Stolen

Hear more from Connie Walker in this week’s episode of Origin Stories. About Origin Stories Have you ever wondered how your favorite movie, book, podcast, TV series, or documentary came to be? Each week, veteran journalist Matthew Shaer sits down with a writer or director to unpack the creation of a work close to their hearts (and ours). The conversations cover everything — the frustrations and the joys, the setbacks and the breakthroughs. Intimate and eye-opening, Origin Stories is the ultimate podcast for anyone curious about the creative process. In this episode Connie Walker, the award-winning Cree journalist and host of Stolen, shares the backstory of Stolen: Surviving St. Michael's — her deeply personal investigation into Canada’s Indian residential school system. Reported while she was at Gimlet, then the biggest podcast company in the world, the series earned her both a Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award in the same year — the first podcaster to do so. To Connie, all great audio documentaries begin with a central question: “It doesn't have to be the question you end up asking the whole way through,” she explains. “But initially, you have to start with that.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

An unexpected development in Ella Mae’s case raises questions around justice and closure for families like hers, and Kristina’s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As we go deeper into Kristina’s circle, a surprising connection takes us back to the start of our investigation, back to Sweetwater. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Violence erupted at home not long before Kristina went missing. Could her disappearance be an act of retaliation? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jiní news, nunchucks, and a gruesome discovery near where Kristina Carrillo lived. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Stolen team is traveling back to the Navajo Nation this week to cover some important developments. The stories of Ella Mae Begay and Kristina Carrillo are still unfolding and we are continuing to report on their cases. We will be back next week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A terrible rumor leads to the discovery that another woman is missing in the Shiprock district. Why is barely anyone looking for her? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The search for answers in Ella Mae’s disappearance leads her family to take matters into their own hands and raises questions about policing on the Navajo Nation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a remote corner of the Navajo Nation, Ella Mae Begay lived alone in a little blue house. Until one summer night when she and her truck disappeared, never to be seen again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Violence. Retaliation. Disappearances. The Navajo Nation is 27,000 square miles of remote terrain with just over 200 tribal police officers. This season on Stolen, Connie Walker’s investigation into the cases of two missing women leads her on a search for justice in a place where people say you can get away with murder.This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two- Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWGT2S). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More than five years after Jermain Charlo went missing, her ex-boyfriend Michael DeFrance is sentenced after being convicted of federal firearms offenses. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jermain’s ex-boyfriend Michael DeFrance goes on trial for federal firearms charges. The charges are not related to Jermain’s disappearance, but connected to an assault on Jermain in 2013. After the judge announces a verdict, someone reaches out to us to talk about Michael and the day Jermain went missing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The effects of residential school didn’t end after St. Michael’s closed. Connie realizes that this journey to understand her dad’s life has been an attempt to heal from her own trauma. And there’s something else in her story that she needs to confront. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After the Oblates reveal new allegations against Father Gauthier, Connie wants to know: how many other priests at St. Michael’s are accused of sexual abuse? A search for records comes up short. But then the team has a breakthrough. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Connie goes to Edmonton to try to talk to Father Gauthier, the priest who two of her uncles said abused them at residential school. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After the trauma of residential school, Connie’s dad and thousands of other survivors had to find a way forward. Canada eventually offered a path for compensation, but justice was rare. Now, decades later, is it too late for accountability? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After operating as a residential school for more than 100 years, St. Michael’s burned to the ground in 2001. Dozens of survivors, including Howard, went to the school grounds to watch the building burn. What really happened inside those walls? The students of St. Michael’s share their stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After hearing allegations from members of her family against two priests, Connie sets out to investigate these men and their work at St. Michael’s. What she discovers is alarming. But when Connie shares her findings with a survivor who knew her father, he issues a stark warning that leaves her reeling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are things in every family that no one ever talks about. In Connie’s family, the truth of what really happened to the Cameron kids in residential school has largely remained unspoken. But when Connie breaks that silence and begins asking questions, her Aunties and Uncles start telling their stories—and naming names. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One night back in the late 1970s, an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pulled over a suspected drunk driver. When he walked up to the vehicle, he came face-to-face with a ghost from his past: a residential school priest. That officer was journalist Connie Walker’s late father. What happened that night on the side of the road compelled her to return home to Saskatchewan nearly 40 years later to try to investigate a secret in her own family. What she uncovers is a much bigger story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Last May, investigative journalist Connie Walker came upon a story about her late father she'd never heard before. One night back in the late 1970s while he was working as an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, he pulled over a suspected drunk driver. He walked up to the vehicle and came face-to-face with a ghost from his past—a residential school priest. What happened on the road that night set in motion an investigation that would send Connie deep into her own past, trying to uncover the secrets of her family and the legacy of trauma passed down through the generations.In Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, Connie unearths how her family's story fits into one of Canada's darkest chapters: the residential school system. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We find out Jermain’s ex-boyfriend has been arrested and is facing an unusual charge in federal court. Does this mean police are closer to solving the mystery of her disappearance? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The story of what happened to Jermain Charlo began long before she disappeared. And her legacy goes on long after. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the story goes, one night in June of 2018, Jermain Charlo vanished without a trace. Except no one disappears without leaving a trail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The year before Jermain disappeared was one of the most challenging of her life, and just as things started to turn around for her—she walked into the Badlander that night in June. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After we uncover a disturbing 2013 police report, we take a close look at Jermain and Michael's relationship.This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence and trauma. please take care while listening. Resources can be found at the National Domestic Violence Hotline and RAINN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jermain's story began long before she disappeared. We go back to the small town of Dixon Agency where she grew up and trace the path that led her to the doorstep of a new neighbor, a teenage boy named Michael. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To find out what happened to Jermain, first we have to question everything we thought we knew. We have to go back to the beginning: the night she disappeared. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When someone disappears in America, there is a playbook investigators follow. Where was she last seen? Who was she with? But those questions get more complicated when the person who has disappeared is Indigenous. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2018, a 23-year-old Indigenous woman named Jermain Charlo stepped out of a bar in downtown Missoula, Montana, and disappeared. Journalist Connie Walker travels to Montana to retrace what might have happened to Jermain.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2018, a young Indigenous mother left a bar in downtown Missoula, Montana, and was never seen again. After two years and thousands of hours of investigative work, the case remains open, and police believe they are close to solving the mystery of what happened to Jermain Charlo. On this season of Stolen, we go inside the investigation, tracking down leads and joining search parties for Jermain through the dense mountains of the Flathead Reservation. As we unravel this mystery, the show examines what it means to be an Indigenous person in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices