Federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser has ordered a new appeal for two Saskatchewan sisters convicted of second-degree murder more than three decades ago, saying his department found reasonable grounds to believe a miscarriage of justice likely occurred, according to a Department of Justice release issued Sept. 24, 2026.
Odelia and Nerissa Quewezance, members of Keeseekoose First Nation who were in their late teens and early 20s at the time, were convicted in Yorkton, Sask., in 1994 in the killing of Anthony Dolff, a 70-year-old Kamsack farmer. Dolff was stabbed 17 times, strangled with a phone cord and had a television thrown on him at his farmhouse in February 1993, according to earlier CBC News reporting. A cousin who was at the scene that night, reported by CBC to have been 14 years old, confessed repeatedly to the stabbing, including at the original trial, but was never convicted as an adult.
The sisters were held for five days at the Kamsack RCMP detachment, longer than a judge had ordered, before police obtained the statements used to convict them, according to Innocence Canada lawyer James Lockyer. Lockyer’s organization asked the federal government to review the case in December 2021, after Saskatchewan exoneree David Milgaard, wrongfully convicted of murder himself as a young man, brought the file to the organization the year before.
Fraser’s order follows a review by the Justice Department’s Criminal Conviction Review Group under section 696.1 of the Criminal Code, the mechanism that lets a minister send a case back to the courts once normal appeals are exhausted and new information points to a wrongful conviction. It does not decide guilt or innocence, a point Fraser made directly in the release.
“My decision does not decide guilt or innocence, as that will rest with the courts,” Fraser said. “Our responsibility is to make sure Canadians can trust their justice system.”
Odelia Quewezance told APTN News by phone from Pine Grove Correctional Centre that she was “in shock” at the news. “I’m so blessed, and I want to thank the Creator,” she said.
What the day’s coverage of Fraser’s decision has mostly left out is where the case fits into a much larger pattern. Sen. Kim Pate has said Indigenous women now make up 42 per cent of women in federal custody, despite being a small share of Canada’s population, and are disproportionately handed life sentences in cases tied to violence they experienced themselves. Both Quewezance sisters were released on bail in March 2023 while the review proceeded, though their years outside prison have been unsteady. Nerissa was arrested in April 2024 on a bail-breach warrant, her lawyer said at the time, after about a year on release.
The review process that produced Thursday’s decision is itself being phased out. Parliament’s Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission, created under legislation named for Milgaard, will soon replace the minister’s direct role with an arm’s-length body specifically directed to prioritize applications from Indigenous and Black Canadians, groups advocates say are over-represented among wrongful-conviction claims but historically under-represented in getting them reviewed. Ottawa has not set a firm date for the commission to begin hearing cases.
For now, the Quewezance file goes back to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, where Innocence Canada will argue the 1994 convictions should be overturned, 32 years after the sisters were first sent to prison.
Via CBC News, CTV News/CP24 and the Department of Justice. Original reporting: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/quewezance-murder-conviction-review-appeal-ordered-9.7356780
