Oromocto chief says she won't rest until murdered sister 'honoured'

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Oromocto First Nation Chief Shelley Sabattis says she won’t rest until her sister, the victim of a homicide on the weekend, is honoured and justice is served.

In an interview with Brunswick News on Tuesday, the long-serving chief of Oromocto, or Welamukotuk, said she was doing her best to remain strong, given the trauma her family has been through.

“My sister needs to be honoured because what they did to her, they shamed her, and I need to put my sister’s dignity back on the forefront,” she said. “This is for her. I’m not going to stop until the charges are racked right up.”

She also had choice words for Jared Smith, who’s been charged in the homicide. Smith, of Burton, made a brief telephone appearance on Monday in Fredericton Provincial Court. He’s been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Sheri Sabattis, the chief’s younger sister, and is being held at the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre.

Authorities say that on Saturday, at about 12:30 p.m., members of the Oromocto RCMP responded to a call for service at a residence at the First Nation, a short drive from the capital. When they arrived, “a 54-year-old woman from the community was discovered deceased,” according to a news release from the Mounties.

The chief attended Monday’s court session with other family members and friends, and acknowledged that she got upset and spoke out from the public gallery. She said she got angry when she thought a reporter from another news agency was writing down what she had been saying to her son. She then left to cool down in her vehicle.

Smith doesn’t have a lawyer yet, so the judge, Scott Brittain, remanded him in jail and booked his next court appearance for May 27.

The chief said her sister had been going through a very difficult time when she briefly disappeared and got mixed up with the wrong people, the victim of the illegal drug trade in her Indigenous community.

She’s angry at the RCMP for not enforcing her band council’s bylaws, which include a ban on certain non-Indigenous people they considered undesirable. She says Smith, 38, was on that list, signed by the chief and council.

She couldn’t remember how long he’d been on the banned list.

“The cops made it clear, when it comes to band council resolutions, in terms of banning undesirables from our community, it means absolutely nothing to them.”

Brunswick News asked RCMP to comment, but they did not provide a response by deadline on Tuesday.

However, police agencies follow the Criminal Code of Canada, which has no provisions for bylaws passed by First Nations. The issue is controversial, with Allan Polchies, the chief of St. Mary’s First Nation, or Sitansisk, also complaining the Fredericton Police Force won’t help his community keep bad characters out, such as drug dealers.

Sheri is my world. She was my best friend. We grew up very tight, right? But when my sister had a car accident it forever changed her life.

Shelley Sabattis

Sabattis says her sister had been very sick with cirrhosis of the liver in the days leading up to her death, and she had been trying to convince her to go to the hospital.

“The doctors were saying she should come in for treatment, but she wasn’t ready. She was staying with me until she was ready to go. But she left Tuesday or Wednesday last week, because she wanted to hide from me. I was insisting she go to the hospital. Her belly was swelled up like she was six or seven months pregnant, from her bad liver. So she was in very rough shape. She was very vulnerable.”

Sabattis said she was convinced she landed with a group of bad men who drugged her.

The chief said her sister, who worked at the Welamukotuk Food Bank and Resource Centre, struggled with addiction ever since a tragedy in 1994 that killed her fiancé, author Lorne Joseph Simon of Elsipogtog, or Big Cove First Nation.

“Sheri is my world. She was my best friend. We grew up very tight, right? But when my sister had a car accident it forever changed her life. She hadn’t pulled back from it since. She almost died, she lost her fiancé and her best friend in the accident. She was in the hospital quite a while, she had to relearn how to walk, her pelvis was shattered. Her face was swollen so bad, she was unrecognizable.”

The chief said her sister was in so much pain, she soon got hooked to painkillers and her life spiraled out of control, a problem with powerful prescription opiates that’s been documented extensively throughout Canada and the United States.

“That man, in that accident, was the love of her life. That’s the only thing that’s giving me a little bit of peace. I’m hoping she met him on the other side.”

Sheri’s two children, her son Alfred and daughter Jayde, were unharmed in the crash. But Sheri’s addiction to powerful painkillers led to further difficulties in the family.

“My sister struggled with raising her kids after that accident.”

Sheri’s daughter, Jayde Black-Sabattis, died at the age of 26 in March 2017 after consuming a large amount of alcohol. The chief believes she was the victim of foul play, but RCMP never charged anyone in her death.

The chief says she will go to every one of Smith’s court appearances. The large family – which includes Sheri’s two sisters and two brothers who are still alive – are numb.

And despite the trauma, she says she will not relinquish her duties as chief or temporarily pass on the responsibility to one of the seven councillors on the band council.

“At least I’m not alone. I have people around me.”