‘I heard her scream:’ JSCN member frustrated at inquest

Courtney McLeod was left in tears after the inquest into the James Smith Cree Nation stabbings wrapped up for the day on Monday.

Testimony that opened the inquest’s second week covered the responses from highway and conservation officers and emergency services like paramedics and the Saskatchewan Health Authority to the mass stabbing that left 11 dead and 17 hurt.

McLeod said what she heard left her frustrated.

She said witnesses told the inquest that first responders and emergency services worked to get in touch with the family member of victims, but she said no one ever contacted her or her parents about her sister, who was hurt in the attacks on Sept. 4, 2022.

On that day, McLeod was on the First Nation. She said her husband’s aunt and cousin were both hurt, and the couple took them to the hospital themselves.

“We tried stopping the ambulance. We tried stopping the cops. They wouldn’t stop, so I said, ‘No, they need to be at the hospital. We’re taking them,’ ” explained McLeod.

“I didn’t phone 911 because I knew they were busy. I phoned directly to the hospital and I told them that, ‘I’m bringing in two patients that were stabbed and we should be there shortly.’ ”

They went to Melfort and got the two into the hospital. She said an ambulance arrived a short time later.

Courtney McLeod said she wasn’t contacted by emergency services even though her sister was among the victims. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

“How I found out my sister was stabbed was hearing her scream at the hospital,” said McLeod.

She said her family had no idea that her sister had been attacked. She and her parents thought she was at home sleeping.

Her sister is Chantelle Constant. Both she and her boyfriend were stabbed multiple times by Myles Sanderson while they were sleeping. As they ran from the house, the RCMP said Constant took the keys out of the stolen truck Myles was driving, hoping to stop him from chasing them.

When she heard her sister scream in the hospital, McLeod said she screamed too.

“I wanted to fall down, but I couldn’t. My husband held me,” she said.

Eventually she was able to see her sister, but describing what she saw in the hospital, even more than a year later, reduced McLeod to tears Monday.

“I went to the back – just walking back there, seeing everything,” she said through tears.

“Seeing them all laying in the bed, being worked on. It was tough seeing them laying there, blood on the floor, bleeding, open wounds.”

Chantelle survived, but McLeod said she doesn’t talk about what happened.