Barbara Keam, from Poplar River First Nation, fell in love, got married and relocated with her young son to Norway House Cree Nation in northern Manitoba to start the next chapter of her life.

Instead, it was drastically cut short.

On June 7, 1981, after one year of marriage, Barbara was brutally beaten.

She died in the arms of her husband.

“One of the ladies that actually dressed her corpse told me she had knife wounds throughout her body,” said Raven Thundersky, Barbara's sister.

“There is a lot of stories. The RCMP have their own, the community has their own. There are people out there that know what happened to her.”

Thundersky says the Norway House RCMP charged Barbara’s husband with Barbara’s death. He was held in custody, and released on bail.

“We know in our hearts that he wasn’t the one who did it,” said Thundersky.  

“He was the one that went and got her. He actually carried her back to the house, where she ended up dying.”

Thundersky says Barbara’s husband could not speak English, yet there was no translator for him during the investigation.

According to her, he signed a confession letter.

Thundersky says Barbara’s husband found it unbearable to live without his wife, and to be seen as responsible for her death.

Before he had the chance to return to court, he killed himself.

“It’s very difficult because you have a family member that is murdered and there is no explanation other than the death certificate that the cause of the death was violence,” said Thundersky. 

“It’s a hard thing to live with.”

The last time the family heard from police was when Thundersky initiated contact with them around 2005. She says she was told the case was closed.

“I think they shouldn’t have been quick to... charge somebody. They should have followed all the leads, ” she said. 

“They should have done it properly. They should have treated it as a human file.”

Thundersky says during the 1980s there were few resources for family members of missing and murdered women.

The family only had each other and did the best they could to make sense of Barbara’s death.

“She was very gentle. My sister was not aggressive at all, nor was she confrontational. She had a very good heart. She was happy to be married,” said Thundersky.

“She would sing along to the radio. She had a very beautiful voice.”

Thundersky says she still feels angry about her sister’s death because she was cheated out of a lifetime with her.

“We need answers as to what happened. We need to have some kind of closure so she can rest,” said Thundersky.

“I think they [police] should be communicating with the families more. They should be following every lead that they possibly can because there is people out that has information.”

Thundersky called for a federal inquiry into Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous girls and women when she was involved in the Sisters in Spirit Winnipeg chapter in 2006.

She hopes an inquiry will uncover gaps in the system and find out why indigenous girls and women have gone missing and why so many cases go unsolved.