Neil Stonechild

Neil Stonechild (August 24, 1973 – November 25, 1990) was a Saulteaux First Nations teenager who died of hypothermia. There were accusations that the Saskatoon Police Service may have taken him to the northwest section of the city and abandoned him in a field on a night when temperatures were below −28 °C (−18 °F). The practice is known as a starlight tour, and a number of such cases in Saskatoon area have been referred to collectively as the Saskatoon freezing deaths.

Stonechild was an accomplished wrestler, having won a bantamweight provincial title in Saskatchewan. On the night of his disappearance, he was the subject of a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest on a charge of being Unlawfully At Large from a community home.

Stonechild's friend Jason Roy was with Stonechild the night of his death. When first interviewed by the police in 1990, Roy stated that he had "blacked out" shortly after he and Stonechild had parted company. In 2000, however, Roy stated that the last time he saw Stonechild alive was shortly before midnight, that Stonechild was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser with a cut on his face, and that the last words Stonechild said to him were, "Jay, help me. They're going to kill me."

When first interviewed by the police in 1990, 5 days after Stonechild's disappearance, Roy provided a handwritten, signed statement stating that he and Stonechild had drunk most of a 40-ounce bottle of vodka between them. Roy also stated that he and Stonechild had parted company at "about 1130 pm", and that he had "blacked out" and had no recollection of what happened after he and Stonechild separated that night. In 2000, however, Roy stated that the last time he saw Stonechild alive, Stonechild was handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser "gushing blood" from a cut on his face, and that the last words Stonechild said to him were "Jay, help me. They're going to kill me." Jason Roy's family was ultimately put into an RCMP witness protection program.

Roy also stated that he had given the police officers a false name – Tracy Lee Horse – when they questioned him.

Shortly after talking to Jason Roy, Constable Brad Senger and Larry Hartwig encountered Neil Stonechild's cousin, Bruce Genaille, and questioned him on suspicion that he was Stonechild. In 2003, Genaille told the inquiry that there had been nobody in the back of the cruiser at the time.

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