SASKATOON, Saskatchewan – The list of those killed includes Earl Burns, 66, a school bus driver in an indigenous community who was injured in a stabbing incident, who tried to get on the bus and go towards a village for help. He died along the way and the bus swerved off the gravel road. It was still there, sitting in the ditch with a police cruiser beside it, covered in road dust.
Mr Burns was just one of six members of an extended family killed in Sunday’s knife attack.
According to court records, one of his killers was also his family.
One of the suspects, Myles Sanderson, is the common-law husband of Mr Burns’ daughter, and he told a parole board that released him early this year that he intends to reunite with her. He and his brother, Damien, were both formally charged in the attacks.
Myles, 32, is said to be still growing. Damien, 31, was found stabbed to death – presumably at the hands of his brother – on Monday.
On Wednesday, Canadian authorities released the identities of 10 people killed in riots in the western province of Saskatchewan, and the condition of 18 injured, among them Joyce, Burns’ wife. Ten people remain in hospital, with three in critical condition, according to the Saskatchewan Health Authority. All but one of the victims lived in an indigenous community, the James Smith Cree Nation.
It wasn’t the Burns’ first confrontation with Myles Sanderson.
In January 2015, according to court documents, Mr. Sanderson was charged with attempted murder after police said he stabbed his father-in-law several times and injured his mother-in-law. The filing does not give a reason for the assault.
Six of those killed Sunday were members of the Burns family. Some are in their 20s, at the beginning of their adult lives. Others are older, enjoying their retirement.
Among them is Gloria Burns, 61, who has counseled people dealing with drug, alcohol and gambling addictions, and who raised five adopted children as a single mother.
r.
On Tuesday, a large white tent was set up to wake Miss Burns sitting in front of her brother Ivor’s house. As it shook in a fierce wind, her family members sitting inside recalled their lost sister, one of the indigenous community’s cultural leaders.
Made by Mrs. Burns sweat ceremony and the holder of one of the sanctuaries ceremonial tube. Before her body was removed from the site of Sunday’s attack, her family held a healing circle and conducted traditional Cree rituals. The family said it was not clear when investigators would remove her body.
A biological brother, Darryl, said his sister was killed while trying to help two other victims of the attack, Bonnie Burns and her son, Gregory.
Bonnie Burns was stabbed twice and died outside her home on Sunday morning, next to Gregory, who was stabbed first, said her half-brother, Mark Arcand, chief of the Saskatoon Tribal Council. She was survived by her husband, Brian Burns, and their three young sons, one of whom, Dason, was stabbed in the neck and survived.
“She’s protecting her son, she’s protecting these three little boys – this is why she’s a hero,” Mr Arcand said at a press conference on Wednesday, the voiceover His sometimes breaks. “She is a true matriarch of the First Nations way of life.”
Bonnie Burns works at the local school and is a foster parent of two, in addition to raising her own four, Mr. Arcand said. Gregory Burns, known to the community as “Jonesy,” is a father of two and is expecting a third child, he said.
The oldest victims of the rampage were not members of the Burns family or of the Indigenous reserve. His name is Wesley Petterson, and he’s 78 years old.
Mr. Peterson runs a coffee shop in the nearby village of Weldon. The former operator of that town’s long-standing gas station, he had previously worked as a corrugated iron roofer.
Mr Peterson has been described by neighbors as a bird lover who has campaigned against tree cutting in the area and is a happily attached person to their community.
A small flower memorial now sits outside his house at the end of a dusty street leading to a pair of abandoned wooden elevators.
“This man didn’t deserve to die like this,” a Ruby Works friend said as she brought a bouquet of sunflowers to his memorial on Monday night.
Ian Austen and Dan Bilefsky contributions from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Vjosa Isai contributions from Toronto.
