What Really Happened to Chelsea Poorman? Found Abandoned on Mansion Porch 31:37

Hello, everyone, and welcome back. I'm so happy to have you with me here to discuss yet another case. And if you're new, then welcome. So today we're going to be talking about the murder of Chelsea Poorman. This is a case out of Canada about a murdered indigenous woman that desperately needs more attention.

attention there is no justice in this case and it is very frustrating i'll give you that warning in advance so chelsea poorman was born october 12 1995 in saskatoon saskatchewan and she was a part of the kawakatoos first nation she was born to her mother sheila poorman and her father mike kiernan and had two sisters named paige and diamond

Now, at a very young age, Chelsea and her sisters were placed in foster care while their mother battled cancer and addiction.

But eventually she did get sober. She completed her education and she was able to get a job. And so she did regain custody of her children. I couldn't find a lot of information about her father or his role in their life, but I do know that he did take her disappearance very seriously. And we will talk more about that later on. Chelsea was a very remarkable person, a very kind person.

person. She was known to always go out of her way to help others and just be nice to people in general. In fact, her mom talked about how she used to bring hot coffee to their neighbors when temperatures got really low. And she loved doing things like that. Chelsea was also a natural born protector. And she was the type of person that would stand up for people who were bullied.

She always made sure that everyone around her was treated with respect and her kindness also extended to animals. And she was known to bring home strays any chance she could. Chelsea was also a very organized and neat person in general, especially when it came to her lifestyle. Like she always had checklists. She kept track of everything.

And she had a lot of dreams for her future and what she wanted to be one day. In her mind, she was destined to become a fashion designer or musician. And she loved to put together outfits and also loved to listen to music. She had a real passion for music.

arts in general, but especially music. And she really hoped that one day she would make a career out of it. However, Chelsea did have a lot of challenges in her life. And one of the biggest challenges she faced was when she got in a terrible accident in 2014. She was just innocently walking home from a friend's house one day when a very large truck hit her. And as you can imagine, the injuries were

Just terrible. She had two broken legs, a fractured skull, and traumatic brain injury. It was so bad that when she first was rushed to the hospital, the doctors didn't even know if she would make it.

but she beat the odds and survived. And also after this, her goals kind of changed a little bit and she thought she might want to be a paramedic after her life was saved by one. And even though she did survive, this forever altered her life because she ended up with two metal rods, one in each leg. And also her arm was permanently bent at a 90 degree angle.

But even though she walked with a limp and couldn't travel very far distances on her own, she still beat the odds. And doctors were surprised that she was able to live the life that she did leading up to her disappearance. She did have to use a cane to get around.

But Chelsea did not let this stop her from achieving her goals. The same year that she was in that accident, she graduated high school. Now, unfortunately, even though her physical health did start to improve over the years, her mental health really started to decline. Like I said, Chelsea had a really difficult life. And in 2018, she was assaulted and suffered from very severe PTSD after this. And obviously having both PTSD

physical disabilities and severe PTSD made life very difficult for her. And eventually she resorted to drugs and alcohol to cope. But Chelsea knew that she did not want to live life this way. And again, I want to say addiction is a disease. And every time I say this, people fight with me in the comments. There's always people that comment saying it's the person's choice. It's their fault.

And it's not a disease, but the American Medical Association actually classified alcoholism as a disease in 1956 and then included addiction as a disease in 1987. And in 2011, the American Society of Addiction Medicine defined addiction as a chronic brain disorder, not a behavior problem or the result of making bad choices.

I just have to say this because honestly, it's offensive to me personally that people say things like this. I have several family members who are addicted to drugs and alcohol, and it has been so horrific for my family over the years. It's very emotional for me to even talk about. I've, you know, pretty much lost these people and, um,

The fact that people continue to put blame on those with addiction and shame them just really upsets me. And people like Chelsea fall victim to addiction all the time. I just had to say that because those comments drive me absolutely nuts, but...

Let me get back to the case here. So in 2020, Chelsea's mom was living in Vancouver and her sister Paige decided to move there as well. And one month later on July 14th, Chelsea moved there too so that she could be closer to her family and also seek help for her mental health because Vancouver just had so many more options for her. And by this time she was really starting to get control of her addiction.

After her move, she saw a doctor and they put her on Suboxone, which is a drug that is used to treat addiction to help with narcotic dependence. Suboxone is not a cure for addiction by any means, but it helps a lot. It helps people to kind of mitigate the symptoms of withdrawal.

and help with their cravings. And this was a big step for Chelsea in her battle against addiction. And at this time, she also opened her own bank account and was in the process of getting new copies of her ID, which are all things that suggest that she was really getting her life back on track. And she even signed up to start attending film school. However, she never got the chance to actually start.

So that brings us to Sunday, September 6th, 2020. And it was the end of Labor Day weekend and Chelsea and her sister Paige were going to meet up for dinner at a pub called the Alibi Room. And obviously at this time, COVID was still a concern internationally. However, numbers in Canada were kind of on the decline. And so we're going to be talking about the Alibi Room.

And so restaurants began opening up again. So after the two of them grabbed dinner, they decided they wanted to get drinks somewhere else. So they went to a bar at the Belmont Hotel, which is located just over a mile and a half apart from one another. And I imagine the girls took some sort of Uber, Lyft,

cab, something like that, because this would have been too far of a distance for Chelsea to walk comfortably. The Belmont Hotel is located on Granville Street, and it's in an area known as the Entertainment District. And over the years, this area has seen its fair share of sketchy shit. In fact, a recent study by a patrol team in the Granville area showed that nearly 90% of people said they don't feel safe there. Now, I can't say for certain if Chelsea felt that way, but...

But with her physical disability, she was undoubtedly vulnerable. So after she and Paige finished up at the Belmont, they decided to go to an apartment two blocks away located at the cross streets of Granville and Davie. And because of Chelsea's physical condition, it took them 20 minutes to walk these two blocks. And I bring this up only because it will be important to consider later on.

So the apartment that they went to belonged to a friend of Paige's and they got there around midnight. However, Chelsea's time there did not last long. This is one of those cases where there are different sources reporting different things. Some sources say that Chelsea and Paige got into some sort of fight and Chelsea left because of that. Some sources say that she just decided to up and leave. But either way, as soon as Paige realized that she was gone, she immediately called her because she

This was not an area that her sister should be walking in alone. When she called her, Chelsea did end up answering the phone, but her response was pretty strange. She told Paige to leave her alone and said that she was with her new bae. Now what's confusing here is sources say that Chelsea was living with her boyfriend at the time.

But we're not sure if the new bae she's referring to is her current boyfriend or someone completely different. But whoever it was, they have still not come forward. And if you had nothing to do with what happened to her or you were the last person to see her alive, why not come forward?

The call between Paige and Chelsea was short and it was at 1257 AM. And this was the last time that Chelsea was heard from the next day, Monday, September 7th, nobody could get ahold of her. And this was very uncommon for,

Chelsea did go off grid sometimes, but even when she did that, she always managed to check in. So this was unlike her. There had been one other instance where her family believed that she was missing, but this was when she was deep into her addiction. And even then she did eventually call and check in with them.

And keep in mind, around this time, like we talked about earlier, Chelsea was really getting her life back together. So for her to be gone without saying a word meant that something was wrong. So on September 8th, they reported her missing to the Vancouver Police Department. And if you are familiar with any of my coverage, really, on missing Indigenous people...

especially missing indigenous women, you will not be shocked to hear this. It took 10 days for the Vancouver police to issue any sort of public notice about Chelsea's disappearance. And they told the Poorman family that they wanted to wait to publicly announce her disappearance because if she was at risk, they were worried that bringing attention to it could make her situation worse, which honestly doesn't make any sense. If she's at risk,

That's all the more reason to get the word out. But finally, on September 18th, the police did release a statement saying that Chelsea Poorman was last seen on September 7th in the entertainment district. She has black hair, weighs approximately 120 pounds, is 5'3", and was last seen carrying a beige colored purse.

And in her report, her mother, Sheila, begged that they take action, especially because her daughter's physical condition makes her more vulnerable. She knew that if her daughter were attacked, she would not be able to fight back. And so Sheila knew they had to do something right away. But sadly, that is not what happened. Chelsea Poorman's case was not taken seriously from the beginning, which we see so often.

And even after her remains were found, which we will get to here in a sec,

police continued to fail her. The so-called investigation into Chelsea's disappearance was minimal at best, even though the police tried to say it was detailed and complex. The most specific answers found while looking into her disappearance came from cell phone records. This data said that Chelsea's phone last pinged in an area near East Hastings Street by Victory Square Park. However, this ping could have included an area several miles long. But unfortunately,

nothing really came of this discovery. It wasn't until November 2020 that her case was moved from the missing persons unit to the major crimes section. And that's because it took that long for Chelsea to be deemed a vulnerable person. The major crime section had more resources that could go into looking for her, which is great, but her mother was still frustrated because it took them months to consider her vulnerable, even though she told them that Chelsea was vulnerable from the beginning.

And the Poormans also believe that the police lied about a lot of the efforts that they actually took. Vancouver PD says that in an effort to locate Chelsea, they lost her.

They looked into phone records, bank records, interviewed people she was associated with, conducted extensive video canvases by looking at surveillance footage from the businesses where she was last seen. But Chelsea's dad, Mike, says that these extensive video canvases never actually happened. Mike actually left Saskatchewan and drove more than 18 hours to Vancouver and lived in his van while he helped look for his daughter.

And while in Vancouver, Mike went to Granville Street and talked with every business owner and tried to see if police actually did what they say they did. And sadly, he wasn't really that surprised to find out that none of these business owners remembered the police talking to them about Chelsea's case. And none of these business owners were asked for any surveillance footage that they might have had.

He even said that a missing persons flyer of Chelsea that was once hung up at the police station was removed and replaced with an ad for $20 Vancouver police sunglasses. So clearly Vancouver police are sending the message that these sunglasses are worth more than Chelsea's life. And if it sounds like I haven't described much about the investigation, it's because we don't know much. There is barely any information about what the police actually did, if they actually really did anything.

Besides a handful of interviews, checking in on cell phone records, and pulling the surveillance footage, which we know they probably didn't even do, there is barely...

if not any information available about what was actually done to locate her. The reality was at this time the only people who really seemed to care about Chelsea's disappearance for the most part was the indigenous community. However, support for Chelsea's case did pick up a little bit eventually and I hope that support only continues to grow by telling her story. Chelsea's friends, family, and community handed out business cards and flyers advertising a $10,000 reward for information

And for well over a year, they did what they could to raise awareness. One year after her disappearance, her supporters held a march to hopefully raise awareness about her case. And they walked from Granville, where she was last seen, and then to Victory Square Park. On October 12th, 2021, which would have been Chelsea's 26th

birthday, that same group of people came together in the area where she was last seen to hang up posters. Her mother, Sheila, has really been the forefront for all of these efforts, and she really seems to be stopping at nothing when it comes to looking for answers. On February 14th of 2022, so very recently, Sheila and Paige attended the annual Women's Memorial March in downtown Eastside Vancouver, which honors the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Around a thousand people gathered Monday in Vancouver's downtown Eastside to remember countless women missing or murdered, particularly Indigenous women who were murdered at a significantly higher rate. On this, the 31st annual march, people are grieving the women they've lost in their lives and are still crying out for answers. Still, our women and children are going missing each and every year. There's an increasing number. We're into the thousands across this country so far.

and there has been very little, if any, reporting, investigating, charges laid. So we are here to honour those women and their families today. You don't even know where to start to look for her body. Sheila Poorman has been looking for her daughter Chelsea since she went missing on the Granville Strip in September 2020. I want the people to know, especially the ones who know something about Chelsea's disappearance, I want them to know that...

They're hurting the family right now. Like, we are so hurt and we're not living, you know, our lives the way that we should be living. Talking to other parents helps that have missing and murdered children.

And I hope that most of you know at this point that there is an epidemic when it comes to missing and murdered indigenous girls and women. Studies show that in North America, indigenous women and girls are disproportionately the victims of femicide. In Canada alone, indigenous women are murdered at a rate of almost six times higher than any other group of women. And the statistics in the United States are equally as appalling.

It is so hard to report on these cases because there is such little information available because there's barely any reporting. And the lack of mainstream media coverage when it comes to indigenous cases only feeds into the idea that indigenous people don't matter, which is very inaccurate. I mean, considering indigenous women and girls go missing and are murdered at much higher rates, their story should be overwhelming in the news cycle.

but they aren't. Another example of how indigenous women aren't treated the same when they go missing has to do with serial killer Robert Pickton. If you aren't familiar with him, he was convicted after killing 49 women in Canada. And it's believed that he was able to get away with killing for so long and so many people because most of his victims were either indigenous or sex workers.

And Robert Pickton even took most of his victims from the downtown East area, which is where Chelsea was last seen. And even though he was arrested in 2002, almost two decades before Chelsea went missing, the Vancouver police and many other police departments don't seem like they have changed

at all when it comes to caring about missing indigenous women since then. One statistic that absolutely shocked me was in 2016, out of 5,712 indigenous women who were reported missing, only 116 cases

logged into namus so in an effort to raise awareness for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls organizations have started holding rallies and marches and are even creating databases for those not represented in mainstream databases and holding rallies and marches is exactly what the poorman family did to continue to raise awareness about chelsea's disappearance

And they continued to do that even after her remains were found. On April 22nd, 2022, almost exactly one year ago, Chelsea's body was found by a contractor in the backyard of a vacant mansion located in the Shaughnessy neighborhood of Vancouver. This mansion was located only three miles from where she was last seen. And as you can imagine, Chelsea's remains were found pretty badly decomposed because she had just been left there

on a patio for over a year and a half. And this is shocking yet not shocking at the same time, but the police didn't contact Chelsea's family right away when they found her remains. They waited two weeks to let them know. Two weeks! Her body was found April 22nd. Her family didn't know until May 6th. And regardless of what you think happened to Chelsea, a lot of people don't think there was foul play.

Either way, not contacting the family when you find remains is just wrong. It's disgusting. It's so upsetting and a reality that so many families have to deal with. Of course, they told Sheila that they waited so long to tell them because they wanted to confirm it was her, but that is such bullshit.

First of all, she was still wearing the clothing that she was wearing the night that she disappeared, which obviously they have on record. Second of all, if they were so confused about her identification, why not call the family to help them identify her remains? In a press conference, Sergeant Steve Addison said that the Vancouver Coroner's Service was called right away, but due to the severe decomposition of her body, they would likely never know where

what her cause of death was. He also stated that based on evidence collected during their investigation over the past 20 months, her death is officially being considered not suspicious. They had her body for two weeks, seemingly did no real autopsy, and then somehow concluded that her death was not suspicious, which in my opinion,

is suspicious on their part. However, he does say that her case isn't closed and he encourages anyone with any information to come forward, which let me translate that for you. That means they are not planning to do any investigative work unless someone magically decides they want to come forward. But here's the thing about her not suspicious death that is very suspicious. For starters, how did Chelsea, who is disabled, get from this party that she was at at an apartment

to a mansion three miles away, and why? Her family says that she couldn't have done that due to her physical condition. Also, who is this new bae person? No one knows who this is. That is suspicious. Did he take her there? Did he kill her? Did she...

die there and he just left her there. I mean, what happened? There's a huge question mark about that. And to just go ahead and say that it's not suspicious is so weird to me, so irresponsible. And sadly, like I said, just not shocking at all. Also, she was found on the backpack

patio of that mansion. How did she get there? This house was vacant, as I mentioned, but it had a large metal gate and very high hedges. And with Chelsea's arm being bent permanently at 90 degrees, she wouldn't have been able to climb or slip through these metal bars. And here's the real kicker. When her body was found, police told her mom...

that she was missing parts of her skull as well as a few fingers, which literally screams foul play. Even if you believe there wasn't foul play, decomposition would not have cracked her skull the way that it was. And missing fingers? Of course, there will be people that argue that this could have been an animal, and yes, that's possible, but she wasn't in the middle of the woods. It was the backyard of a mansion.

in one of the richest neighborhoods. None of this adds up to me, I'm sure it doesn't add up to you, and it certainly doesn't add up to her friends and family. So on May 8th, 2022, there was a vigil held for Chelsea just outside of the mansion where she was found. Not only was this intended to celebrate her life, but it was also meant to draw attention to the injustice that occurs when indigenous women are found dead

and nothing is done to find their killer. Sunday afternoon, the indigenous and non-indigenous community came together to mourn the death of Chelsea Poorman, who was found at this vacant property by a contractor on April 22nd.

Poorman went missing on September 6, 2020 and her body was found here over a year and a half later. Vancouver police say they consider her death to be not suspicious. Investigators believe Chelsea died on the property the night she disappeared or shortly after. If that had been a non-First Nations woman, if that had been a white woman in a ditch with no person, no shoes, you better believe that's going to be a suspicious death. And why is it not suspicious for our people when our people go missing?

you know, that it's just the systems are set up to be discriminatory and to be racist against us. Day says Poorman's death, adding to the growing statistic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, needs to come to an end. But the community is grieving. That's the other thing too that I would say. This affects not only the Poorman family, this affects every First Nations person, individual who's here because we know how we're treated, how they say that

Non-suspicious deaths all the time when our people go murdered and missing we want to make sure that this case is gonna be handled properly memorial was also held for her two days later and all throughout May her friends family and fellow community came together to share her story and Asked that her death be further investigated and of course Vancouver police has said that her case is still open and that they are still looking into her death and

But they will not give any information to her family about what they are actually doing. Now, of course, I know that often active investigations cannot be publicized and details often remain, you know, close to the vest. But the Poormans feel like truly nothing has been done. I say justice, you say for Chelsea, justice! For Kelsey! Justice! For Kelsey!

Today, over 100 people gathered outside of where she was found, including Chelsea's mom, Sheila. They are here to demand answers as to what really happened to Chelsea. Right now, I'd like for the people who knew what happened here to come to us to let us know exactly what happened to Chelsea. I'd like for the members of the police to...

And even though it's too late for her daughter to be saved, it just breaks my heart thinking that Sheila has to beg people to care about her, even after she was found dead. It had been over a year since her daughter went missing when she asked this, but Sheila begged for people living in that area to look through their yards to see if anything had possibly been left behind.

Her mother has a heartbreaking plea to everyone in this neighbourhood. I'd like for those neighbours around here to, you know, I know it's too late now for them to do something, but I think right now what they can do is look in the backyards, look in their gardens, see if they found, you know, part of her skull that seems to see if they found any other finger bones, you know.

if they remember anything that night to come over. - A great sorrow for her family and for her. And I felt kind of ashamed of our neighborhood that we didn't notice that she was there because there would have been signs that she was there.

What happened to her, of course, I don't know, and that should be identified, but mostly I felt like we weren't aware enough about what was going on in our neighborhood. And this should absolutely infuriate you. During one of the marches for Chelsea, a man was seen following behind the crowd and pulling down her posters after they put them up. All they were doing was looking for answers, trying to raise awareness, and some absolute fucking idiot is...

Pulling down her posters and for what for what this is disgusting behavior And the good news here is even though it doesn't change what he did This guy was captured on video and he was fired from his law firm rightfully so and

And an update tonight to a story we brought you on Monday. One of the people caught on video appearing to tear down posters asking for help in the Chelsea Poorman investigation has been fired. In a statement, McDonald Realty says, as an organization, we are in full support of Chelsea Poorman's family and friends as they search for answers and justice.

We do not condone any inappropriate actions taken by any member of our community and in this instance, we took immediate action and they are no longer with our organization.

Multiple videos have surfaced on social media of people tearing down the posters in Shaughnessy where poor man's body was found behind a vacant home in April. Now, if writing off her death as not suspicious weren't bad enough, Chelsea's dad has come forward to say that a few weeks after her body was found, he returned to the mansion and noticed that the police left behind a lot of potential evidence. He said that some of her personal items were still there, like her cell phone case, her socks, her bus pass, and hair ties.

And not only that, Vancouver Police Department littered the crime scene and left behind a bunch of dirty gloves. As time has gone on, the Poorman family is still desperately looking for the answers that they deserve.

Sheila and Paige have not stopped advocating for Chelsea. And I imagine as the one year anniversary of her discovery approaches, they will only be putting in more effort. And I encourage you to keep up with what they're doing. I will have links below to, you know, kind of stay up to date with their family and their efforts to get justice for Chelsea, or at least answers as to what happened to her. In the beginning, I wish, you know, they should have did, they should have did their job because if they did,

you know, maybe we would have found her sooner. Homeowners who know that they have an unoccupied house, why don't they have some sort of bylaw that if a person goes missing, and especially a vulnerable one, to check

their properties there was a search that occurred in vancouver park where vancouver police looked for any clues but this effort turned up nothing and only left her family wishing that more was done at the start of all of this the poorman family luckily hasn't been entirely alone in their calls for justice the union of british columbia indian chiefs and the federation for indigenous nations have issued statements asking that vancouver police department dig further

into what happened to Chelsea and also that they apologized to the Poorman family. Doug White, an indigenous lawyer and chair of the British Columbia First Nations Justice Council, has called this investigation dismissive policing and says that the way this case was handled reminds him of how the department handled serial killer Robert Pickton, who I mentioned earlier. When it comes to missing and murdered indigenous women, Chelsea's story represents a common theme. Not only are indigenous women and girls murdered at higher rates

The investigations into their deaths, if you can even call it that, are few and far between. The National Indigenous Women's Resource Center is an incredible resource about missing and murdered indigenous women and girls, and they also have online toolkits with additional information such as a guide for when a loved one goes missing. It shares steps to take in the first 72 hours, what legal rights exist, and much more.

Even though we can't bring Chelsea back, I know that her and her family would want us all to educate ourselves more about this epidemic. Because if there is one thing that we can take away from Chelsea's story, it's that this is an international issue and it is happening now. This is not an issue of the past.

If you have any information on the death of Chelsea Poorman, please contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8411 or the investigation team at 604-717-3500.

I know hearing about this case has probably been pretty frustrating, but I hope you turn that frustration into the will to learn more about the epidemic and also get involved with your community when it comes to murdered and missing indigenous women. Again, I will have all related social media about Chelsea's case. You can keep up to date, maybe send the family some, you know, words of encouragement, um,

And you can do so in the comments here too. Oftentimes families do end up seeing the content I make and read the comments. And I know that that does go a long way. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Rae. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.

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