Nunavut MMIWG witness laments decade-old unresolved death

“Why is it that men hurt women? I thought the point of a union is loving and caring”

By SARAH ROGERS

Della Ootoova is pictured here in an undated photo taken in her hometown of Pond Inlet. The woman died in Iqaluit in 2008 at age 46. “We used to laugh together,” said her sister-in-law Sophie Nashook. “She was a good friend.” (HANDOUT PHOTO)


Della Ootoova is pictured here in an undated photo taken in her hometown of Pond Inlet. The woman died in Iqaluit in 2008 at age 46. “We used to laugh together,” said her sister-in-law Sophie Nashook. “She was a good friend.” (HANDOUT PHOTO)

RANKIN INLET—It’s been almost a decade since Sophie Nashook lost her good friend and sister-in-law, but she said justice has never been served.

The Pond Inlet woman testified before the National Inquiry on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls on Wednesday, Feb. 21, its second day of hearings in Rankin Inlet.

Nashook’s sister-in-law, Della Ootoova, was a student at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit, where she lived with her husband and two children.

On June 7, 2008, police discovered Ootoova’s body on the floor of her home.

Her husband, Amos Ootoova, was initially charged with second degree murder, but that charge was stayed the following day.

“It seems there was a drinking party, whereby her husband beat her to death,” Nashook told the commission Feb. 21. “We wanted to know what violence was done to her body.”

But her family, based in both Pond Inlet and Iqaluit, had to wait a full year to receive the coroner’s report. Before the report was completed, Ootoova’s husband Amos had died.

The final report showed that Della Ootoova had blunt-force injuries to her entire body, though Nashook said she could never bring herself to read it.

Ootoova’s death remains unresolved.

“Why is it that men hurt women? I thought the point of a union is loving and caring,” Nashook told the commission.

“It’s very, very fearful when we get beaten up in a drunken state. There’s no place to go. There’s no shelter. There’s no one to talk to. So we lose our strength and a train of thought to plan some sort of escape.”

Nashook made two recommendations as part of her testimony. First, she said coroner’s reports must be produced and provided to families of victims in a much shorter time period.

Second, Nashook called for permanent mental-health support services in Nunavut communities.

“Once the counselling was over, I would have no one to do the after care with,” she said of her experience in Pond Inlet following Ootoova’s death.

“I had nowhere else to seek that help.”

The inquiry’s hearings continue in Rankin Inlet until Feb. 22. Its toll-free support line is open 24 hours a day at 1-844-413-6649.

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