteen and just lets her walk away
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: into the dark.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: That failure comes down to database mechanics and human error
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: in law enforcement systems. If a query is entered with
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: a slight misspelling of a name, or if the officer
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: fails to run a secondary check through the specific missing
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: person's registry alongside the criminal registry.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The alert just won't trigger exactly.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: A clerical oversight quite literally allowed her to slip back
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: into the shadows.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: And those shadows were lethal. Later that exact same day,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: August eighth, the grim reality of her situation is exposed.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: She has found unconscious in an alleyway.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Her skirt is pulled down, she has no underwear on.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: She's rushed to the hospital, where she admits to a
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: doctor she's been taking pills and drinking, but she refuses
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to explain what happened in that alley.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: She does let one critical detail slip, though, she mentions
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: she was on her way to meet a guy named
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Sebastian right, who.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: She describes as a sixty two year old meth user
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: because he was supposedly going.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: To get her a bike, but the hospital just discharges her.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: CFS puts her in another hotel. This time there is
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: some supervision, but it's not two forty seven.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: So on August ninth she slips away again. A citywide
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: beyond the lookout is finally issued, but it's way too late.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Fast forward to August seventeenth.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: A man and his young son are walking along the
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: muddy banks of the Red River scouting for fishing spots.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: They look into the murky water and spot a body
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: shaped object wrapped tightly in a duvet cover, weighed down
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: by heavy rocks.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: The scene is horrific and instantly presents a massive forensic
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: paradox that would define the rest of the case. Investigators
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: identify the heavily decomposed body through a specific tattoo the
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: name Eugene Fontaine Father, but.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: When the pathologist conducts the autopsy, the physical evidence makes
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely no sense. She's wrapped in a duvet and weighed
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: down by rocks, right, so it is undeniably a homicide,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Yet she is fully clothed there's no physical evidence of
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: sexual assault, no broken bones. Toxicology totally rules out a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: drug OVERDCE.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So the pathologist rules the cause of death as undetermined
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: but highly suspicious.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: How does a medical examiner look at a body weigh
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: down in a river and say, we don't know how
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: she died.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It is one of the most frustrating realities of forensic
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: pathology involving water. Water is incredibly destructive to biological evidence.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: It washes away trace DNA fibers, skin cells.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: It sanitizes the crime scene exactly.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, decomposition in a warm river quickly breaks down the
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: soft tissues in the neck and eyes, erasing the telltale
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: signs of strangulation or asphyxiation. And ironically, you cannot always
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: definitively prove drowning if the biological markers like microscopic diatoms
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: and the lungs inconclusive.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: So legally a pathologist cannot guess right.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: If they cannot scientifically pinpoint the exact physiological mechanism that
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: stopped the heart, they are legally bound to rule it undetermined, which.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Instantly cripples the investigation. Without a definitive cause of death,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Prosecutors cannot prove to a jury how the victim was killed.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Detectives are forced away from hard science and have to
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: rely entirely on circumstantial evidence and street whiskers.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: And the street was definitely whispering. The public outpry.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Was massive, Thousands marched in the streets of Manitoba. It
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: was the epicenter of the crisis surrounding missing and murdered
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Indigenous women and girls.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: And under that suffocating pressure, the police finally catch a break.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: A man named Robert calls in a tip. He says
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: he saw Tina on August sixth right.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: She had bummed a cigarette off him. She was extremely upset,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: saying an older man at a nearby house had cornered
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: her and gotten aggressive when she rejected him.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Robert provides the thread that unravels the whole picture. He
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: noticed that right before she spoke to him, she was
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: desperately using a nearby payphone, which.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Brings us back to the beginning. Investigators pull the records,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: trace the time and the location of that payphone, and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it connects directly to the nine to one one call
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: about the stolen.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Blue truck and the man named Sebastian.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: They track down the house Robert mentioned. A young girl
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: answers the door and says she doesn't know a Sebastian,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: but they did have an older man living in a
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: tent in their backyard named Frenchy, and.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: She tells police he constantly sexually harassed her.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Following that lead to a local scrapyard, a worker finally
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: gives them a real name, Raymond Cormier, a fifty two
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: year old drifter with a massive criminal record stretching across
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the country, full of robbery, assault and fraud.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: As they hunt for Cormier, an unprompted phone call comes
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: in from a local prison. An inmate who goes by
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Ernest the Wolf, reaches.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Out without any prompting. He tells investigators they need to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: look at Cormier. Ernest says he used to hang out
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: with Raymond and Tina, noting it was sickeningly obvious Raymond
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: had a sexual interest in the fifteen yeard.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: He confirms they had a massive blowout fight over a
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: stolen truck, and chillingly, Raymond had recently told Ernest, uh,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I've taken care of the problem.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Ernest gives them an address. When investigators arrive, a man
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: happens to walk out the back door to take out
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the garbage. It's Raymond Cormier. They arrest him on outstanding
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: warrants and interrogate him for eight hours.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: He denies killing her, claiming he lost interest when he
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: found out she was under eighteen, which completely contradicts everyone
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: else's testimony.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: The police know they have their guy, I mean, sha,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: this case was like shaking a dark web. You pull
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: one tiny thread a nine to one one call about
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: a truck, and an entire hidden network of exploitation falls out.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: But knowing it and proving it in court without a
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: cause of death or a shred of DNA, those are
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: two entirely different universes. So Canadian law enforcement decides to
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: launch a highly controversial six month undercover.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Operation known as a Mister big Sting.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. To understand how a Mister big Sting works, you
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: have to look at the psychological mechanics. The police basically
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: invent a fake organized crime syndicate from scratch.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a movie. They literally just make up
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a mafia they do.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Undercover officers bump into the suspect and offer him easy
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: jobs for good money, moving a vehicle carrying a package.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Over months, they groom him. They make him feel valued, wealthy,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: and protected by this powerful criminal family.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: It is essentially an elaborate psychological lobster trap. It's incredibly
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: easy to walk into because the bait, the money, and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: protection is just so enticing.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: But once you are inside, the walls close in. The
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: goal is to build so much dependence that eventually the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: suspect meets the head of the syndicate, mister Big, and.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Mister Big confronts the suspect saying, I know the cops
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: are looking at you for a murder. I can make
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: this go away, but you have to tell me the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: absolute truth right now so I can clean up your mess.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: It forces a confession through perceived necessity. Now, this tactic
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: is completely illegal in the United States. US courts view
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: the extreme manipulation, the financial reliance, and the implied threat
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: of the criminal syndicate as highly coercive right.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: He crosses the threshold of entrapment and violates a suspect's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: rights against self incrimination exactly.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: But in Canada, under specific judicial guidelines, these stings are
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: legally permitted.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: But Raymond Cormier wasn't an easy target. He was deeply
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: paranoid within weeks, he suspected he was being watched, even
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: pointing out the undercover officers trailing him.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: Because of that paranoia. When he is finally confronted by
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: mister Big, he refuses to confess. He insists he didn't
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: murder her.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: However, the police had secretly bugged his apartment, and those
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: wiretaps capture horrifying admissions.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: On tape, Raymond admits he did have sex with Tina.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: He is heard telling another woman that Tina quote got
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: killed because I found out she was fifteen.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: While he never explicitly says he struck the fatal blow,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: he exhibits a terrifying pattern. The wiretaps expose his history
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: of exploiting vulnerable indigenous girls, bring them to his apartment,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: supplying drugs.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And, most damningly, he is caught on tape threatening another
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: young girl that if she overdosed, he would wrap her
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: up in a carpet and throw her in the river.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Wrap her up and throw her in the river, exactly
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: how Tina was found.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: It's chilling. So in January twenty eighteen, Raymond Cormier finally
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: goes to trial, charged with murder.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Put yourself in that jury box for a moment you
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: are listening to a man on tape being an absolute monster.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: He has the motive, the history, and the exact methodology.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: But then the forensic pathologist takes the stand and says, well,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: there is no DNA on the duvet cover, and I
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: cannot scientifically tell you how this child died.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And the defense weaponized that forensic void. They argued that
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: without physical evidence linking him to the scene, and without
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: a verified cause of death, the entire prosecution rested on
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: the paranoid, out of context ramblings of a known criminal.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Ramblings recorded during an inherently deceptive police sting. The jury
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: is asked to weigh the immense psychological pressure of the
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: undercover operation against the complete lack of hard science, and after.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Less than a single day of deliberate they found Raymond
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Cormier not guilty.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: The verdict just sent shock waves of outrage through the community.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: It felt like the final devastating failure in a long
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: line of systemic betrayals.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Raymond Cormier walked free. He died in twenty twenty four,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: taking whatever definitive truth he held about Tina's last moments
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: to his grave.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: But the aftermath of this tragedy ignited something undeniable. When
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the bureaucratic systems that are legally obligated and funded to
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: protect society's most vulnerable became completely paralyzed by their own protocols,
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: the community stepped in.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: We saw an explosion of grassroots action, the creation of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Drag the Red, a volunteer initiative where citizens physically searched
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the river for evidence and missing persons.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: The Bear Clan Patrol was reignited too, putting community members
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: on the streets to provide immediate safety and oversight.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: And Tina's Safe Haven was established, offering a secure environment
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: where vulnerable youth can get a meal, do laundry, and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: just exist without the fear of exploitation.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: It is a profound resilience born from absolute darkness, it
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: really is.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: But it leaves you with a heavy lingering question to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: explore on your own. When the massive agencies designed to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: protect us becomes so entangled in red tape that they
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: cannot save a fifteen year old girl asking for help,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: does the true responsibility for justice and for keeping each
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: other alive inevitably fall back onto the ordinary citizens in
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: our own backyards. Thank you so much for joining us
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: on this deep dive into the case files