The colour green and a frozen lifeless body were a world full of imagination for a 28-month-old girl who watched a lot of Disney cartoons.

Those are two details that Dakota McGuire has often thought about since the day she learned her mother, Jamie McGuire, was murdered more than 21 years ago.

“My mom was found in the snow and she was like an ice princess. That’s what I [remember], how I envisioned it,” Dakota McGuire recalled.

Now 23 years old, Dakota realizes the colour green comes into play because it was St. Patrick’s Day -- March 17, 1994 -- when the McGuire family learned that Jamie was found frozen in a drainage ditch west of St. Francois Xavier, Man., near the outskirts of Winnipeg. She had died from blunt force trauma to the head.

Today, the case is being investigated by Project Devote, a police task force dedicated to solving missing and murdered vulnerable persons cases in Manitoba.

Ann McGuire is Jamie’s older sister and keeps in contact with investigators. She also raised Dakota for part of her life.

Jamie, a member of the Gull Bay First Nation in northwestern Ontario, was born and raised in Thunder Bay. That’s why Ann says she and her mother initially reported Jamie missing to the Thunder Bay Police earlier in March 1994.

The family’s last point of contact with Jamie was on Jan. 18, 1994. That’s when she dropped Dakota and her little brother Eric off with her mother and said she would be back in a few days.

Ann said it was Jamie’s champagne birthday on Jan. 20, so she and five friends decided they would make a road trip to Winnipeg to celebrate.

“We thought she just needed a break,” Ann said as she explains why they never reported Jamie missing when they discovered she didn’t return to Thunder Bay with her friends the following week.

After a few minutes of silence, Ann sighed and revealed that Jamie, who was the youngest of four children, was bullied in school. Tired of being an outcast, she began to act out. At 14, she started running away and eventually got involved on the wrong side of the law.

Around that same time, Jamie met Dakota’s father. She followed him to Edmonton. She was eight months pregnant with Dakota when he dragged her outside on a frozen October day, beat her and left her.

Jamie moved back to Thunder Bay and had Dakota.

Soon after, she got involved with Eric’s dad, whom she also left because of physical and emotional abuse.

As an adult, Dakota understands all too well the problems her mother faced, but growing up it wasn’t always easy.

“I went through my entire life without having an identity," she said. "I didn’t know who I was, where I came from, and I had nothing to really be proud of.”

Dakota refuses to speculate about the investigation because she was too young to remember. Her aunt Ann, however, says it was the worst possible scenario from the start.

“RCMP, OPP [Ontario Provincial Police], Thunder Bay police, Winnipeg police,” she said, listing all the different police forces that were involved.

The worst thing, she said, was back then each police force never shared the proper information with one another.

Ann’s last point of contact with Project Devote investigators was on Nov. 20, 2014. That’s when detectives made the trip to Thunder Bay to hand out posters to hopefully stir up new leads in the case.

“The police confirmed alcohol and some drug use. But she was never a street person who sold herself,” Ann said of details she’s heard over the years.

Initial media reports led the public to believe Jamie was a known sex-trade worker -- something Dakota says she had a hard time facing growing up.

“The Thunder Bay police were dehumanizing her and almost made her look out to be like she was a biker gang chick or prostitute," she said.

"And I mean, it wasn’t really something that I could really be proud of, to talk to somebody at a young age. So I kinda kept to myself.”

Today, Dakota is a mother to one son, Trysten.  She had him the same age Jamie was when she had her. Dakota’s also got a counselling diploma and works with vulnerable teens from many northern Alberta First Nations.

“I kind of feel like it was a divine force,” she said, explaining how her life has gone in the direction her mother Jamie set out to have over two decades ago.

The McGuire family is calling on the Canadian government to hold a federal inquiry into missing and murdered indigenous women and girls.

For Dakota, an inquiry means educating all of Canada, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has said the issue is one of crime and not a social phenomenon.

“Going through my whole entire life not knowing what happened and who did this to her and it was just like she was another aboriginal woman; it doesn’t matter. It’s as though [the Prime Minister is saying] we are trying to get rid of them anyway. Like, what if that was me? He wouldn’t care. It was my mom; he didn’t care.” she said.

“I think that he needs to understand the roles and responsibilities of aboriginal people; the role that my mother played and the role that was taken away from me.”