It was not just girls that were targeted for abuse at Kuper Island Residential School.

In June of 1966 Tony Charley, a 15-year-old boy at Kuper Island Residential School was told that a young boy had hung himself in the gym.  Duncan McCue a CBC journalist returned many years later to investigate what happened at that school. Why had so many children died there?  After all, it is highly unusual for children to die while in school. At least it is highly unusual for children that are non-indigenous. For indigenous children it was much more common. They actually had a grave yard at the school for children. That too is highly unusual for non-non-indigenous children, but for indigenous children it is not rare at all. Why is that? Duncan McCue wanted to know. So do I.

The boy who died was named Richard Thomas. According to Tony Charley, Richard was   “nice and gentle.”  Such boys should not die. No boys should die for that matter. But nice and gentle boys are not usually targets of others. Much about this case though was not usual.

The brothers who ran the school belong to the order of Oblates.  These brothers told the students at the school that  Richard  had hung himself because his parents wanted to separate and he did not want that. He wanted his parents to stay together. That was not true.

He had basically been separated from them for most of the time since he had been in the residential school. That was part of the plan in residential schools—separate the children from their families. That is considered a crime against humanity. It should be. What can be more horrid than that? The authorities did not want the children to learn bad habits from their parents who were basically assumed to be unfit parents. Savages in other words.

The nuns and brothers took young kids to see the body of Richard. Again, that seemed strange. Is it possible that nuns and priests took young children to see a dead body hanging in the gym. Why would they do that?

Another strange thing about this was that Richard was days away from graduating from school and was excited to be graduating. Why would such a boy kill. Himself? Friends told McCue Thomas had been looking forward to graduation, as were most children in residential schools. Yet supposedly he killed himself. So McCue investigated further and reported on his findings in this podcast.