Serena McKay

Serena Chelsea "Serenity" McKay (September 30, 1997 – April 22 or 23, 2017) was an Indigenous woman from Manitoba, Canada, whose murder was video recorded and posted on social media—being streamed on Facebook Live, in particular.

McKay preferred to go by the name "Serenity".

Serena Chelsea McKay, who preferred to go by the name "Serenity," was born September 30, 1997, to Harvey McKay and Delores Daniels.

Her siblings include sister Michelle McKay, and brothers Joshua Daniels, Alexander McKay, and Jonathan McKay.

McKay grew up in Winnipeg, and had spent time in Manitoba's Pine Creek, Peguis, and George Gordon First Nations.

Though living in the neighbouring community of Pine Creek First Nation, she attended Sagkeeng Anicinabe High School, where she was in the 12th grade at the time of her death.

Her body was found on 23 April 2017 in Sagkeeng First Nation, northeast of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

According to CBC News, two videos of the crime circulated, with the longer version sitting on Facebook for four hours on April 26 before it was removed from the site after it was reported.

The teenage girls who pleaded guilty to the murder of McKay, their former schoolmate, were aged 16 and 17 at the time of their arrest.

The school would grant McKay a posthumous diploma at her class' convocation in June 2017, as well as creating a scholarship in her name.

The murder took place on the Sagkeeng First Nation, 100 km northeast of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

It is not exactly known whether McKay died on April 22 or April 23: she was last seen on the evening of 22 April 2017 and was reported missing to the RCMP detachment in the neighbouring town of Powerview at 6pm on 23 April; a dead body—later confirmed to be Serena McKay—was found two hours after the missing-person report, at 8pm, in Sagkeeng.

The killing was filmed and posted on social media; the graphic material circulated in both a short and long version on Facebook.

The video depicts a bloodied, barely-conscious young woman lying on the ground, as she is repeatedly kicked and punched in the head.

In addition to the victim's blood and facial injuries, the longer video also shows her head being stomped on by a heavy boot, as well as the sound of bones cracking, during the assault.

Both female and male voices can be heard in the video, but it is unclear how many people are around her other than two females.

During the assault, the victim cries out, "I'm so sorry," though there is no available context as to what she is sorry for or why she is being attacked.

A female voice says to the victim, "If you send anyone after me I will kill you. I will fucking kill you myself."

Later in the evening of the murder, the younger suspect sent out a Snapchat photo, covered in blood and smiling, with the caption, "just chilling."

According to a supposed instant-message exchange between one of the alleged suspects to a resident of Sagkeeng, she broke the nose of the victim, who subsequently left but was nonetheless "OK" and "up and walking."

The suspect also mentioned that the victim's nose was "bleeding lots.”

A pathologist testified during the trial of the two suspected killers that McKay likely died of hypothermia, as she was unable to seek protection from the cold due to her injuries and the amount of alcohol in her system.

The court also heard that McKay had 67 injuries on her body at the time of death.

The video of the murder was circulated in both a short and long version on Facebook, on which the video remained for at least three days before its removal.

The short version of the video was removed after Sagkeeng Grand Chief Derrick Henderson made a request to Facebook, while the long version was removed from the site after CBC News reported it to Facebook and the RCMP.

According to CBC, the longer version sat on the site for four hours on April 26 before its removal.

Moreover, despite being removed from the site itself, the video can still be shared on the site through Facebook Messenger, according to RCMP.

Though posting videos of attacks online is not illegal in itself, people who film attacks and do not come to the aid of the victim can be charged with being an accessory.

As such, because the video is being shared via personal messages, police are doubtful of Facebook's ability to control or stop the spread of such material.

McKay's beaten body was found on April 23 near a home in Sagkeeng, two hours after she was reported missing.

Sagkeeng resident Alma Kakikepinace was among the first to discover McKay's body.

Two teenagers (aged 16 and 17, respectively, at the time) were subsequently arrested.

The online video was brought to the attention of McKay's high-school principal, Claude Guimond, by her classmates on April 24, the day after McKay's body was found.

Upon seeing the face of the victim, Guimond believed it to be McKay and forwarded the evidence to Powerview RCMP.

Also that day, the younger suspect (16) spoke to a school counsellor about the beating and later turned herself into the RCMP.

One of the suspects was also accused of writing instant messages (IM) about the death.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that it received an IM exchange from “a resident of the reserve” in which one of the alleged suspects writes at first, “We fought, I broke her nose then that happened, she left after, she was OK.

She was up and walking.” A few hours later, the suspect wrote, “She was found dead bro… Promise me say when we fought it wasn’t that bad.

Her nose was just bleeding lots… I’m fuckin scared.

Promise me, you won’t tell em I fought her deadly.