An end to domestic violence

The Importance of the Squeaky Wheel

It’s difficult to celebrate the conviction and sentencing of Derek Favell for the murder of Ashley Simpson when there are women still missing in the Salmon Arm/Enderby area. You can read the details of their cases here.

Ashley shared a terrible sisterhood with these women who went missing around the same time as she did. The Simpsons share their families’ common grief. The only difference between our family and theirs is that their loved ones are still missing while Ashley was found and Derek took the police to her body after a Mr. Big sting operation.

Now that the Simpson family’s ordeal is over, we have to ask the question: who will continue to advocate for these women? How do the families keep their cases in the public eye when everybody else goes home?

I believe the pressure our family put on the RCMP led someone high up in the organization to order a Mr. Big sting. Every year, we held a virtual vigil for Ashley reminding everyone that we would never stop looking for her, and would do everything in our power to see her murderer brought to justice. In an interview on CBC radio, on the fifth anniversary of Ashley’s disappearance, I said that I would never stop advocating for her as long as I lived. The family echoed that sentiment in interviews that appeared in the national and local media. Just weeks later, the RCMP launched Mr. Big which ultimately led to the arrest of Derek Favell.

We never blamed the local RCMP officers who pulled out all the stops looking for Ashley. I believe they still continue to look for the others who went missing, but they are hamstrung by a lack of money and resources. Cold case investigations don’t come cheap, and they can be tricky in getting convictions so the cops don’t take launching them lightly.

Ashley’s case wasn’t easy even though everyone, and I mean everyone, knew that Derek had killed her and disposed of her body. The markers were all there but it was difficult to prove his guilt because he didn’t report her for several days which gave him enough time to clean up the mess and dump her body like trash on the side of the road.

Ashley was also vulnerable, lived in a trailer in a remote location, and was new to the area. She had few friends, all of whom were friends of Derek Favell. From the outset, it was clear his bros weren’t about to throw Derek under the bus even if they suspected him. His family was also happy enough to provide cover for Derek, and help him dispose of the evidence.

Derek portrayed himself as a dim-witted luckless victim when he in fact was a master manipulator. When he was in town, he spread vicious lies about Ashley, and then disappeared from sight, moving North for a time, reportedly hiding on reserve at other times.

In the meantime, some members of the community were more than happy to spread rumors about Ashley and her character — or speculate ludicrously that she had somehow hitched a ride out of town.

The Simpsons knew Derek did it from the time Ashley’s sister Amanda arrived on the scene and was cussed out and threatened by his mother. He didn’t lift a finger to help look for her, wouldn’t take a lie detector and just burrowed in the dirt like a worm on a hot day.

In spite of all odds, we never gave up. Ashley’s parents could give a master class on speaking to the media. Equipped just with our voices, an Internet connection, phones and a Facebook group, we turned a local murder mystery into a national conversation about domestic violence in Canada.

That is why Ashley was finally found, and Derek was convicted.

It’s the old adage about the squeaky wheel.

We were very squeaky indeed.

The families of the women who are still missing have an uphill battle. My only advice is to keep their cases alive through social media, which is where we gathered our strength in numbers. Members of the Facebook community Justice for Ashley Simpson has nearly two thousand members and the group has been instrumental in helping the Simpson family raise money and awareness not just about Ashley’s case, but about the others. Our hope is the group will continue to advocate on behalf of the women who are left behind.

We are grateful to the local media in the Okanagan who have been instrumental in keeping Ashley’s case alive over the years. They covered every vigil, and took every call from the Simpsons. Many of the stories were picked up by the national media, as well as APTN which has done a terrific job in reporting about murdered and missing indigenous women.

The Simpson motto is: Never Give Up. We never have, and we never will. Our focus will change in the coming years, and we will continue to advocate for the families of the women who are still missing.

Just one other point. These cases provide a cautionary tale to families everywhere. It is simply terrifying to think that even a woman as resilient and street smart as Ashley could been taken from us in such a horrific manner.

What’s to become of women and girls who are even more vulnerable: the homeless, the drug addicted, the estranged and the unloved? Or immigrant women who are forced into isolation because of their difficulties with language, and their cultural norms?

We have a lot of work to do as a society in keeping boys, girls, women, and LGBTQ people safe. We don’t need another commission. We need to teach kids from an early age to respect each other and problem-solve without violence. We need community workers not just police officers to deal with issues of domestic violence. And we desperately need solutions for boys, girls and women living in rural and remote communities.

In the end, it’s up to each of us to do something when we see something — even when the terror lurks within our own homes. We need to feel safe enough to make a call, and we need a social service structure that responds quickly and knowledgeable to threats of violence.

It’s a big ask, of course.

But we can make a difference, one squeaky wheel at a time.