If you followed the Cindy Gladue Death case, you know it’s more than just a legal battle. It’s a gut-wrenching example of how the justice system treats Indigenous women in Canada.
Warning: This story contains graphic content
Cindy Gladue was a 36-year-old mother of three. In June 2011, she was found dead in an Edmonton hotel room, having bled out from an 11-centimeter wound to her vagina. The man responsible is a truck driver named Bradley Barton. He walked free in 2015 after a jury acquitted him of murder, setting off protests across the country. Fast forward through years of legal fights, appeals, and public outrage, and in 2021, he was finally convicted of manslaughter. But even that wasn’t the end of it.
Cindy Gladue: More Than a Headline
Before we get into the protracted legal battle that followed the Cindy Gladue Death case, it’s important to remember who she was beyond the courtroom. Cindy Gladue was not just a statistic or a tragic news story. Cindy was a woman with dreams, a mother of three daughters, and someone who longed for a better life. As a teenager, Cindy had ambitions of attending university and building a future for her family. She was known for her love of cooking, drawing, and music, with a soft spot for Mötley Crüe. She dreamed of naming her children long before she became a mother.
But life was not easy for Cindy. Like so many Indigenous women in Canada, she faced systemic barriers. Barriers that made it challenging to escape cycles of poverty and addiction. She struggled with alcohol and drugs, and at times, she engaged in sex work to survive. Yet despite these struggles, her family deeply loved her, and her daughters still speak of her with pain and longing. The Cindy Gladue Death case is a failure of a country that has long devalued Indigenous lives.
The Case That Wouldn’t End
If the first trial was a disgrace, what came after was a slow grind through Canada’s legal system, revealing at every turn just how flawed it is when it comes to Indigenous victims. After Barton’s acquittal in 2015, the Crown appealed, arguing that the jury had been given improper instructions on consent and sexual assault laws. In 2017, the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned the not-guilty verdict and ordered a new trial, stating that serious legal errors had been made. Barton’s defence team fought back, taking the case to the Supreme Court. In 2018, the highest court in the country upheld the decision for a retrial, and in 2021, Barton was finally convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 12.5 years.
But even then, the legal battle wasn’t over. Barton appealed again, arguing that his conviction should be overturned. Why? Due to issues with how the judge instructed the jury on consent and bodily harm. The court dismissed his appeal in January 2024, solidifying his conviction. Meanwhile, the Crown filed a separate appeal, arguing that his sentence was too lenient, pushing for an 18-to-20-year term. The legal fallout from the Cindy Gladue Death case is still ongoing, but for many, justice has already been delayed far too long.
The “Rough Sex” Defense and Why It Should Alarm Every Woman in Canada
One of the most disturbing aspects of the Cindy Gladue Death case is how Barton’s defence tried to paint it. His lawyer leaned heavily on the “rough sex” defence. He argued that Gladue consented to the violent act that killed her. This strategy—sometimes called the “Fifty Shades of Grey” defence—has been used in Canada for years. Defendants claim that serious injuries or even deaths during sex were the result of consensual activities gone wrong.
This defence has gained traction in cases worldwide. In the UK, groups like We Can’t Consent to This have tracked over 100 instances where men used this argument after seriously injuring or killing women. One infamous case involved millionaire John Broadhurst, who left his girlfriend, Natalie Connolly, bleeding to death at the bottom of the stairs after brutalizing her. He was convicted of negligent manslaughter, not murder, because of claims that the injuries were part of consensual rough sex.
In Canada, experts like Dr. Lise Gotell, who studies gender, law, and sexual violence, have documented a rising trend in this defence strategy. As Gotell explains, cases where this defence is used often shift focus onto the victim, forcing juries to consider whether a woman “wanted” the violence done to her instead of holding the perpetrator fully accountable. This is precisely what happened in the Cindy Gladue Death case, and it nearly allowed Barton to walk free a second time.
How the Legal System Dehumanized Cindy Gladue
It wasn’t just Barton’s defence that failed Cindy Gladue—it was the entire legal system. From the start, she was dehumanized in ways that would be unthinkable for a white victim. During the first trial, both the Crown and the defence repeatedly referred to her as a “prostitute” and a “native woman.” They framed her in ways that played into racist and misogynistic stereotypes. Instead of being seen as a mother and a victim of violence, she was reduced to her profession and her Indigeneity. As if that somehow made her death less tragic.
But a more horrifying moment was still to come. The Crown prosecutor decided to use Cindy Gladue’s preserved vaginal tissue as evidence in court. For the first time in Canadian history, part of a deceased person’s body was brought into a courtroom and displayed for a jury. This was done without her family’s knowledge or consent. Her sister, Marilyn Houle, later revealed that the family wasn’t even told until after Barton’s second arrest that Cindy’s remains had been “misplaced.” As of 2023, her body parts are still missing, and Alberta Justice has given no clear answers.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Cindy Gladue Death case should be a turning point, but Canada’s legal system still has serious gaps when it comes to protecting victims of sexual violence. Unlike the UK, where recent legislation bans “consent for sexual gratification” as a defence in cases of bodily harm or murder, Canada has yet to address this issue fully. Right now, the Supreme Court has not made a definitive ruling on whether someone can consent to serious bodily harm in a sexual context. The door has been left open for more cases like this.
Indigenous women are disproportionately victims of violence in Canada. Yet cases like the Cindy Gladue Death case show how rarely they receive justice. According to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG), Indigenous women are 12 times more likely to be murdered or go missing than other women in Canada. And when their cases do reach court, they are often subjected to the same dehumanizing treatment Cindy Gladue faced.
Barton’s conviction and sentencing may feel like justice, but it’s only one small piece of a much bigger issue. It took over a decade, multiple appeals, and public outrage to get here. That says everything about how the system works—or doesn’t work—for Indigenous women.
Cindy Gladue should still be alive. The fight for her, and for all Indigenous women who the system has failed, isn’t over.
Author: Daniel Mercer
Bio: Daniel Mercer is an independent investigative journalist specializing in criminal justice and Indigenous rights. He has a decade of experience covering legal reform and systemic inequalities in Canada.
