The Plot Sickens
Executive Summary: Hot on the trail of evidence to support their conspiracy theory, Zakreski and Perreaux comb through back issues of their newspaper looking for additional cases that can be made to look suspicious. They have to go back almost a decade, to find a 17-year old boy named Neil Stonechild, who – heavily intoxicated and running from the police – died of hypothermia in a snow-covered field in a north end industrial park. Once again making no effort to consult with experts who would have told them the truth, and ignoring the fact that four other people also froze to death that bitter winter, the conspiracy theorists manage to convince a trusting public that Neil Stonechild was the victim of foul play at the hands of the police.
THE DEATH OF NEIL STONECHILD“Neil [Stonechild] had a Canada-wide warrant out for his arrest. Why would they dump him off? … there is no way that any police officer in Saskatoon would have just dumped off a person with a warrant out for their arrest; there is no way! It would have been a huge feather in their hats to bring in someone with a Canada-wide warrant!”
Aboriginal former street kid in Saskatoon, interviewed by Candis McLean.
Now firmly convinced that racist police officers on the Saskatoon Police Service were murdering aboriginal men, Zakreski and Perreaux began searching for other candidate victims.
Despite their belief that such cases were commonplace, they had to go back in the archives almost a decade – which should have been an immediate red flag – but they finally found a candidate; a 17-year old Saulteaux First Nations boy named Neil Stonechild, who had died of hypothermia in the early hours of November 25, 1990, but whose body was not found until November 29, four days later.
The initial investigation into Stonechild’s tragic death had concluded that he died of hypothermia, after a night of heavy drinking and being caught out in the cold with inadequate clothing – he was wearing blue jeans, a jean jacket, a red lumberjack shirt, and running shoes, with no hat, gloves, or scarf.
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To Zakreski and Perreaux, however, who were eagerly looking for an unexplained death to support their burgeoning conspiracy theory, Stonechild’s death was an inscrutable mystery. How did a heavily intoxicated 17-year old end up in a snow-covered field between 57th Street and 58th Street, 5 miles from where he had last been seen? Why were there scratches and bruises on his face, if he hadn’t been beaten up? Why was he missing one shoe?
There was, in fact, nothing suspicious or unusual about Neil Stonechild’s death. In fact, the same week that he died, another teen, 18-year old John Webb, had died in exactly the same way.
Like Stonechild, Webb had been drinking heavily the night he disappeared. Like Stonechild, Webb had stormed out after a fight about a girl. Like Stonechild, and indeed the majority of hypothermia victims, he had scratches and abrasions on his face. Like Stonechild, he was found frozen to death in a field. Like Stonechild, he was missing footwear: Stonechild was missing one shoe, and Webb was missing both shoes.
There were two crucial differences, however: Webb was caucasian (white), not native; and he died 60 miles east of Saskatoon, well outside the jurisdiction of the SPS.
Zakreski and Perreaux ignored the death of John Webb. Why? Because it didn’t fit their “racist Saskatoon cops” narrative?
They also made no attempt to consult experts in mathematics/statistics, lost person behavior, or indeed any expert who might have provided a mundane explanation for the mysteries that so baffled them. Had they done so, they would have come up with answers to their questions.
- It is not uncommon for hypothermia victims to travel great distances.
In 1849, an Englishman named Frederick Strickland set out to climb Mount Washington, in New Hampshire. His frozen body, his clothes ripped off, was found just below the summit.
In 1900, in Wales, 5-year old Tommy Jones disappeared after he became separated from his older cousin while walking to his grandparents’ farm. His body was found a month later; he had climbed almost to the summit of Pen Y Fan, the highest peak in the Brecon Beacons, 2,907 feet above sea level.
In January 2012, many years after Stonechild’s death, a 14-year old youth named Burton Winters died of hypothermia after his snowmobile got stuck in the sea ice off the coast of Labrador. Had he remained where he was and waited for rescue, he would have been found when helicopters located his snowmobile the following morning. Instead, like too many young men in their teens, he struck out on his own in an attempt to walk to safety. He walked for 12 miles in the wrong direction before he collapsed and died.
Tragically, when it comes to deaths from hypothermia, such stories are all too common, and the pattern was very familiar to first responders and search-and-rescue personnel. Zakreski and Perreaux failed to consult with any of these experts.
- Many hypothermia victims have traumatic injuries to their face and upper body.
As they grow cold, people naturally put their hands in their pockets. As the brain diverts blood from the extremities to keep the heart, lungs, and brain functioning, they lose feeling in their hands and feet, so they don’t notice if their shoes come off; they lose control of their muscles; they become clumsy and their reaction time slows drastically. When, inevitably, they stumble and fall, they are unable to remove their hands from their pocket in time to break their fall, and they are likely to hit the ground hard, and face first.
- Many hypothermia victims lose footwear, and other clothing
The body can survive without fingers, toes, arms, legs – even genitals. But it cannot survive without the heart, lungs, and brain. As hypothermia sets in, the brain must start to prioritize, diverting blood flow away from the expendable extremities and concentrating its resources where they will do the most good. The brain even prioritizes itself; complex thinking is impaired, and the person is able to focus only on the simplest of tasks. Even walking is difficult.
As blood is diverted away from the extremities, the hands and feet go numb. The person in hypothermia is focusing only on the simple task of putting one foot ahead of the other. If a foot becomes trapped, the person will simply push ahead, oblivious to the loss of a shoe. At this point, without intervention from someone who is not suffering from hypothermia, the person will continue until they drop, with death being a common result.