Stillshot of surveillance video of Happy Charles on April 3. Provided by Prince Albert Police.
The mother of Happy Charles says her daughter’s disappearance is now being treated as a homicide.
Charles’ mother Regina Poitras from La Ronge says a detective contacted her last week with the update on 42-year-old Charles, a mother of five who went missing in April after travelling to Prince Albert to do some banking.
“They’re changing the investigation to a murder investigation,” Poitras told MBC on Thursday.
Poitras says as difficult as it’s been to deal with, her family’s own exhaustive search efforts and public pleas for help have turned up tips leading them to suspect this was coming.
“With the way things have been going it wasn’t too much of a shock,” she said.
Even in the midst of the grieving process, Poitras is at the Assembly of First Nations assembly in Regina this week, seeking better coordination for when Indigenous people in northern Saskatchewan go missing.
The plea is meant to improve supports “so they won’t have to go through the hardships that we did. So there’s something there to start off. Like they wouldn’t have to start off like we did, having to borrow vests, having to get everything in place for ourselves because we had zero to start with,” she said.
She said she wants attention and money up north to help people.
MBC has put in an information request with Prince Albert police, which has not yet confirmed the status of Happy Charles investigation.