In October of 1994, a sinister and dreadful secret of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan emerged from beyond the hills and the forest to expose Saskatoon's fateful racist and discriminatory actions against aboriginal people. The horrible plight so often experienced by aboriginal women was un-earthed with the discovery of the bodies of three dead aboriginal prostitutes. It was quickly established that this was the work of a serial rapist and murderer and the investigation turned to the most likely suspect; John Martin Crawford. Crawford was well know within the law enforcement community and already had a previous manslaughter conviction of an aboriginal prostitute, Mary Jane Serloin, in 1981. The case was clearly murder, however there was not enough tangible evidence to support a charge of first degree murder.
Crawford's careful and rationalized choice of targets, aboriginal women, proved to be a wise decision. He choose aboriginal prostitutes because they would not be undercover police officers and the murders would go largely undetected by society.
Crawford Notch Depot
Crawford House in the background
CrawfordThis racist and discriminatory attitude that Crawford displayed towards his victims did not end with the murders as the victims were further victimized by law enforcement, the public, and the media. Warren Goulding clearly acknowledged and depicted the unresponsiveness and lack of outrage from all segments of society against such horrible and heinous crimes in his book; "Just Another Indian: A serial killer and Canada's indifference." This indifference can be attributed to the fact that the victims were prostitutes and even more detrimental to their situation, they were aboriginal. These women came from a segment of society that people would rather forget, a segment of society to which they could not relate to.
The cases of serial rapists and murderers depicted throughout history have resulted in the formation of an equation that is relatively accurate in estimating the...