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Michele Bear believes she knows where her daughter’s remains are, and she can’t understand why efforts aren’t being made to find them.
Her daughter Richele Bear was killed by Clayton Eichler, who is serving a life sentence for the second-degree murders of Richele, 23, and Kelly Goforth, 21. They were both killed in 2013.
While Goforth’s body was discovered in a dumpster, Richele’s remains were never found. Michele, who’s from Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation, said she’s been told Richele’s body likely was also put in a dumpster and ended up at the Regina landfill.
She has called for a search of the landfill before. On Tuesday, she began camping out near the entrance and started a fast, which she said she’ll continue for “as long as it takes.”
“I want the City of Regina to realize that, you know, my daughter is out here,” Michele said in an interview on Thursday, Day 3 of her fast.
Richele’s relatives tried to get an answer from Eichler when he pleaded guilty to the murder charge, back in a Regina courtroom in 2016, but he said he didn’t know where the body was.
Michele Bear is on a hunger fast and says she will stay at the Regina landfill, which she believes holds the remains of her daughter, ‘as long as it takes.’
The Regina Police Service declined an interview request, but said in a statement that they “will pursue all leads and information” that might help them locate Richele.
“We want to clarify that, at this time, we have no evidence that would confirm the location of her remains,” the statement said.
Police officers, including the manager of the victim services program, have been meeting with Michele twice daily — once during the day and once at night — “to help ensure her safety,” police said.
“The RPS has a long-standing relationship with Ms. Bear and will continue to keep lines of communication open with her.”
Other landfill searches
Searches for the remains of missing women in landfills in two other Prairie cities have been successful in recent years.
Last year, Saskatoon police found the remains of Mackenzie Trottier after a three-month search at the city’s landfill. Police said the suspect died in a drug overdose and a search of his phone after his death showed online searches for garbage pickup schedules at the time Trottier went missing.
Investigators were able to use GPS data from garbage trucks to determine a particular location at the landfill to search. The search took place in the summer of 2024. Trottier had gone missing in December 2020.
Earlier this year, the remains of Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were found at the Prairie Green landfill north of Winnipeg. They were among four Indigenous women who were the victims of a serial killer.
Police had video surveillance from May 2022 that showed the killer putting their remains in a garbage bin, which was then taken to the Prairie Green landfill.
Family members advocated for a landfill search and the issue was part of Manitoba’s 2023 provincial election, with the governing Progressive Conservatives campaigning on their opposition to it and the NDP promising to carry it out. The NDP won the election and the search went ahead.
Michele Bear said she is worried that her daughter might not be the only loved one whose remains end up at the landfill.
“I’m only afraid that, you know, these people are going to realize that the City of Regina’s not going to look for the women in the dumpsters, so we might as well just keep throwing them there,” she said.
“That’s my fear.”