‘I miss my daughter’

By Barb Pacholik, Regina Leader-Post

October 21, 2009

Patsy Favel disappeared from the lives of her mother and son on Sept. 30, 1984, four days after Cody’s first birthday.

Photograph by: Regina Leader-Post, Canwest News Service

REGINA — Time is fixed in the photo — an attractive, young mother proudly holding her infant in her arms.

Both are looking at the photographer, no small feat as any parent who has posed for photos with a wriggling infant knows. The mother has a sweet smile that heightens her cheekbones and carries through to her eyes. Her nine-month-old son clutches at the front of her blouse.

If only time had stood still at that joyous moment for Patsy Favel and her baby boy, Cody Blue Favel.

Twenty-five years later, other pictures overwhelm Patsy's mother, ugly images that creep into Alice Berger's thoughts during the day and interrupt her sleep at night. They are graphic images, of two men shooting her daughter in cold blood — a story she has heard about her daughter's fate.

Years ago, the images that filled Berger's dreams about her daughter were optimistic — that she was happy and healthy, a new start, a new life.

There's no telling if any of the dreams or nightmares or stories hold any truth. There's really no telling anything about Patsy. She disappeared from the lives of her mother and son on Sept. 30, 1984, four days after Cody's first birthday. Vanished.

The photos of Patsy with her son are the last ones of her.

Berger's memories of that time are fading with the years, but of one thing the 75-year-old is certain: "She was very, very proud of her boy." Berger later adds, "She just loved him."

A mother, a daughter, a sister — loving and loved and valued.

"I miss my daughter. Lots."

While Patsy Favel is Regina's oldest reported case of a missing woman, many other parents like Berger walk the line between hope and dread.

Across the province, the list of long-term missing women — gone six months or more — stretches to 29 names, five from this city and about one-third from the southern half of the province. While they are outnumbered by missing men more than two to one, the men are more often victims of misadventure, lives lost while boating, swimming, or hiking in the bush. Foul play is suspected in 70 per cent of the missing women's cases, but in only 21 per cent of the men's, according to a provincial report on missing persons.

In its report to the Provincial Partnership Committee on Missing Persons, the Saskatchewan First Nations Women's Commission Secretariat noted that aboriginal females are going missing at a disproportionate rate. Of Saskatchewan's missing women, 12 are Caucasian and 17 aboriginal. Aboriginal people make up only 14 per cent of Saskatchewan's population.

"Higher-risk lifestyles, transitions from reserve to urban without a strong support system, lack of proper transportation — such as hitchhiking from a reserve to urban centre — all contribute to risks that a person may or may not go missing," says the secretariat's report.

"By identifying that some First Nation women may go missing because of who they are, a stronger response can be put in place if a person is thought to be missing," it adds.

In recent years, there's been far more attention on missing persons, with the creation of special police units, committees, and awareness campaigns. Berger admits she's angry that focus was absent when her daughter vanished.

"Now it's too late. Why didn't they do that right away when a person goes missing?" she asks.

"Darn it, why do they leave us behind? Why don't they do something to help with our children?" she asks.

Berger and her husband of 40 years live in a tidy little house — they won a contest for their yard with its flower baskets and trimmed lawn this summer — on the Piapot First Nation, where her youngest brother is the chief, she notes with pride.

Walls of her home are given over to photos of her children, grandchildren and what she affectionately refers to as her "greats" — great, and great-great-grandchildren. There is one picture, slightly out of focus, of a very slender Patsy smiling beside a Christmas tree — the last Christmas with her family.

Patricia Maye Favel, who would be 43 today, is the youngest of Berger's six children. "When I wanted to baby her, I called her Pa-a-tsy," says her mother, dragging out the syllables.

Her mother remembers a quiet girl who enjoyed reading while growing up on Kawacatoose First Nation. "I thought she was going to be a quiet girl the rest of her life."

Patsy was close to her sister, Maxine, a few years older. By age 18 and then living in Regina, Patsy had followed her sister into a lifestyle that reduces their mother to tears even today. Both were addicted to what was the favoured street drug in 1980s Regina — "poor man's heroin," a mix of the prescription pills Talwin and Ritalin. Patsy occasionally found the cash to support her habit on what was then dubbed the "low stroll," a few downtown blocks where mostly poor, aboriginal women sold their bodies to buy drugs, and bought drugs to dull the reality of selling their bodies.

"I tried to stop her, talk to her. We tried everything," says Berger. "Once you get hooked on something like that, it's hard to quit." At five-foot-seven, Patsy had dwindled to 45 kilograms.

When Berger hadn't seen Patsy for a few days, she went looking for her at Maxine's apartment. She spotted Patsy in her brown 1975 Camaro, but her daughter waved her off, as if she didn't want her to come near.

"That was the last time I seen her," says Berger.

Later that Sunday, around 10:30 p.m., Patsy, who had bleached her curly, dark hair blonde a week before, stood two blocks from the Regina police station. According to witnesses who talked to police after family reported her missing on Oct. 2, she had been seen that Sept. 30 night getting into a smaller, red or orange, Japanese-made car, possibly a Datsun or Toyota, driven by a man.

A woman who was also working that night told the Leader-Post in 1984 that she was approached by an Asian man driving such a car. She recalled a Chinese pagoda hanging in the window. When that woman turned him away, he headed towards the street where Patsy was waiting. Like so many other things about the case, there's no way to know if it's true. "It's possible, but it's nothing certain," police said back then.

Even today, the cold case detective in charge of the file can't rule out anything, including a possible link to another mystery. Nearly a year before Patsy vanished, 19-year-old Annette Kelly Peigan disappeared from the downtown on July 29, 1983. Badly burned remains, found three weeks later in a ditch on the city's eastern edge, were subsequently linked to her. It was impossible to determine a cause of death, and Peigan is among the RCMP's cold cases.

After realizing her daughter was gone without any explanation, Berger and her husband searched alleys, drove streets, picked through garbage cans, and consulted with an elder who had a vision of Patsy — all to no avail. Berger believes police could have done more.

Tears glisten on her cheeks as she speaks about the disturbing story she heard a few years ago, that Patsy was taken and killed by two men in the street wars over drugs, prostitution and turf.

"That shot wasn't meant for her. . . . They mistook her as Maxine," she says, relating the tale she heard second-hand. Clearly, Berger fears there may be some truth to it, as she weeps and is comforted by her husband.

"That was the last story I ever heard about Patsy."

Today Maxine is also missed, dead from her addiction, while her sister Patsy is just missing. A victim of a bad date or street violence? Drifted away from a life she didn't want? Alive or dead? Not knowing is the hardest part, says Berger.

"I still have hopes for her coming back. I hope they find her some day."

Patsy's baby boy, Cody, is now a man of 26. Berger cared for her grandson for a time after Patsy disappeared until the child never returned home from a visit to his paternal family. He did keep in touch over the years, and Berger did her best to keep the mother he never knew alive, telling him, "she loved you."

As a young man, Cody found another family, the Native Syndicate street gang, and paid dearly for its acceptance. In December 2006 the then 23-year-old was shot in the upper left chest and lost a lung as punishment for failing to obey the gang.

Despite the risks, Cody testified last year against the men responsible. By then, he was looking to turn his life around.

Like Patsy, Cody too may disappear from Berger's life. At the time of his testimony last year, he spoke of entering a witness protection program.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Body found, linked online to missing teen Poorman

By ANNE KYLE and JOE COUTURE, Leader-Post; with files from Barb Pacholik
April 20, 2009 8:2

REGINA — Police have not yet publicly identified the remains of a body found on Friday about half a block from where Tara-Lyn Poorman disappeared from a birthday party more than four months ago.

But on pages of social networking sites set up to promote the search for the missing 17-year-old, family and friends left posts over the weekend making a connection between the teen and the grisly discovery, and expressing hopes she will "rest in peace."

The creator of a Facebook group called "Finding Tara-Lyn Poorman," who identified himself as her brother Vance Kay, wrote "itz true she iz gone," along with an "RIP" for his "baby sis."

Similar posts were also available publicly on Twitter and Bebo pages.

Reached late on Sunday, Poorman's mother Shellyn Kay told the Leader-Post she had not received any official news and did not want to comment further.

Kay said she "didn't know what was going on" with the social website posts, adding she had not spoken to Vance.

Calls to others in Poorman's family and those who have spoken publicly about her disappearance in the past were not returned over the weekend.

Poorman was last seen at a residence in the 400 block of Halifax Street in December.

Police and her family have both offered rewards for her return.

The decomposing body of a woman was found Friday in the 300 block of Osler Street.

The body is believed to have been at a location in a yard in that area, hidden under a pile of snow, for some time, according to the Regina Police Service.

"We are continuing our investigation into a suspicious death in conjunction with the Office of the Chief Coroner,'' police spokeswoman Elizabeth Popowich told the Leader-Post Saturday.

Popowich said police were dispatched to the rear of the backyard of an Osler Street house just before 7:45 p.m. on Friday after receiving information of a person injured or deceased.

Police and emergency medical services attended the area and confirmed that an unidentified woman found in the backyard was deceased.

"Patrol members secured the area and requested members of the forensic identifications and major crimes units to attend,'' Popowich said, explaining investigators were at the scene for most of Saturday and will continue to secure the area as a crime scene until police have more information as to the cause and manner of the woman's death.

"We are continuing that investigation," she said. "It is being considered a suspicious death and the coroner will order any post-mortem procedures requested. We are also in the process of confirming the identity of the deceased, and once that is confirmed, we will then will notify the woman's family.''

Investigators have said it appears the deceased body was at that location for some time and for that reason identifying the deceased will take some time, Popowich said, noting that won't likely happen until after the weekend.

"In the province of Saskatchewan, we know there are many families who have a missing person in their family," Popowich said on Saturday. "So the discovery of a deceased person before an identity is confirmed must start an agonizing period of waiting for all of those families and it is very, very difficult.

"We can't speculate on the identify of the deceased," continued Popowich, who refused to comment Sunday on the social website postings about Poorman.

"We have to know it through fact and we have to confirm it. As difficult as it is for people to wait for those answers, it is our duty to deal in fact," she said.

akyle@leaderpost.canwest.com

jcouture@leaderpost.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) The Regina Leader-Post