In the summer of July 1996, a 17-year-old female named Amanda Sophia Bartlett, a member of the Pimicikamak Cree Nation who lived for much of her life on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation near The Pas, Manitoba, vanished from the streets of Winnipeg. Amanda, described as a creative soul who dreamed of becoming a published author, was last seen by her uncle near Selkirk Avenue and Salter Street in the city's North End.
At the time, she was a resident of a group home run by Child and Family Services from which she had run away. Her uncle offered her a place to stay, but Amanda never arrived. Weeks after she was last seen, her mother received a letter from CFS stating that Amanda had left the group home and, because she was 17, they had no obligation to follow her.
The family's journey to have Amanda officially recognized as a missing person was fraught with difficulty and frustration. For years, their attempts to file a report were met with resistance, as they were reportedly turned away by both the Winnipeg Police Service and the RCMP. The family recalls being bounced between the two law enforcement agencies, with one officer allegedly dismissing their concerns by stating, 'We don't do family reunions.' It wasn't until February 2008, nearly 12 years after she was last seen, that the Winnipeg Police Service officially opened a missing persons case for Amanda. This breakthrough came only after her sister, Janet Lowther, saw a documentary called 'Stolen Sisters' and contacted Amnesty International, who then connected the family with ChildFind Canada, finally putting pressure on the authorities to act.
Amanda's case eventually gained more attention, and in November 2012, it was assigned to Project Devote, a Manitoba task force dedicated to investigating cases of missing and murdered persons. Despite this, there have been no significant developments in her case. Her family has conducted their own searches, at one point searching a field on the outskirts of Winnipeg based on a tip from a medium. In 2018, Amanda's mother and sister shared their painful story and their frustrations with the initial police response at the MMIWG inquiry hearing in Thompson, Manitoba. The case of Amanda Sophia Bartlett is a heartbreaking overview of a young woman who disappeared under vulnerable circumstances, and the prolonged struggle her family endured to have her disappearance taken seriously by the authorities. To this day, what happened to Amanda remains unknown.Last Seen: Jul 30, 1996
