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SUB-HEADING: "Frustrated with police, Meggie Cywink is determined to find the truth about the death of her sister, Sonya Cywink, even if that means investigating the case herself."
WARNING: This story contains details concerning the murders of Indigenous women. It also may affect those who have experienced sexual assault or know someone affected by it.
GIST: "Four years after Sonya Cywink was killed, the Anishinaabe woman was given the name Kitchi-tidibaayaanimad-kwe.
It means “whirlwind woman” in Anishinabemowin.
A medicine man named her during a ceremony that her family organized in southwestern Ontario to process their grief and the lingering mystery surrounding her death in 1994.
For her older sister, Meggie Cywink, the experience sparked a new-found personal conviction, along with giving her another way to remember Sonya.
The medicine man from South Dakota told her that any time she sees a whirlwind, she’ll know it’s Sonya bringing her a message.
While the ceremony marked the beginning of Cywink’s own healing, it was also a turning point for her to become a voice not only for Sonya, but also for all missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
“It was like I had a new mission for me to understand that I could help with my sister’s investigation and be an advocate for her, for her voice,” Cywink said.
“It was probably the most powerful experience of my life.”
For three decades, the case of the Anishinaabe woman who was murdered in southwestern Ontario at age 31 has remained unsolved. She is among the hundreds of Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the past several decades.
Sonya Cywink received her spirit name four years after her death, at a ceremony in 1998 organized by family at the Southwold Earthworks Historic Site, south of London, Ont. (Submitted by Meggie Cywink)
Cywink, 62, has been relentless in her search for the truth. After growing frustrations with the progress of the police investigation, Cywink says she felt compelled to take matters into her own hands.
She’s hit the gritty streets of east London, Ont., on the hunt for tips, tracked down former acquaintances of her sister and even conducted clandestine interviews in an effort to keep the case from going cold.
- Watch the full documentary, “A Sister's Promise,” from The Fifth Estate on YouTube or on CBC-TV at 9 p.m. Friday.
“I've come to the place in my life where we're going to do everything. We're just going to push beyond the limits at this point,” said Cywink.
Now, with the help of a retired police officer and a lawyer, she feels closer than ever to finding the truth.
Over the last 10 months, The Fifth Estate has followed Cywink’s pursuit and uncovered how a questionable coroner’s report and a shortened Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) investigation may have contributed to the case going unsolved for decades.
I. 30 years unsolved
The Cywink sisters are a part of a large family from the Whitefish River First Nation, an Anishinaabe community 76 kilometres south of Sudbury, Ont., on Lake Huron.
The second youngest of 13 children, Sonya was petite, standing at five feet two inches. She often kept her hair short, with her older sister describing her as a “girly girl” who loved to wear nail polish and makeup.
Sonya had dreams of becoming a flight attendant, wrote poetry and was a good cook, according to her family.
“I always try to think about different aspects of her nature, her kindness … she was probably the most loveliest sister that I have, that I had,” said Cywink.
“She was just, deeply caring about other people. She was a giver … I didn't always realize how creative she was in her life.”
The two sisters grew up close, with Meggie Cywink only 15 months older. As young adults, they left home for Toronto, but life started to unravel for Sonya. She struggled for years with a drug and alcohol addiction.
In 1991, she agreed to enter a treatment program in London, Ont., and soon after began her life in the new city.
“She was very good at … camouflaging … her life,” said Cywink. “I think she didn't want us to know how much she was struggling.”
There were other parts of Sonya’s life that she kept private from her family and friends, including her involvement with sex work.
“She never said this was a customer or client or whatever. She never let any of her friends or anything in her personal life and business be together, so we never knew,” said her friend, Richard Orford, who now lives on Manitoulin Island.
Orford and Sonya lived together for a few months in 1994 in an apartment building on Dundas Street in east London, Ont.
He doesn’t recall the time or exact date, but he says the last time he saw Sonya, she was getting into a red convertible with a man he’d never seen before.
“He was out there waiting for her and she got in. So it was somebody that she knew or had met through somebody else,” said Orford.
“And for some reason, that still bothers me, that car with the white seats…. That's the last time I ever seen her. I was probably one of the last people to see her.”
According to the Ontario Provincial Police, Sonya was last seen on Aug. 25, 1994, at Lyle and Dundas streets in east London.
The body of the 31-year-old was discovered five days later, on Aug. 30, 1994, at the Southwold Earthworks, a historical site that was a former First Nation settlement on Iona Road, 40 kilometres south of London. She was pregnant at the time of her death.
Sonya Cywink lived with Richard Orford for a few months in 1994 in an apartment building at 772 Dundas St.
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Ontario Provincial Police say Sonya Cywink was last seen at Lyle and Dundas streets on Aug. 25, 1994.
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Meggie Cywink said she’d been told her sister, Sonya Cywink, was picked up at the Town and Country Saloon at 765 Dundas St., London, Ont.
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Sonya Cywink’s body was found on Aug. 30, 1994, at Southwold Earthworks National Historic Site, 7930 Iona Rd., Fingal, Ont.
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Her body was found in a ditch in a shaded corner of the remote park by a man foraging for wild mushrooms.
Newspaper articles at the time reported that she was partially clothed and that her body showed signs of blunt force trauma. Details on her cause of death and the extent of her injuries were never released and remained unknown to Sonya’s family — until recently.
II. Investigating Sonya’s case herself
Cywink has been a longtime advocate for families of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
Between 2016 and 2019, she served as a special adviser to Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General and helped support nearly 200
But she said back in the 1990s, there was a lot less awareness about MMIWG. She’s had to push to get more resources on her sister’s case. She’s written multiple letters over the years to the commissioner of the OPP asking for updates on Sonya’s case.
“I don't think families really understood what rights they had,” she said.
Cywink and her husband, Tom Wopperer, said they started to become disillusioned with the OPP around 2019, after the case remained unsolved for 25 years.
“There was no indication that the OPP were taking a positive action to probe the case prior to the 25th memorial unless provoked by myself other than the yearly press releases and renewal of the reward money,” said Cywink.
The Ontario government, along with the Cywink family, has had a decades-old reward for information leading to “the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for her murder.” Last summer, the Cywink family increased the reward from $60,000 to $75,000.
“As a family member, how long do I wait? How long do I sit on my hands without new information?” said Cywink.
In 2019, Cywink and her husband got the help of retired OPP sergeant Chris Gheysen. Gheysen was one of the first detectives assigned to Sonya’s case in 1994, and he periodically kept in touch with Sonya’s family over the decades. He said since retiring, he’s had time to reflect not only on Sonya’s case but also her family’s situation.
“I think families have to not be completely reliant on the police and just try to dig up new information themselves,” said Gheysen.
Cywink says one of her growing frustrations with the OPP concerned DNA collected at the crime scene. Cywink had not known about the DNA until Gheysen told her in 2019.
She said the OPP later confirmed the existence of DNA at a meeting in November 2019 and that they were considering using investigative genetic genealogy (IGG), a process of using DNA to find relatives of unidentified suspects or victims.
In February 2024, Cywink was informed by the OPP that there was not one but two separate DNA profiles found at the crime scene, and that the OPP’s request to use IGG was denied. Cywink says the OPP assured them the request would be resubmitted.
Cywink returns to the place where Sonya’s body was found every August to hold a ceremony in her memory.
During each trip back from her home on Manitoulin Island, Cywink, her husband and Gheysen also spend time canvassing the streets of Sonya’s former neighbourhood for new tips.
They started with a solidarity walk for the 20th anniversary to raise awareness of Sonya’s case. Then Cywink started street campaigns around Lyle and Dundas streets aimed at collecting tips.
Last year, the couple handed out pins with Sonya’s face that read “Find my killer” and encouraged anyone with tips to contact London Crime Stoppers.
“I've always felt like if we don't generate leads, then you know what? Nothing will be done,” said Cywink.
One of the first leads they got came in 2019 from a woman named Denise Beeswax.
Gheysen and Cywink recorded their interview with Beeswax, who was a friend of the Cywink family and member of the Chippewa of the Thames, south of London.
Beeswax said that she had heard Sonya was picked up at the Town & Country Saloon, a bar on Dundas Street at the time, and went to a party at a house not far from where her body was found.
“I was told that a piece of crack went missing, like a $20 rock, and she got blamed for it. And, she got smacked and she fell. And she died,” Beeswax said in an interview with The Fifth Estate.
A few months later, another woman reached out to Cywink over Facebook with a similar story.
The woman, whom The Fifth Estate is not naming for her safety, was a person of interest in the case back in 1994, according to Gheysen.
Last summer, Cywink finally tracked the woman down in person — and secretly recorded the conversation at a local park.
The woman told Cywink: “And then the cop said, ‘You killed her.’ I was the No. 1 suspect. They took my blood, they took my DNA.”
The woman denied hurting Sonya but said she was with her that night at a party and gave her drugs. Cywink asked the woman if the people at the party called for escorts.
“Right,” the woman responded. “And they passed them on.”
The woman said Sonya was beaten, but wouldn’t tell Cywink the exact location of the party or the name of the person who beat her. She’s worried she could face retaliation for speaking out, but told Cywink the name of someone else she claims was a witness to the assault.
WATCH | Building trust in her own investigation:
In 2020, Cywink received another Facebook message that would reveal more clues about Sonya's life in the months leading up to her death.
The message read: "Hi Meggie, I'm the father of Sonya's baby and I would like to speak with you."
It was from a man named Larry Finck. He claimed to "know more about what happened than any other on Earth."
Finck had attended Sonya’s funeral in 1994, informing her family that he was her boyfriend, and that she was pregnant with his child. Years later, Cywink learned that DNA confirmed the paternity.
The Fifth Estate learned that Finck ran an after-hours bar in a garage in East London that Sonya frequented in 1994. He had multiple run-ins with police that year.
In March 1994, Finck was charged with and convicted of possession of a narcotic and possession of improperly packaged spirits. He spent 90 days in jail. He was also charged with assaulting a peace officer; the charge was later stayed.
A month later, he was taken into custody facing new charges of extortion and assault causing bodily harm to a woman. The charges were dropped and Finck was released in June 1994.
Finck’s legal troubles didn’t end there. In the years after Sonya’s death, he spent time in prison following two separate child custody issues.
Ontario Family Court documents revealed Finck fathered a child with another First Nations woman around the same time as Sonya. When he was unsuccessful with a legal challenge for custody in 1999, he abducted the four-year-old child. He was sentenced to two years in prison for contravention of a custody order.
“The OPP came to me and said: ‘At least six out of 10 people we interviewed on the street have said you were the killer,’” Finck said in the call.
Finck told Cywink police wanted him to take a polygraph. “So I said, ‘You mean to tell me that I killed my own baby?’” he said.
Finck denied to Cywink that he saw Sonya the weekend she was killed, but did admit to previously putting her in dangerous situations involving crack cocaine.
“I strung her right out. I mean strung her out, you know, and I got to the problems, right,” he said.
He revealed to Cywink that Sonya told him a dark secret from her past — she was sexually assaulted at the age of 12.
It’s a secret Cywink already knew. Sonya had confided in her sister when the assault happened, promising her to secrecy. Cywink believes the assault changed the trajectory of her sister’s life.
“I was the only one that knew. The secret of never telling anybody else, of never speaking of this again, was probably the most painful part of it,” said Cywink.
“It was evident with her behaviour, was evident with her lifestyle, that she was in crisis. She needed help. But I was oblivious to that … I'm ashamed and I feel like I failed her.”
III. Accessing the autopsy
In the three decades she's been pushing police to solve Sonya's case, Cywink had never seen Sonya’s autopsy or toxicology reports
“It’s shocking,” said Jessica Zita, a criminal lawyer and partner at the Lockyer Zaduk Zeeh law firm in Toronto.
Zita has been representing Cywink pro bono since May 2024 to help get answers from police.
Late last year, Zita met with Randy Gaynor, the OPP detective inspector in charge of Sonya’s case.
He shared insights on the investigation and told her that the DNA samples collected at the crime scene were contaminated and other avenues for testing were still being explored. He also dropped a shocking bombshell.
According to Zita, Gaynor said that due to the drugs detected in Sonya’s system, her death may not have been a result of homicide.
Zita said she was told Sonya’s death could have been the result of an injury and she wasn't able to help herself.
“It might have been a situation that another person in a different state might have survived. So, it kind of takes the sting out of how murderous this might have been,” said Zita.
Hearing that was a shock to Cywink.
“It felt like I'd been hit by a truck or a sledgehammer,” she said. “Why hasn't this been disclosed before?”
In December, Cywink requested a copy of Sonya's death records from the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General.
Within two weeks, she received a toxicology report, a preliminary and final coroner’s investigation statement, as well as the post-mortem examination.
The autopsy, which was dated March 24, 1995, stated that Sonya was found naked from the waist down, wearing only “socks, an open shirt and a ring.” She was 24 weeks pregnant.
The post-mortem examination, conducted at the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto by pathologist Dr. Hans Sepp, noted more than 20 contusions on the front and back of her body, as well as abrasions near her neck and face.
However, Sepp felt that “trauma alone was not enough to cause death” and concluded that there was no definite anatomical cause of death. The toxicology report, finalized in December 1994, detected cocaine in both her blood and stomach contents.
As a result, the regional coroner determined that the cause of death was “trauma associated with cocaine intake,” but the manner of death could not be determined to be homicide or accidental. The report was stamped Sept. 25, 1995.
Around the time the coroner released the final report in September 1995, the police investigation began to wind down and original detectives on the case were reassigned.
As an advocate for MMIWG, Cywink has worked with families in similar situations. Despite what they see as clear violence inflicted on their loved ones, the manner of death is ruled undermined or accidental — and then ignored.
“I question this whole scenario in terms of how did her body end up there? Why was she positioned in the way she was? Why was she partially clothed? Why take all those steps to hide something,” Cywink told The Fifth Estate in January.
“We put it all together and it's a f--king homicide regardless.”
In late January, Cywink learned of the existence of yet another report through a separate request for documents made by Zita.
In 2016, Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist and deputy chief coroner Michael Pollanen reviewed Sonya’s case.
Pollanen’s review, obtained by The Fifth Estate, revealed that Sonya was assaulted two to three weeks before her death, but the injuries present at the autopsy occurred “around the time of her death” and were “sustained by strong and likely repeated blunt impacts to her back.”
Pollanen concluded her death was a homicide, as “the injuries were most likely due to assault.”
Dr. Kona Williams, a forensic pathologist who studied under Pollanen, read the reports related to Sonya’s case. She said Pollanen’s review clearly states Sonya’s injuries and that the cocaine found in her system cannot be separated as a cause of death.
“He's the chief forensic pathologist for Ontario for a reason, and he's one of the best in the world…. So if he says it’s a homicide, it should be taken seriously,” said Williams.
Zita says that during the meeting with the OPP late last year, Gaynor told her that there were mistakes in how the initial investigation was handled, including with “basic notetaking” and “miscommunication internally.”
“I can’t say for certain what went wrong, but it seems like there were gaps left or there were things that were not properly followed up on,” said Zita.
WATCH | The significance of an autopsy report:
Gaynor, through the OPP, declined The Fifth Estate’s interview request.
The day Sonya’s body was found, three local OPP detachments responded and scoured the scene for clues. Retired OPP detective Chris Gheysen was one of the original investigating officers on the case. He said for months, police conducted a thorough investigation, but despite their efforts, the trail went cold.
“Could we have all done better at times? You know, maybe. But I don't. I don't know. I think we did a thorough job,” Gheysen told The Fifth Estate.
IV. Standing down
After interviewing both Beeswax and the woman who claimed she was at a party with Sonya the night she died, Cywink gave the recordings she made to the OPP, and is hoping they follow up on the new leads.
“There were individuals mentioned in that recording. And so if they don't follow it up, I'm going to blow a gasket.”
By the 30th anniversary of Sonya’s death, Cywink had the name of a new potential witness to track down — the name that the woman at the party had mentioned.
She felt closer to the truth than ever before, but she also faced resistance from both her husband and their lawyer out of fear for her safety.
“I'm definitely worried now at the elevation we’re at in this investigation. I don't feel comfortable for my wife,” said Wopperer. “She doesn't worry…. That's why I'm here.”
As a family member, Cywink feels she can build trust with persons of interests in Sonya’s case to get answers about what happened to her, especially with people who might not normally want to talk to police.
“I want to know and I don’t know if the police and the way they do things and how they do it would ever get those answers,” said Cywink.
WATCH | Worries for his wife:
Their lawyer agrees with Wopperer that Cywink shouldn’t have to investigate her sister’s murder.
“No civilian should feel that they have no options but to investigate the death of their loved one themselves, because that's actually a very dangerous, precarious position to put oneself in without any proper reinforcement,” said Zita.
But that’s the reality for many Indigenous victims and their families, according to Kimberly Murray, who was Ontario’s assistant deputy attorney general for Indigenous justice from 2015 until 2021.
Murray described Cywink as a “fierce advocate” and that her efforts to investigate demonstrate her courage and bravery, but also the struggles Indigenous people face with the justice system.
“Families are doing these investigations and trying to find the truth and trying to find answers because they're not getting them through the colonial legal system,” said Murray.
“The colonial legal system doesn't share information with the victims, doesn't share information with the victim's families … they use the term ‘for the integrity of the investigation.’ I've always said nobody's more concerned about the integrity of an investigation than the families of the person that's been murdered or is missing.”
The OPP declined an interview with The Fifth Estate but said in an emailed statement that it is treating Sonya’s death as a homicide and that the investigation remains “ongoing and active.”
As for the DNA collected at the crime scene, the OPP said it had consultations concerning the use of investigative genetic genealogy and that “the DNA was examined, but at present time, it was determined that the levels did not reach the necessary threshold for testing.”
Cywink is continuing to take her lawyer’s advice to give the OPP time to do its job, but she says jumping back into her own investigation isn’t out of the question.
She’s determined to push on by keeping the police engaged and hoping her pursuit will yield new pieces of evidence to provide answers she’s been looking for all this time.
“At the end of my days, I want to be at peace. And I want to know that I've done everything I could to bring some kind of closure and justice for her and for myself and for my family,” she said.
“That will bring me peace. And I'll be able to join my ancestors, and one day, and know that I've done everything I could.""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/a-sisters-search-for-truthhttps://authory.com/HaroldLevy
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
