'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
Doctors say capital gains tax changes will jeopardize their retirement. Is that true?
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
Something in the water? Canadian family latest to spot elusive 'Loch Ness Monster'
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Fair in Ontario, flurries in Labrador: Weather systems make for an erratic spring
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
What do weight loss drugs mean for a diet industry built on eating less and exercising more?
Recent injected drugs like Wegovy and its predecessor, the diabetes medication Ozempic, are reshaping the health and fitness industries.
He replaced Mickey Mantle. Now baseball's oldest living major leaguer is turning 100
The oldest living former major leaguer, Art Schallock turns 100 on Thursday and is being celebrated in the Bay Area and beyond as the milestone approaches.
What a urologist wants you to know about male infertility
When opposite sex couples are trying and failing to get pregnant, the attention often focuses on the woman. That’s not always the case.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Made-in-Newfoundland vodka claims top prize at worldwide competition
A Newfoundland-made vodka has been named one of the world’s best by judges at this year’s World Vodka Awards.