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In 10 years, Johnny Wylde has never changed his phone number.
He says he never will.
It’s the same one he had on April 23, 2014, the day his daughter, Sindy Ruperthouse, went missing.
Even though a decade has passed, he still keeps the ringer on, the phone glued to his hip.
“She knows what my number is if she’s still alive,” said Wylde, taking a pause. “I don’t know what to think.”
All Wylde wants to hear is Ruperthouse’s voice on the other end of the line — a woman his family remembers as a caring big sister who loved life and made her parents proud.
He says his family needs closure and that it was not like her to skip town.
Wylde thinks there’s only a one per cent chance she’s still alive.
Ruperthouse, an Algonquin woman from the Pikogan community in northwestern Quebec, was last seen April 23, 2014, at the hospital in Val-d’Or, Que. The 44-year-old had been injured with multiple broken ribs.
Wylde and his wife, Émilie Ruperthouse Wylde, last spoke to her by phone, when she asked for money to bail her boyfriend out of jail, says Wylde. They had refused.
“Today we think about that,” said Wylde.
Her parents allege she was beaten by her boyfriend — who they have since written to, begging for information.
For years, Wylde travelled across Quebec, putting up billboards and conducting searches in forests and cities in the James Bay area, Montreal, Quebec City and Ottawa.
“Every big city [but] I didn’t find her,” said Wylde.
“The family encouraged me to do that. If I’m still alive, I’m going to do everything.”
A few days before the anniversary of her disappearance, Wylde received a call from provincial police who informed him that the $40,000 reward first issued by Sun Youth would be reinstated for anyone who has information that can lead to finding Ruperthouse.
A news release from provincial police says Ruperthouse’s case remains the subject of an investigation, and since April 1, 2020, has been under the division of disappearances and unsolved cases.
“Since the start, several searches and verifications have been carried out in an attempt to find her,” read the release.
But Wylde says not enough was done to find her.
“We just want to know,” he said.
‘It’s like running out of air,’ says sister
Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête looked into her case, in the process, uncovering a larger story about allegations of assault by police against Indigenous women.
“If I put my energy on the SQ [Sûreté du Québec], I’m gonna get mad all the time,” said Wylde.
“They do what they want to do, and I do what I have to do. I’ve been waiting for 10 years … and nothing happened.”
He says the case has changed investigators five times. No one has ever been charged.
Joan Wylde, Ruperthouse’s youngest sister, says they didn’t get answers from police.
“The police never told us anything,” said Wylde.
She says her sister’s disappearance “hurts like it was yesterday.”
“We need to know. You can’t live like this. It’s like running out of air. That’s how we feel,” said Wylde, speaking with Radio-Canada.
A decade after her sister disappeared, Joan Wylde says her family is still trying to heal.
She says finding out what happened will provide the family with closure.
But she fears that her parents, now elderly, won’t be around when the truth finally comes to light.
“My father doesn’t even go into the woods anymore because there’s no signal,” says Wylde.
She says he’s always looking at his cell phone, “afraid he’ll miss the call if they ever find Sindy.”
“It shakes us so much that we don’t even have words, you don’t even know how to continue living,” said Wylde, her voice quivering.
“I want my sister to come home. That’s what I always say. I pray all the time that Sindy returns. It’s time.”
‘There is no mechanism for accountability,’ says senator
The family’s efforts have had far-reaching consequences, helping to shine a light on policing problems in the Val-d’Or area and, ultimately, prompting the Viens Commission — the provincial inquiry into the way Indigenous people are treated by police and other authorities.
Channelling his grief, in 2018, Johnny Wylde travelled to Montreal to testify at the federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls to tell his daughter’s story. Over the years, he says he’s helped search for other missing Indigenous women.
Senator Michèle Audette, one of the five commissioners responsible for the federal inquiry, says cases like Ruperthouse’s which have dragged on for years act as a reminder for the need to “shake the system from inside.”
Audette, who is Innu from Uashat mak Mani-Utenam, says there is still an absence of data for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, as well as a lack of commitment.
“There’s always a new face, a new beautiful person on Facebook that we’re looking for,” said Audette.
“It doesn’t stop, it doesn’t slow down. My feeling [is] it’s not stable. My feeling is it’s increasing.”
She says it’s frustrating not having the same power as some levels of government to enact change in policy and approach.
“I can ask, I can demand, but they’re the one with the priorities,” said Audette.
“There is no mechanism for accountability.”
Support is available for anyone affected by these reports and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Immediate emotional assistance and crisis support are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a national hotline at 1-844-413-6649.
You can also access, through the government of Canada, health support services such as mental health counselling, community-based support and cultural services, and some travel costs to see elders and traditional healers. Family members seeking information about a missing or murdered loved one can access Family Information Liaison Units.
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