Less than six months ago, Helyna Rivera uttered her last words to her grandmother over the telephone. 

"Grandma, how are my babies?" she asked. "I gotta go. Please say a prayer that I'll be safe."

But prayers couldn't protect the 25-year-old mother trapped in an extremely abusive relationship. Rivera was only 17 when she met the first man of her life. 

And she loved him. Even though he was a control freak who wouldn't let her have a life of her own.

"She wore a tremendous mask but we knew at times there was trouble," says Renee Hess, her grandmother. "And we didn't know the depth of her trouble until it was too late."

More than 300 people gathered Sunday outside police headquarters in Toronto, along with friends and family of murdered and missing indigenous women, for a rally calling for greater public awareness and an end to the battering and slaying of native women.

“The murdered and missing women were loved too,” said Doreen Silversmith, who explained why the annual rally is held on Valentine’s Day. “They have families that truly care for them and love them.”