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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The mother of convicted criminals Jacob and Anthony Griep had a lot to say about her family during Jacob Griep's Tuesday hearing on charges of aggravated assault and theft.

Looking at Cecelia Kalurag, one would never guess the troubles she's had. Standing a mere five-feet with a frail body and kind eyes, Kalurag details her life while smoking a cigarette outside the courthouse.

She was placed in the care of her grandparents as a child. They raised her in a traditional aboriginal lifestyle. At the age of four she was placed in a residential school where she was forced to learn another language and culture.

"I said to my grandfather, 'Why do I have to go there? Everything I need to know I already learned.' I couldn't understand what they were saying but my grandfather was smart and he learned (English) quickly and he told me I had to go to school," said the 57-year-old.

When she got older, Kalurag married a Dutchman and eventually had four sons and a daughter, though the father left early on in the relationship. While raising her children, Kalurag said she had difficulties dealing with their behaviour.

"My way was always wrong, they were correct," she said, noting her sons were the biggest problem for her.

"I try to talk to them and they don't listen. Social services asked me if I wanted them back, I said, 'No.' How could I raise them properly if I keep them?" She said.

Kalurag noted that her now adult sons would regularly take her Bibles and rip out the pages and that recently two of them have been getting into trouble with the law.

"(My sons) don't tell me anything (that is going on in their lives) until they have to go to court," she said.

Jacob, 28, was sentenced to 30 months in jail last Wednesday for aggravated assault on a 63-year-old woman at the downtown Extra Foods.

"When he was younger he was a really good boy. A really good kid," said Kalurag, who suffers from lupus and just received a new kidney due to kidney failure.

"When he got older things changed. When he got to school and started hanging out with different people, he changed. After that I don't know him."

His brother Anthony, 25, was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in jail last March for sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman on the McMahon Frame Lake Trail in 2008.

Jacob's defence lawyer noted during his closing arguments that Jacob's family life became dysfunctional after his parents' divorce and this led to Jacob becoming homeless and stealing to survive. The defence also mentioned that Kalurag has been sleeping in the family's laundry room because her bedroom has been taken over by one of her sons.

Kalurag is currently in Edmonton for cancer treatment.

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