'We just want her home': Family renews calls for help as search for missing Pimicikamak woman expands outside Winnipeg
UPDATE: Winnipeg Police Service said McKay has safely located.
A family is renewing calls for information to find a woman from northern Manitoba who’s been missing for nearly three weeks.
Jessie McKay, 22, of Pimicikamak Cree Nation was last seen in Winnipeg’s North End on the evening of Sunday, Sep. 5.
Her family on Friday made a renewed plea for information that could help them find her.
“We just want her home,” said Phyllis Ross, Jessie’s mother. “I just want my daughter to come home safe.”
“There has to be somebody that knows where she is or what she’s doing.”
Ross made the emotional plea for information about her daughter’s whereabouts at the Bear Clan Patrol’s Selkirk Avenue headquarters in Winnipeg.
Family members said the evening she was last seen McKay was dropped off by her father at a birthday party in the area of Redwood Avenue and Main Street. She hasn’t had contact with family since then.
Christopher Ross, Jessie’s uncle, said the family has received many tips and said searchers, including Jessie’s father, have been scouring the city as well as Steinbach and Powerview, but they haven’t been able to find his niece.
“So there’s a lot of people that have come forward and hopefully more people will come to help,” he said.
Searchers have been meeting at the Bear Clan headquarters but those who want to take part are first asked to contact the group before showing up to help.
Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, the director of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls liaison unit for Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak (MKO), said she hopes the public will share any information they may have.
“So that Jessie McKay may be brought home safely to her family,” Anderson-Pyrz said. “Any tips the public may have or any types of support that the public can provide to Jessie’s family.”
“This is a very difficult journey for them to walk when their loved one is missing and we’re all praying it’s a good outcome – that she’s found safely.”
Anderson-Pyrz said it is difficult for the family financially to stay in the city. They are from Pimicikamak, 530 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
“We’re also doing a public call out for any type of financial resources that can be provided to the family as they continue the search for Jessie,” Anderson-Pyrz said. “As days pass on the family’s getting even more concerned."
Donnie McKay, a Pimicikamak Cree Nation councillor, said the community has been there for the family.
“Our community is very helpful in raising funds,” Coun. McKay said. “They raise money, the community, to give to the family here to continue to stay where they are and to keep the search going from their side.”
“Our community’s very helpful in that respect all the time. They will give their last $5 if need be to an emergency such as a missing person, such as missing Jessie here.”
The Winnipeg Police Service reported Jessie as a missing person Sep. 17. Police said she was last seen wearing a multicoloured hoodie — one that family members say was purple, white and light green — blue jeans and black Nike sneakers.
Police said McKay’s four-foot-eleven and weighs around 160 pounds. Officers said she has brown eyes and dyed red hair.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Winnipeg Police Service’s missing persons unit at 204-986-6250 or the Bear Clan at 204-794-3568.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Toxic testing standoff: Family leaves house over air quality
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
Decoy bear used to catch man who illegally killed a grizzly, B.C. conservation officers say
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
B.C. seeks ban on public drug use, dialing back decriminalization
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
OPP responds to apparent video of officer supporting anti-Trudeau government protestors
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide falls off a Delta Air Lines plane, forcing pilots to return to JFK in New York
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau on navigating post-political life, co-parenting and freedom
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
Last letters of pioneering climber who died on Everest reveal dark side of mountaineering
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Loud boom in Hamilton caused by propane tank, police say
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.