Cherisse Diane Marie Houle was a 17-year-old Indigenous girl living in Winnipeg when her life ended in the summer of 2009. Family members remembered Cherisse as funny, affectionate and almost always smiling. She had grown up especially close to her sister Jessica, and the two remained deeply attached even as instability entered their lives. Cherisse spent much of her childhood and adolescence moving through foster homes, group homes and the youth justice system after becoming involved with
Child and Family Services. Her family later described the sisters as repeatedly running from placements in an effort to find their way back to one another.
By the final months of her life, Cherisse was also the parent of an 18-month-old son. She had struggled with drug use and had been vulnerable to sexual exploitation, but accounts from relatives and people who knew her describe someone who was trying to change the direction of her life. She had enrolled in a program at Ka Ni Kanichihk, a Winnipeg counselling and employment-training organization, and her mother later testified that Cherisse had asked for help getting into a secure treatment setting because she wanted to stop using drugs and become the parent she wanted to be. According to her mother, attempts to obtain a treatment placement failed because no space was available.
Cherisse had previously disappeared in May 2009 and was included in a Winnipeg Police Service and Child Find Manitoba missing-person release after being last seen downtown on May 21. She subsequently returned home. On June 26, she disappeared again. Police later said she was last seen at her downtown Winnipeg home that day and was reported missing to the Winnipeg Police Service. Investigators would eventually focus on what happened to her after that point and, in particular, how she came to be outside the city.
On July 1, 2009, construction workers discovered Cherisse's body in the Rural Municipality of Rosser, west of Winnipeg. She was found face down in Sturgeon Creek, approximately 50 metres from Provincial Road 221 and roughly 16 kilometres from Winnipeg. The location immediately raised questions because she had last been known to be in the city. The RCMP Serious Crime Unit became involved because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the discovery. Early reporting said the RCMP had not determined or publicly released a cause of death.
Years later, Cherisse's mother told the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls that she had been told Cherisse drowned, but she did not believe the death was simply an accidental drowning. She said she believed someone had taken Cherisse to the outskirts of Winnipeg and killed her. That was her family's belief rather than a publicly established police finding. RCMP officials subsequently continued to describe the circumstances as suspicious, said foul play could not be ruled out, and declined to reveal whether investigators believed Cherisse died in Winnipeg or at the location where her body was found. Later public accounts have characterized the case as an unsolved homicide.
In January 2012, Cherisse's case was transferred to Project Devote, an integrated unit involving the RCMP, Winnipeg Police Service and Manitoba Justice that concentrated on unresolved homicides and disappearances involving vulnerable or exploited people. Investigators appealed for information but kept details about evidence and possible suspects confidential. When specifically asked about suspects in 2017, the RCMP said it would not discuss current or former suspects because the investigation remained active. Cherisse's family repeatedly sought answers and continued participating in vigils, public events and the national inquiry while waiting for the investigation to identify whoever was responsible.
No suspect has been publicly identified in Cherisse's killing, and no arrest, criminal charge, trial or conviction has been reported in connection with her death. By 2023, her mother said she knew of no suspects or meaningful leads and said communication had diminished after Project Devote was disbanded. More recent public references continue to describe the homicide as unsolved. The central questions that confronted investigators when Cherisse was found — who she was with after leaving her Winnipeg home, how she reached Sturgeon Creek, and exactly what happened before her body was discovered — remain unanswered.
