Conspiracy of Silence: The Riveting, Real-Life Account of The [Helen Betty Osborne] Pas Murder and Cover-up that Rocked the Nation

None of the Aboriginal women this writer knows fit Priest’s description. Published in 1989, the description of Aboriginal women in Conspiracy of Silence is a part of the larger conspiracy to keep the epidemic of the 800+ MISSING and MURDERED Aboriginal women of Turtle Island from the world. Canada, a safe haven for millions who come from other lands, is unsafe for the life-givers of the original peoples. If and when news gets out that Aboriginal women are under attack with the support of government and police inaction, the response given is a description like the one Priest gives, along with blame laid on the women.

One of the biggest things activists both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal are fighting is the stigma of Aboriginal women that Priest promotes in her book. In a book that is supposed to fight the problem, Priest willfully adds to it.

And big media wonders why there is such distrust by Aboriginal peoples.

Such distrust is hundreds of years old, resulting from a reality that many peoples globally know all to well: colonization. Throughout her book Priest recounts the distrust of white people, men in particular, by Osborne. And she lays the setting well for such distrust. The Pas was white and brown with the two sides not getting along. Priest describes situations that many Canadians do not know of, and which are thought to be practiced by Americans down south, not here in Canada:

They [Aboriginals] sat on the left side of the theatre — the only seats Indians were allowed to take. Otherwise they ran the risk of being kicked out or the usher would make a point of embarrassing them by loudly directing them to the other side, to the sneers of most whites

Priest follows her movie theatre description with the many names that Osborne and The Pas’ Aboriginal community were called regularly:

• “f-cking squaw”
• “dirty Indian whore”
• “potato”
• “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”

It’s no wonder Osborne did not trust white people: As Priest describes that relationship, “To her, The Pas resembled every cowboy and Indian movie she had seen,” writes Priest. “Natives were merely the Bulls-eye in a town dartboard.” In Osborne’s case, darts were not used; two screwdrivers were the instruments of choice by four white boys looking for some fun.

There are no mug-shots of Osborne’s killers in Priest’s book. The four boys — Jim Houghton, Lee Colgan, Dwayne Johnston, Norm Manger — are shown with smiles, wearing shirts and ties, looking more like avid church goers as opposed to the drunk rapists and murderers that they are. Is the effect to show that anyone can do such a thing? Or that the boys were the complete opposite of how Priest describes Aboriginal women: dirty, desperate, drugged up and lost?

The one photo in the book of Helen Betty Osborne is that of a reserved girl sitting with her hands on her lap. Priest paints a good picture of her. Osborne is described as “strong willed, bright, and humorous, someone who knew how to have fun.”

Osborne was also studious and a success story on her reserve, Norway House, a Swampy Cree community.

To Priest, Osborne is the one Aboriginal who was worth something and describes her as the complete opposite of the zombies she portrays Aboriginal women to be. “She was pretty, domestic, traditional, very pleasant are rarely traveled without her black-beaded rosary,” she writes. Osborne did drink and was in the drunk tank a few times but she was not down in the dumps the way Priest describes Aboriginal women to be.

For a book that is about the murder of an Aboriginal woman, much of the book is focused on the four killers and their lives before and after the murder. Priest gives in depth information on their childhoods, education, relations with townspeople, and their marriages and jobs during the sixteen years after Osborne was killed.

What is greatly missing from Priests book are the lives of Osborne’s family and her community in the sixteen years after she was gone. What did they do? How did they go on after Osborne was killed? How did Osborne’s murder affect future generations? Why focus on the white people and leave out the Aboriginal side?

There are things Priest points out that reflect issues still present today:

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