Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women - Action News
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Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women
Missing & Murdered: The Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls
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From the time she was young, Edna Bernard’s life had challenges.

According to one family member, Edna spent time in foster care as child. As a teenager, she was exposed to the sex trade and later, drugs.

Despite these obstacles, Edna, who was from Whitefish Lake First Nation, a Cree community in Alberta, loved her children deeply.

“She'd do anything for them," said Irene Bernard, Edna’s aunt.

Edna was mother to six boys.

“She always telling me to take care of her boys,” said Bernard, who remembers Edna being afraid of something or someone.

“She knew something was going to happen, too, but didn't want to tell anybody but me.”

Based on media reports, Edna was last seen on Sept. 22, 2002.

Cecile Nelson, Edna's mother, says her daughter was going to meet a friend at an Edmonton nightclub. That friend, known as Darlene, says she last saw Edna in a vehicle with unknown people.

“She got her fingers broken,” said Nelson.

“Hammered out.”

Then, Edna was strangled and her body set on fire, according to Nelson.

She was found in a farmer's field in Leduc, Alta., south of Edmonton.

Nelson says someone was taken into custody for Edna's murder, but she believes it's not the killer.

No one has been convicted in the case.

Whatever happened to her daughter, the death still haunts Nelson.

“Every time I hear about a street girl getting murdered... my mind will always go back to my daughter.”

Nelson has nightmares about it.

The family hopes her death will be solved but they say the police are not regularly in contact with them.

“She was a kind, sweet, little woman,” Nelson said.

“She was one of [a] kind.”

Members of Edna’s family support the possibility of a federal inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous girls and women.