Just Another Indian: A Serial Killer and Canada's Indifference

"It seems any time a Native is murdered, it isn't a major case. . . It's just another dead Indian." -- Justine English, sister of murder victim Mary Jane Serloin John Martin Crawford is a serial sex killer, but his crimes have gone almost unnoticed in the media and he is currently serving out his three concurrent life sentences in virtual anonymity. In addition to a prior sentence for manslaughter, Crawford has been convicted of three murders, all of them women, all of them Native. He is also suspected in at least three other murders or mysterious disappearances of aboriginal women. His name should be as notorious as those of Paul Bernardo and Charles Ng. Yet few people have heard of him. Author Warren Goulding raises disturbing questions about racism in both the police force and the media treatment of John Crawford and his victims. He lays bare the assumptions and attitudes that resulted not only in Crawford's obscurity, but the public dismissal of the deaths of Mary Jane Serloin, Shelley Napope, Eva Taysup, and Calinda Waterhen. The result is a gripping and disquieting book that questions the value a predominantly white society places on aboriginal lives. Saskatchewan Book Award winner Non-Fiction category, 2001

About the Author :
Warren Goulding's work has appeared in Canadian publications including: Macleans, the Globe and Mail, and various newspapers across the country. He has also written for the Hong Kong Sunday Morning Post and several business magazines in Canada. Currently, Goulding is the publisher of the Chemainus Courier, a monthly community newspaper, and the Associate Editor of the Eagle Feather News, a Saskatchewan publication dealing with topics of interest to First Nation and Metis communities.

Review :
"In the flawlessly structured and clearly argued Just Another Indian, author Warren Goulding, who covered the Crawford trial for Maclean's magazine describes the discovery of the remains, the police investigation, and Crawford's eventual capture, trial, and imprisonment. But this book is more than a true-crime tome: Goulding visited the families of the victims, and he used their memories (and a series of letters written by the 16-year-old Napope) to paint intimate portraits of the women. These Life stories are central to the book's purpose, which is to illustrate media indifference to these women (when their deaths were so briefly mentioned, even though some weren't)." "It seems any time a Native is murdered, it isn't a major case. It's just another dead Indian."