Canadian writer who was accused of staging her own death enters a guilty plea

A well-known Canadian author, Dawn Walker, has pleaded guilty after being accused of kidnapping her son and faking their deaths. Walker, an indigenous woman from Saskatchewan, was reported missing in the summer of 2022, leading to an extensive search for her. However, she was found safe in Oregon two weeks later, along with her son. Walker claims that she disappeared due to domestic violence. Subsequently, she was charged with several offenses, including parental abduction, identity fraud, and forging a passport. Initially, she entered a not guilty plea, but has now changed it to guilty for three charges: parental abduction, possession of a forged document, and forging a passport. Both her defense lawyers and prosecutors are requesting a 12-month conditional sentence, followed by an 18-month probation. The final sentence is up to Judge Brad Mitchell. Walker's case has garnered significant attention and support from other writers and indigenous advocates, who argue that her story reflects systemic failures within the Canadian legal system for women of color. Walker is a well-established author and indigenous advocate in Canada, with a career spanning over a decade. She has also been vocal about the mistreatment of indigenous women in the criminal justice system. Indigenous women are incarcerated at a rate 15 times higher than non-indigenous women, and last year, they constituted half of all female inmates in Canada's federal prisons, despite comprising only 5% of the female population.