70 Days: Sarah Beaulieu’s GPR Survey (on May 21-23, 2021)
On May 21-23, 2021, GPR operator Sarah Beaulieu completed her GPR survey. It was believed that “through her experience [she] was able to guess fairly accurately the sizes of the children who were buried in the unmarked graveyard and some of them from her experience looked to be between three to four years old”, Ted Gottfriedson Jr. stated. It appears, therefore, that Beaulieu misled the Kamloops Indian Band. Sarah Beaulieu asserted the following: “I think the moment was when we were doing a walk through of the site [in the apple orchard] with the community and the silence, the silence was significant and it was in this moment that you realized that this was awful”.
69 Days: The Dissemination of the GPR Results (on May 24, 2021)
Jeanette Jules told Many Jules and Diena Jules informed Ted Gottfriedson about “The 215”.
68 Days: Embargoing the Press Release (May 25-26, 2021)
In Tanya Talaga’s book “The Knowing”, it is revealed that Racelle Kooy controlled media communications. Talaga was one of the journalists who was contacted while the Press Release was embargoed on May 25 and 26. This Press Release was then given as a “scoop” to James Peters on May 27, 2021.
67 Days: How the RCMP Responded
The RCMP was contacted on May 26, 2021, one day before the Press Release was provided to the media (through CFJC journalist James Peters). Publicly, the RCMP was declaring that a “discovery” had been made.
Behind the scenes, on May 27, 2021, the RCMP was more cautious and referred to “215 hits [that] are unconfirmed at this time…”.
66 Days: CFJC James Peters’ “Scoop” (released May 27, 2021, at 3:59 p.m.)
James Peters and Dylana Kneeshaw were both involved in disseminating articles based on the Kamloops Indian Band’s Press Release on May 27, 2021. Kneeshaw is married to a Kamloops Indian Band member, and Peters is an advocacy journalist.
65 Days: The Control of the Media
Kooy also controlled communications on July 15, 2021, when Sarah Beaulieu released her findings.
65 Days: Is the B.C. Coroner Involved?
On May 28, 2021, the Coroner initially talked about the “discovery of a burial site”, and then it backed away from an investigation because there was no evidence of remains. An expert in the Coroner’s Office told Drea Humphrey that GPR cannot detect remains. This, however, was not stated publicly to correct the record.
