Three women. Three deaths. One thing in common | Toronto Star

10.3.16

Three women. Three deaths. One thing in common | Toronto Star: First there was Cheyenne Santana Marie Fox, 20, who dropped from a 24th-floor condo balcony in north Toronto on the evening of April 24.

Then, Terra-Janine Gardner, 26, who was killed by a freight train near Yonge St. and Summerhill Ave., late on May 14.

Finally, Bella Laboucan-McLean, 25, who fell to her death from the 31st-floor of a CityPlace condo in the early morning hours of July 20.

Their stories are different, yet tragically the same.

“The similarity is that they were all First Nation,” observes community activist Audrey Huntley who, like the grieving families and friends of the three young women, has been disappointed by the dearth of local media coverage of these horrific deaths.

Disappointed, but not surprised.

According to research by Kristen Gilchrist, co-founder of Families of Sisters in Spirit, missing and murdered aboriginal women receive 27 times less national print news attention than missing and murdered white women do — and even when they do, they get much less detailed and intimate coverage.

They are rarely headlines, merely statistics. If that.