Hazel Harris doesn’t need to know the details of Seth Deschambault’s disappearance. She just wants to know where he is.
“Just grab my hand and lead me to the spot and walk away,” she said. “No questions asked.”
“We don’t care what happened, what went down. God saw everything, God will be the judge of that.”
Harris is Deschambault’s biological aunt, but raised him since he was three months old in Cumberland House Cree Nation.
Deschambault, who had just turned 18 years old, was last seen in Prince Albert on May 29, 2022.
“Investigators believe that Seth may have been the victim of a homicide,” reads an RCMP statement on Friday.
“This investigation is active and ongoing, as such we do not have further details to release at this time.”
Harris said her family is offering a $10,000 reward to anybody who can point them to the exact location of Deschambault.
“People keep phoning us and telling us he’s in Muskoday, he’s in the water, he’s over here, but that’s not telling us where he is,” she said.
Harris said she last spoke with him over the phone on Friday, May 27. A few friends picked him up and were going to spend the weekend in Prince Albert.
She remembers that day well – it was her late mom’s birthday.
“He goes ‘It’s the old lady’s birthday.’ I said ‘Yes, it is. It’s her birthday today.’ ‘Happy birthday gran,’ I said ‘Happy birthday, mother.’ You know, we chit-chatted,” Harris described.
“He goes ‘I love you, auntie.’ I said ‘I love you, son. Be safe, please.’ And that’s the last time I talked to him.”
Harris said he had gone to a party over the weekend. He never returned home.
When RCMP Major Crimes investigators approached her, she “knew right away something was wrong, like he was probably gone.”
Harris said it’s rumoured that one person in particular potentially killed Deschambault. However, she said, there was likely a large group of friends that know what happened and helped cover it up.
As police always say, she’s hoping that overtime, those friendships fall apart and they begin to come forward with information.
“There’s about 10 of them that know something, there was like 10 of them standing around just watching it go down. They know,” said Harris.
“Even though you don’t want to be known, it’s you or you know where he is, just tell somebody to tell us.”
Deschambault remembered for love of basketball
Harris said Deschambault had plans to go to Saskatoon after graduating high school for a post-secondary education.
Although he wasn’t entirely sure of what to pursue, one thing was certain – he wanted to play basketball.
“Lots of kids miss him, and his basketball friends have a yearly three on three tournament, they had a second annual already, in his honour,” said Harris.
“That was his number one thing. He went to school, he was very smart for his age, very smart.”
Deschambault was apprehended from his biological mother as a newborn, according to Harris. She said they had just started talking and getting to know each other.
He had a lot of opportunity ahead of him, she said, that’s now been ripped away.
Harris’ focus is on spreading Deschambault’s story as much as possible in order to generate new leads.
This gives her hope that soon, Deschambault will come home.
