The discovery of 19-year-old Helen Betty Osborne’s body should have outraged the residents of The Pas, Manitoba. Yet, the truth of what happened to her, and who killed her, would remain an open secret for years. But, like all secrets, what happened that night eventually came to light – and upended over a decade of sinister silence.There is a memorial fund in Betty’s name through the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. The goal of the scholarship is to provide financial support to full-time post-secondary Indigenous students living in Manitoba. These students are recognized for their commitment to dismantling “the barriers of racism, sexism, violence, and indifference in society including those impacted by the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People genocide and/or Survivors of gender-based violence.”If you would like to join audiochuck in making a donation to the fund, please click here, and direct your donation to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.If you have any questions, please contact The Winnipeg Foundation at 204-944-8474, email them at [email protected]. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-helen-betty-osborne/Did you know you can listen to this episode ad-free? Join the Fan Club! Visit crimejunkie.app/library/ to view the current membership options and policies. Don’t miss out on all things Crime Junkie!Instagram: @crimejunkiepodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @CrimeJunkiePod | @audiochuckTikTok: @crimejunkiepodcastFacebook: /CrimeJunkiePodcast | /audiochuckllcCrime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. Instagram: @ashleyflowers | @britprawatTwitter: @Ash_Flowers | @britprawatTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
Chapter 1: Who was Helen Betty Osborne and what happened to her?
Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is about how a young woman's senseless and violent murder shone a light in all the darkest parts of one small northern Manitoba community. And it put a whole town on trial. It's a story that is just as important to hear today as it was over 50 years ago when it happened.
And it feels all too familiar, even in 2025. This is the story of Helen Betty Osborne. It's a cold, gray morning in November 1971, and a 14-year-old named Kenneth is fishing with his father on Clearwater Lake in northern Manitoba. And of course, by fishing, when you're a kid, I mean he's like sitting there and sitting there. He's not moving. He's not talking. It's for hours.
Chapter 2: How was Helen Betty Osborne's body discovered?
He's like just hoping they might get a fish. So you can imagine Kenneth gets kind of antsy. So he tells his dad that he's just going to go for a walk, see if he can find any rabbit tracks in the snow or something like that.
Now it's about 11.30 in the morning and Kenneth is next to this pump house on his way back down to the lake when according to coverage in the Winnipeg Sun, some strange tracks in the snow catch his eye. And he's a curious kid, so he follows the tracks into the thick bush. The snow is crunching beneath him and that's when he comes upon the body of a woman.
She's naked with only boots on her feet and she's all bloody and badly beaten. So Kenneth immediately runs back to get his dad and the two of them jump in the car. They drive to the closest place, which is I think this airport, to call police. But as luck would have it, there's actually an RCMP officer, which we know, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. He's on site when they get there.
According to Lisa Preece's 1989 book, Conspiracy of Silence, this officer doesn't have experience necessarily as a criminal investigator. He's actually the pilot who's in charge of, like, the RCMP's air division or whatever.
Okay, so he's just, like, at the airport because that's where he is.
But he still heads down towards the lake with them. Like, he'll take a first, like, look at all of this. And he's also keeping in mind, like, I need to be careful not to do anything that would disturb a potential crime scene. Preserve things. Right. Right. And when he gets there, it like very clearly is a crime scene. So he has to call in backup.
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Chapter 3: What were the initial findings and challenges in the investigation?
Now, it takes some time to get investigators all the way out to where they are. But by 1.45 in the afternoon, they have a team on site who is processing everything, gathering evidence. The victim looks to be in her late teens. She's small with kind of short, shaggy, dark hair that's kind of matted in clumps. Her skin is swollen and purple and she is pale.
I mean, chest, head, neck, face in dozens of these tiny stab wounds. So it is clear that she suffered a vicious and brutal attack, one that went on long after she stopped fighting. And this might get kind of graphic, so content advisory, but investigators describe kind of this scene.
halo of blood that was around her head, almost like someone had stomped on her face and made it so the blood was going out of the tiny stab wounds that were made. I mean, it was that bad. The word that came up so many times over and over again in Lisa's book was the word frenzy. This was a frenzied attack. It looked like whoever did this was Angry and frantic, vicious even.
And what's interesting is they did take time to hide her clothing because several items of hers were hidden under some rocks down closer by the lake. And the person who stabbed and stomped her and the person who's hiding her clothing might not be the same person because there are two sets of footprints, one on each side of the victim's body.
And there's even drag marks showing that they pulled her by her arm. So it's not like it was her footprints and someone else's. This is someone else there, a third person.
Now, she didn't look like she'd been out there very long, less than a day, which is a lucky break because unlike in the warmer months when folks spend time at the cabins surrounding the lake, this area is pretty much deserted in November. Like, if not for Kenneth getting antsy, if not for his dad making them wait it out in silence, if not for the fish that day refusing to bite,
she may not have been found until the next spring, if at all.
Which is probably what the killers were counting on.
Maybe. And if so, that means that the killers knew the area. But the question is, did they know the victim? Well, in order to find that out, they need to know who she is, which is a difficult task given the injuries to her face and her head. Over the next several hours, police will end up bringing in a total of 31 people to try and identify their Jane Doe.
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Chapter 4: What role did local rumors and anonymous tips play in the case?
The two of them had gotten into a big fight over this and it ended in Betty and her friends leaving. After that, they went back to the Bensons. They had a couple more drinks in a shutout back because, again, Mrs. Benson's like too late. And then around midnight, the other friends left and Betty and George went back downtown again. But by 1230, George was over it. It's cold. It was dark.
It wasn't exactly a great time of night to be walking around in the PA, especially if you're indigenous and both Betty and George are. So George went home, but Betty didn't want to.
So Betty's alone at this point.
Yes, she was. And police can put her outside the hotel again at around 1245. She's just like walking by. Then we know she's seen at a Legion dance at around 2 in the morning. And they actually find a witness who saw her walking down the street after she left the dance. This was around like 2.15. Then after 2.15, she's like off the grid.
I have to imagine that Playboy boyfriend is one of the first people they look into.
Initially, he's like the main suspect. They bring him into the police station. They question him. And they don't go easy. I mean, at one point, they even show him a picture of Betty's body. Like that's actually how he finds out that his girlfriend is dead. Like he hadn't known yet when they did that.
But ultimately, they end up ruling him out after he passes a polygraph, which we see all the time in the 70s. So they quickly move on, and by the end of November, they have talked to everyone in Betty's circle, all the cottage owners around Clearwater Lake where she was found.
I mean, half the town pretty much has been talked to, and they still haven't got a clue who she was with after 2-15 or how she ended up all the way out at the lake. Because, by the way, someone would have had to have driven her out there. Like, she might have been able to walk from the Bensons to downtown and back. Like, that was super easy.
But this is so far off the beaten path.
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Chapter 5: Why was the investigation reopened in 1983?
Okay, so just to be clear, Bud has a son who is around like Betty's age driving the car.
I know. I know. I feel like. I honestly. And, like, you can't pin down the time. Especially, like, now, like, knowing he has a son. Again, they're like, oh, Bud's a good guy. Okay, well, what about the son? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Follow-up questions, at the very least. Podcasters have them. These police did not. Like, still, they are very much like nothing to see here, folks.
And just like that, this lead, their only lead at this point, just fades away.
And by doing that, they're basically just discounting taxi driver Phillip's sighting. Like, this whole list, everything that they're counting on, they're main lead right now.
Well, yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, this one that actually makes sense. We have one registered in this area where it happened.
Like... Oh, well.
Yeah. Either they're discounting his sighting or they're like, oh, him seeing the car. Means nothing. Maybe the car wasn't. That's discounting the sighting. Well, I mean, they could think that the sighting happened. Do you know what I'm saying? Can I make a sense? Or am I not understanding you? Yeah, but they're one person that it could be. Dude, stop. So after this, Betty's case goes cold.
No one comes forward with new information. And since we're in 1971, we are a far cry away from DNA.
Was there anything that they could collect to potentially use later?
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