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Not all of the following stories are directly related to the Highway of Tears
missing
New
details emerge about probe of Highway of Tears murders
December
12, 2009
Lori Culbert and Neal Hall, Vancouver Sun:
Saturday, December 12, 2009 7:02 PM
VANCOUVER — In their hunt to determine whether a
serial killer is preying on girls and women along British Columbia’s
roadways, investigators have identified 2,000 “persons of interest” in
the so-called Highway of Tears investigation.
Project E-Pana, the joint RCMP-Vancouver police unit
probing missing and murdered women along B.C. highways, has been
tight-lipped about the high-profile investigation.
In his first extensive media interview, team
commander Staff Sgt. Bruce Hulan revealed new details to The Vancouver
Sun about a case that has generated much emotion and debate.
Until now, it has not been clear what criteria the
RCMP used to draw up its list of 18 “Highway of Tears” victims, how it
chose the geographical scope of the project and what headway has been
made on possible suspects — including a person of interest targeted
during a mysterious search this summer of a property in Prince George,
B.C.
E-Pana began in 2005 with a review of three unsolved
1994 murders along northern B.C.’s Highway 16, but would soon expand its
scope.
“We started doing the review but very early into it
we recognized that, if we are looking for this serial killer, we’ll have
to broaden our scope and have a look at other files,” Hulan said last
week.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to say (whether there
is a serial killer at play) until we’re at the point where we are
satisfied that we have been successful in solving or charging in all 18
of the files, or the majority, or having determined what the
circumstances were that led to the murders.”
To zero in on a suspect or suspects, police examined
619 unsolved files of violence against women along three highways,
including murders and missing person cases, as well as sexual assaults
and attempted sex assaults. A half-dozen of the cases are in the Hinton
area of Alberta, about 280 kilometres west of Edmonton, while the
majority are from B.C.
That file review, which wrapped up earlier this
year, identified the 18 cases of missing and murdered women included on
the official police list, as well as an additional 16 sex-crime cases
that appeared very similar because the women were targeted on specific
highways.
“Our purpose in reviewing the (sex crimes) files is
to identify elements common to our homicide cases, which may assist us
in identifying the person responsible,” said RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Annie
Linteau, who attended interview with Hulan.
Victims’ families and women’s advocates argue the
official list should be much longer than 18 names, suggesting as many as
twice that number of girls and women have met similar violence in
northern and central B.C. over the past 40 years.
A Vancouver Sun investigation has uncovered 13 other
victims who went missing or were murdered near a major roadway in B.C.
or Alberta, who appear to be similar to the 18 on the official list and,
in some cases, had been linked in the past to the “highway murders” by
previous police investigations.
In some of the additional cases identified, Hulan
argued the victims don’t meet the criteria the RCMP set for inclusion on
the list. Victims must be female and match at least one of the two
following scenarios: they were involved in a high-risk activity such as
hitchhiking or the sex trade, or they were last seen — or their body was
found — within a mile or so from three specific B.C. highways.
Hulan conceded other victims might potentially be
linked to one or more of the women on the official list, but he added
the RCMP had to make its investigation manageable, so it focused on a
certain geographical area.
“There are other investigations out there that, when
you look at them, would cause you to be concerned whether there are
connections between them, but as I said before, we are constrained by
resources,” Hulan said. “We couldn’t look at the entire province.”
The cases that are on the official list span:
Highway 16 from Prince Rupert, B.C., all the way to Hinton; Highway 97
in British Columbia from Prince George to Kamloops; and Highway 5, which
includes Merritt, B.C.
In addition to the 2,000 persons of interest
identified in the cases reviewed by police, there is a secondary list of
5,000 people whose names surfaced in the files for various reasons.
There have been common names in some files, Hulan said.
“With anyone identified in the files as a person of
interest we do a background check and analysis on them, their criminal
history and when they were in and out of custody and if they had the
opportunity or not to commit the homicide.”
None of the 2,000 persons of interest has been
identified, but in August police said a previous owner of a Prince
George-area property they were searching was a person of interest in the
disappearance of Highway of Tears victim Nicole Hoar.
Convicted murderer Leland Switzer, who has been in
jail since 2005, previously owned the property.
Hulan revealed evidence was seized from the property
and from a vehicle found at a nearby dump. The evidence is being
analyzed for DNA and undergoing other testing.
E-Pana has also sent evidence recovered during the
historical homicides to modern-day labs, which in some cases has created
new leads and in other cases has ruled out past suspects.
It is often inaccurately reported that Nicole Hoar
was the only non-native person on the Highway of Tears list, but The Sun
determined eight of the 18 women and girls are non-native. Hulan
estimated the list was half native and half non-native.
“These victims weren’t targeted because they were
white or native or any other race, for that matter. They are victims
because ... they were engaged in high-risk activity,” he said.
Hulan said it is possible detectives could provide
some future answers for the families, but given that some files are four
decades old, the perpetrators may no longer be alive.
“Is it likely we will be able to (make a) charge on
all 18 of them? I’m doubtful about that.”
For some relatives, such as Kevin MacMillen, whose
sister was killed near 100 Mile House, B.C., in 1974, being included on
the Highway of Tears list has meant hope that the case is getting new
attention.
“It was a great relief,” said MacMillen, who said he
has always suspected the person who murdered Colleen had killed again,
either before or after.
Brenda Wilson doesn’t like her sister Ramona’s name
being on the list because of the negative connotations that her sister
was doing something wrong the day she vanished from Smithers, B.C., in
1994.
“I think if there’s any justice that we receive it
would be in finding answers to who did this to Ramona and why, and how
can we prevent it from happening again, and just to see a change in the
ways things are done with the investigation,” Brenda said.
For more, visit http://www.vancouversun.com/
lculbertvancouversun.com; nhallvancouversun.com
Vancouver Sun
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But attorney-general says priority is solving 18 aging cases
B.C. Attorney-General Mike de Jong says
a public inquiry into the Highway of Tears investigations is possible,
but the first priority is solving the 18 cases.
"It's premature at this point to say
anything other than there are a lot of people that have too many
unanswered questions," [but] "we're in an investigation process," de
Jong told The Province.
Pressed on whether an inquiry could
proceed, de Jong said: "I don't rule it out."
B.C. private eye Ray Michalko is a
retired RCMP officer, but he's no fan of the way the Mounties have
handled the Highway of Tears murders.
That's why he has been "poking around"
an unnamed Prince George-area hamlet, conducting interviews about a man
whose name "keeps popping up" — all part of Michalko's personally funded
investigation into nine of the 18 Highway of Tears cases.
With a database of 600 people, Michalko
has interviewed hundreds. The vast majority won't talk to the police, he
says, because they don't expect to be taken seriously.
"When I'm asking [tipsters], 'Have you
gone to the police?' and they say, 'Are you nuts?' — that's a problem,"
Michalko said.
All but one of the missing women are
aboriginal, and First Nations Highway of Tears co-ordinator Mavis
Erickson hints that racism could be a factor in botched cases.
Erickson recently met with de Jong and
B.C. Solicitor-General Kash Heed, pushing for a public inquiry into the
Highway of Tears investigations.
"As a First Nations mother and
grandmother, I feel really angry because not a lot has been done to
solve these murders," she says. Investigations went cold because more
than once young women were reported missing and police didn't act,
Erickson said.
The case of Ramona Wilson seems to
bolster Erickson's point.
Her sister, Brenda Wilson, told The
Province that the 16-year-old said she was going to visit a friend
on Saturday, June 11, 1994. Her family became worried when they didn't
hear from her the next day, and they reported her missing to Smithers
RCMP. But police didn't respond until two weeks later, according to
Wilson.
"We were told, 'She's probably just with
some friends,'" she said. "We felt very helpless."
And four months before Wilson's remains
were accidentally turned up by off-road sport drivers, a tipster
believed to be an aboriginal male called the Smithers RCMP, saying the
teen's body was near the Smithers airport. But the RCMP did not tape the
call, and couldn't follow up the lead, Wilson's mother, Matilda Wilson,
said.
While there are theories that a serial
killer, possibly a trucker, is the murderer behind the disappearances,
Michalko believes at least several men living near the highway are
involved.
On Oct. 26, 35-year-old Jill Stacey
Stuchenko — a Prince George prostitute with addictions problems — was
found dumped in a gravel pit outside town.
RCMP say it is too early to link the
case to the 18 Highway of Tears files, but cold-case investigators are
receiving information on the Stuchenko murder.
RCMP Cpl. Annie Linteau said she can't
comment on criticism that past Highway of Tears investigations by the
RCMP were flawed, but she maintained Mounties are now pursuing the cold
cases vigorously.
E-mail reporter Sam Cooper at
scooper@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province
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B.C. -
EPANA: Meeting Held with Victim’s Families
File # 2009-11-07 EPANA 2009-11-07 19:35 PST
Prince George, BC: Investigators met today with family members of women
who disappeared or were found murdered near highway 16 or other
Northern/BC Interior highways.
This was the sixth meeting held with victim’s families and is part of
our ongoing commitment to keep the families apprised of any development
in the disappearance or homicide of their loved one.
"The RCMP remains committed to the
furtherance of Project E-PANA. The Coordinated Investigation Team has
completed the review phase of the incidents that are encompassed by the
project, and are now actively engaged in the operational phase of the
investigation. Resources continue to be deployed to the project as a
provincial priority in an effort to bring the offender(s) to justice and
some measure of closure to the families and loved ones of the victims."
Says C/Supt Craig Callens, Deputy Criminal Operations Officer (Contract)
for "E" Division.
The investigative
review team was formed in 2005. It was created as a result of E Division
Criminal Operations ordering the review of a series of unsolved murders
and suspicious missing persons cases linked to Highway 16. The mandate
of the team was later expanded to include cases linked to other Northern
and BC Interior highways. Investigators from Project EPANA are currently
investigating the disappearances or homicides of 18 women dating back to
1969.
Anyone who has any information about the disappearance or homicides of
these women is asked to contact the Unsolved Homicide Tip Line at
1-877-543-4822 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS). Media
inquiries can be directed to Cpl. Annie Linteau, E Division Strategic
Communications Section, (604)264-2929.
Cpl Annie Linteau
Media Relations Officer
E Division Strategic Communications Section
(604)264-2929.
Released by
Sgt. Tim Shields
NCO i/c Strategic Communications Section
"E" Div. Strategic Communications
5255 Heather Street,
Vancouver B.C. V5Z 1K6
Office: 604-264-2929
Fax: 604-264-3200
Email:
ediv_internet_webmaster@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
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Frost
case not linked to Highway of Tears, police say
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
Helen Frost's sister has wondered for years why her sister's
disappearance was not part of the Highway of Tears group of cases.
The Citizen got the answer for her on Tuesday.
The RCMP's
dedicated force working on the 18 Highway of Tears cases, officially
named Operation E-Pana, has a set of criteria for including a
missing or murdered woman in their investigation. Frost's
disappearance in October, 1970 did not fit the profiles the E-Pana
team works under, said RCMP E-Division spokeswoman Cpl. Annie
Linteau.
Frost's case does not meet two points in the E-Pana
criteria: One, that the victim was engaged in risky behaviour like
hitchhiking or the sex trade. Frost was not.
Point No. 2 being
that the victim went missing from one of the major highways in North
British Columbia. Frost's disappearance is not associated to one of
those highways.
"Because of those points, yes it is being
investigated by the police, but it is not E-Pana, it is with the
detachment with jurisdiction over the file, that being the Prince
George RCMP," Linteau said.
SHe added, the investigation has been
treated as a missing person case for these 39 years, and "there is
no indication that Frost met with foul play."
Prince George RCMP
spokesman Const. Gary Godwin said the file has never accumulated
dust.
"We are revisiting the file, as we have frequently done,"
Godwin said. "It has been brought upstairs to the Serious Crimes
Unit for those investigators to take a look at it. It has always
remained open, but this is new way of looking at it. To date it has
been difficult; there has been no trace, no body or other evidence
to consider it a matter of foul play."
It was definitely assumed
by investigators even right at the time of occurrence that homicide
might have been the fate that met Helen Frost, and those avenues
were pursued.
"There were several sightings of her, as you (The
Citizen) mentioned in your previous reports, but nothing concrete
ever came of those," said Godwin. "Her boyfriend at the time was
also investigated by another police agency out of this province and
nothing was suspicious there. He was ruled out as a suspect."
Gladys Radek, a northern aboriginal woman who co-founded the
national Walk4Justice movement told The Citizen, "Helen Frost has
always been on our list," of victims that need resolution. "As far
as we are concerned, anyone who is a victim of violence against
women deserves to be honoured with a complete, exhaustive
investigation that never stops until the answers are found."
The
number of modern day women missing or murdered in Canada is 3,047,
according to the Walk4Justice list.
Godwin said the RCMP in
northern B.C. "has had some good luck lately" with bringing charges
on some of these older, so-called cold cases, and he never rules out
the chance of a confession of conscience, a vital clue, or a new tip
bringing sudden closure to any of them.
The victims and the
year they went missing are:
Gloria Moody, Williams Lake, 1969;
Micheline Pare, Hudson Hope, 1970;
Gale Weys, Clearwater,
1973;
Pamela Darlington, Kamloops, 1973;
Monica Ignas,
Terrace, 1974;
Colleen MacMillen, 100 Mile House, 1974;
Monica Jack, Merritt, 1978;
Maureen Mosie, Kamloops, 1981;
Shelly-ann Bascu Hinton, Alta., 1983;
Alberta Williams, Prince
Rupert, 1989;
Romona Wilson, Smithers, 1994;
Roxanne Thiara,
found in Burns Lake, 1994;
Alishia (Leah) Germaine, Prince
George, 1994;
Lana Derrick, Terrace, 1995;
Nicole Hoar
missing from Prince George, 2003.
Investigations into the
disappearance of Tamara Chipman of Prince Rupert in 2005 and the
murder of Aielah Saric Auger of Prince Gorge in 2006 are being
conducted by local police agencies which are in close contact with
the E-Pana investigators.
fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
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Aboriginal affairs, justice ministers vow action on missing women
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service October 30, 2009
A stretch of Highway 16 between Smithers and Burns Lake. The highway is
known as the Highway of Tears.
Photograph by: Mikael Kjellstrom file
photo, Canwest News Service
Canada's aboriginal affairs and justice ministers, attending separate
federal-provincial meetings in Toronto and Fredericton on Friday,
highlighted the tragedy of this country's 1,559 missing women and vowed
action on several fronts.
The proposals, including a bolstered national databank of
missing-persons information and a co-ordinated strategy "against the
exploitation of aboriginal women," follow the publication last week of a
special Canwest News Service series exploring the scope of the crisis.
At a federal-provincial-territorial meeting of justice and public safety
ministers in Fredericton, a final communique "acknowledged the
seriousness of missing persons, particularly aboriginal women and
girls."
The ministers also directed officials "to report back on efforts to
create a national information database of missing persons."
And in Toronto, in response to a push by Eric Robinson, Manitoba's
acting aboriginal affairs minister, his provincial, territorial and
federal counterparts agreed to a explore a "national strategy" to
address the epidemic of missing and murdered native women and the
underlying causes of the crises.
"It's got to be seen for what it is," Robinson told Canwest News Service
in an interview Friday. "It's a state of emergency and we have to take
some action."
He said the pan-Canadian ministerial push — which Robinson stated was
strongly "embraced" by federal Indian and Northern Affairs Minister
Chuck Strahl — should send the message to the public and government
officials from all jurisdictions that the tragedy of the deaths and
disappearances of so many aboriginal women is now a national priority.
"We've taken a significant first step," said Robinson, adding that "this
issue is really a disgrace to all of us as Canadians."
The RCMP currently manages a computer clearing house of data about
missing persons in Canada. But there are lingering concerns about a lack
of co-ordination between jurisdictions in tracking and investigating
missing women, a problem highlighted in August when Manitoba RCMP and
Winnipeg police struck a task force to share more information about a
cluster of deaths and disappearances of aboriginal women in and around
the city.
The task force also reactivated a number of cold cases involving missing
women.
Vancouver Island resident Judy Peterson, who was profiled in the Canwest
News Service series, also has gained support from various MPs and the
RCMP in pushing for a national human-remains index, which could be used
to solve some missing-persons cases in Canada.
Peterson's daughter, Lindsey, went missing in 1993 at age 14 in a case
that has never been solved.
Peterson has lobbied for years for new rules that would allow
investigators to overcome existing legal barriers, and compare
unidentified human remains with DNA volunteered from relatives of
thousands of missing Canadian men, women and children.
The Canwest News Service series also examined the uncertain fate of
Sisters in Spirit, a federally funded, five-year initiative that has
compiled information about more than 520 missing and murdered aboriginal
women in Canada.
The program, operated by the Native Women's Association of Canada, has
earned high praise from the Conservative government for its research and
advocacy efforts, but faces the end of its funding within months.
Earlier this week, Winnipeg MP Anita Neville, the federal Liberal critic
for women's issues, called on the government to renew funding for
Sisters in Spirit to continue its campaign to reduce violence and other
social problems in Canada's aboriginal communities.
In their statement Friday, the justice ministers recognized "the efforts
of those who reach out to victims," but no announcement was made about
the future of Sisters in Spirit.
Robinson, who is also Manitoba's culture and tourism minister, said in a
statement he garnered a "unanimous commitment" from fellow ministers to
combat the violence underlying Canada's missing native women.
"The national tragedy of our stolen sisters knows no provincial
boundaries, and urgently requires a national strategy," said Robinson.
"I am pleased my colleagues from coast to coast to coast have agreed
with me by adding this issue to the agenda."
© Copyright (c) The Province
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Families of missing women
march on
By Suzanne Fournier, The Province October
21, 2009
Tamara Chipman was just 22 when she disappeared while trying to
hitchhike along Highway 16.
Photograph by: The Province, Canwest News Service
VANCOUVER — Despite the striking colours along B.C.'s northern Highway
16, fall is not a good time for the grieving family that on Sept. 21
marked the fourth anniversary of the disappearance of Tamara Chipman.
Chipman, just 22 when she disappeared while trying to hitchhike along
Highway 16 from Prince Rupert to her home in Terrace, was an attractive,
tall, slim young woman who "could have been a model, she could have had
the world wrapped around her finger," says her aunt Gladys Radek.
"Tamara had a black belt in ju-jitsu — she was a strong woman who adored
her little boy, but she was also really loving and compassionate and
supported me through the toughest time of my life.
"There's not a day goes by that I don't think of Tamara, but this time
of year is especially hard because it was when she disappeared and it's
also (her) birthday in October, which is the same day as my daughter
Rachel."
Radek has kept the memory of Chipman alive with tireless activism on
behalf of her niece and the dozens of women who Radek says have
disappeared or been found murdered along B.C.'s lonely northern
Yellowhead Highway, the 16 West which runs between Prince George and
Prince Rupert, B.C.
So many women have vanished in the last two decades that the Yellowhead
has been dubbed the Highway of Tears. RCMP doubled its official number
of missing women to 18 in October 2007, but activists like Radek say the
real number of missing women is far higher.
She puts the Highway of Tears toll at 46 women. Police recognize 13
deaths and five unsolved disappearances for a total of 18 women vanished
on northern highways.
For the last two years, Radek and a small group of activists have led
the Walk For Justice — in 2008 from Vancouver to Ottawa, and in 2009, a
1,500-kilometre trek from Vancouver to Terrace, B.C. — to get political
action and a more active police investigation into the hundreds of
missing women who have vanished without a trace in B.C.
The Sisters in Spirit report, released in March, found that the majority
of missing or murdered women cases occurred in B.C., identifying a total
of 137 cases or 26 per cent of the national average. It's one of the
reasons why Radek, a grandmother of five and a Wet'suwet'en First Nation
member, has become so vocal in standing up for the rights of missing
women, the majority of whom are aboriginal.
On Oct. 4, Radek held up a photo of Tamara at the waterfront Crab Park,
close to where dozens more women vanished in Vancouver's ugly Downtown
Eastside, 26 of them now believed to be the victims of Canada's worst
serial killer, Robert William Pickton.
Pickton, 56, was convicted on Dec. 9, 2007 of six counts of
second-degree murder involving women who disappeared from Vancouver's
Downtown Eastside: Mona Wilson, Brenda Wolfe, Sereena Abotsway, Andrea
Joesbury, Marnie Frey and Georgina Papin.
He still faces trial on another 20 counts of first-degree murder, but
the Crown does not plan to proceed on that second trial if Pickton's
convictions are upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, which has set a
tentative date of next March 25 to begin hearing the Pickton appeal of
his first set of convictions.
The 20-count indictment has been set down for trial on Sept. 13, 2010,
although the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch has made it clear that if
Pickton's appeal is denied, it will not proceed with the trial on 20
more charges.
That is a decision that has angered families of the 20 victims, but
there is also an even more grim category in which the RCMP have
identified another six victims.
They are women whose DNA was found in the exhaustive forensic search of
the Pickton farm, but neither Pickton nor anyone else has been charged
in their deaths.
Another 39 women remain on the list of unsolved disappearances of women
who were drug-addicted and worked in the Downtown Eastside's sex trade,
says RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Annie Linteau.
It is for all the women — missing, murdered, remembered or forgotten by
authorities — that Radek marches, but Tamara is always close to the top
of her mind.
As the cool autumn weather lead to shorter days and fainter hopes,
Tamara Chipman's family is recalling for the fourth fall the "sassy"
young woman, who had a smile to light up the darkest corners.
"We won't accept that she's gone, and we find it really hard to believe
the RCMP have really put a lot of time lately into investigating her
disappearance," says Radek. "As we walked across the country, and along
the Highway of Tears for the last two years, we felt people's pain and
saw their tears — so many came to tell us that they had a missing
daughter or mum or sister that the police had never listed as missing.
"The real number of missing and murdered women, the vast majority of
them First Nations, has got to be Canada's national disgrace."
When the RCMP began searching a rural northern property this summer,
after a tip that Nicole Hoar's remains might lie there, it awoke
memories of the Pickton farm search launched in 2002, that turned up
dozens of human remains.
That search is complete, but RCMP won't say what they found.
"They haven't said there was nothing there, either, which brings back
pretty awful fears for all of us family members," says Radek.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
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The Vanished: Canada's Missing Women
Part I: Our national tragedy
Dozens of women have gone missing along the so-called Highway of Tears.
Photograph by:
Mikael Kjellstrom, Calgary Herald
NOTE: There are not dozens missing along
Highway of Tears see
Home Page
(Website Editor)
They disappear from small towns and
big cities, from native reserves in the north and affluent suburbs
in the south. They drift away and they abruptly vanish. And they
leave, in their wake, broken-hearted families, confounded
investigators and gaping holes in the communities where they grew
up, forged friendships, held jobs, raised children.
At this moment in Canada, there are
1,559 missing women on file with the Canadian Police Information
Centre, a national case-tracking database maintained at the RCMP's
Ottawa headquarters.
The number sheds only a partial light
on this dark story. It doesn't include the lost or stolen girls
under the age of 18 who may have lived to become missing women. It
doesn't account, anymore, for those who were once missing but have
since been proven dead.
It doesn't embrace women who are gone
but not reported missing.
Yet great depths of misery and mystery
underlie even this imperfect figure. The stories of Canada's lost
women — enough to equal the population of a small town, or the
entire staff of a large urban hospital — would fill many mournful
volumes.
The stories include some particularly
shocking narratives in which a multitude of the missing disappear
from a single area — such as B.C.'s "Highway of Tears," a lonely
stretch of road between Prince Rupert and Prince George where five
of those women were last seen and 13 others are known to have been
murdered.
A high-profile search in late August
for the remains of Nicole Hoar — one of Hwy. 16's 18 unsolved cases
— sparked extensive news coverage and prompted some nationwide
soul-searching, at least briefly, about Canada's missing women.
Then, within days, came an overdue
pledge by Manitoba RCMP and Winnipeg city police to more closely
collaborate in probing a series of disappearances and deaths of
aboriginal women in that province.
Similar concentrations of missing or
murdered women in Alberta and Saskatchewan were noted, too, along
with the single most horrific chapter in the whole sorrowful saga:
the dozens of vanished women from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside
linked to the predatory B.C. pig farmer Robert Pickton.
But there are tears staining village
streets, rural sideroads and inner-city avenues across the country.
No province or territory is beyond the scope of a tragedy that
encompasses every corner of Canada and which — for all of the
individual instances of anguish — is made especially plain with a
single, breathtaking number: 1,559.
There are thousands of missing men in
the country — more than 5,000, in fact, are listed at CPIC — but the
spotlight has turned to Canada's lost women because of the clusters
of disappearances throughout the West and the sense that predatory
men lurk behind the grim statistics.
Even 1,559 strikes Gladys Radek as a
low estimate.
A member of the Gitksan Nation of
northern B.C. who now lives in Vancouver, Radek has emerged as a
leading voice for the lost. It's an angry voice, and the word
"racism" rolls easily from her tongue as she discusses the pain of
her own family's loss and the disproportionate toll among aboriginal
communities like hers.
But the 59-year-old activist, now
studying aboriginal law at a Vancouver native college, has called
for governments, police agencies and the public to devote more
attention to all of Canada's missing women — "red, black, white and
yellow," as she puts it — with greater investigative resources to
solve existing cases and strengthened social services to prevent new
ones.
"It pissed me off that these women
were going missing without anybody saying or doing anything about
it," says Radek, recalling her gathering awareness of the crisis in
the wake of her own niece's unexplained disappearance in September
2005 along the Highway of Tears.
Tamara Chipman — 22 at the time, and
the mother of a two-year-old boy — was hitchhiking outside Prince
Rupert when she vanished.
"She was just beginning her life,"
says Radek. "Tamara was a beautiful, spunky girl."
The tragedy sparked a vision. Radek
imagined a cross-Canada pilgrimage linking families and communities
across the country struggling to cope with missing and murdered
women.
Last year, with a Vancouver-to-Ottawa
trek she called Walk4Justice, Radek's vision was realized, drawing
widespread media coverage and galvanizing public awareness of
Canada's lost women.
The number 4 in the name "covers all
the races, and all four directions," says Radek. "Before we did that
walk, there wasn't really that much attention paid to the missing
and murdered women. That's when the families started coming together
more and more.
"It was a pretty powerful journey."
Earlier this year, Radek organized a
second Walk4Justice between Vancouver and Prince Rupert to spotlight
the suffering of families — including her own — who've lost loved
ones along the Highway of Tears.
She isn't convinced police in B.C. or
elsewhere are doing enough to probe the hundreds of unsolved cases,
or that governments are sufficiently seized by the need to invest
more in vulnerable communities and demographic groups — native and
non-native — to prevent numbers like 1,559 from growing larger.
"We need better services so women
don't get caught in such desperate situations," she argues. "We're
pushing for a lot more shelters, even in the smallest communities.
There's often nowhere for women to go when they're running from
violent situations."
RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Clary defends
the efforts of police in B.C. and across the country in probing
missing-women cases. In his experience, he says, police agencies
"bend over backwards" to co-operate across jurisdictional
boundaries, comparing notes and sharing clues to try to solve what
are often the toughest cases in police work to crack.
But he does agree with Radek about one
thing when it comes to the CPIC total of 1,559 missing women in
Canada.
"I thought it would be higher," he
says.
Perhaps it's a worldview shaped by his
immersion in scores of missing-women cases — most notably the
Pickton-linked disappearances of up to 60 sex-trade workers and
other high-risk targets in Vancouver — during a 29-year career as
one of B.C.'s leading investigators.
The province has emerged as the
country's main stage in this long-running tragedy, and Clary wonders
aloud if Vancouver's history as a key Pacific port — a magnet not
just for tourists and immigrants who've brought prosperity to B.C.,
but also for criminals — has contributed to the crisis.
Resources, he notes, are not boundless
when it comes to investigating missing women, or any crime for that
matter. But as a key player in the high-profile and well-funded
Project Evenhanded investigation that ultimately unraveled Pickton's
crimes, Clary says he sympathizes with isolated investigators across
the country, who inevitably have a multitude of other open files on
their desks in addition to time-consuming missing-person cases.
"If you have a crime scene and no body
— no person — that's easy. You just roll it out like it's a
homicide. It's when you don't have a crime scene, it's harder.
Because obviously you're adjusting resources and files just never
stop coming in," he says.
"I've been on a project here, so we
just deal with the one issue — which is easier to handle because
there's dedicated resources. But when you're investigating with a
detachment or a municipal PD, there's stuff coming your way every
day. And, of course, it never ends."
The principal strategy for probing the
case of a missing woman is simple enough, he says.
"You identify who their associates
are, where they work, and you just start asking questions.
Generally, that will lead you somewhere. But there's many cases
where you just don't know, and where do you go next?"
Bank accounts, credit cards and
cellphones are probed because they're likely to record a person's
movements, says Clary.
"You can see them existing in society,
and then all of a sudden everything stops," he says. "Whether it's
the methadone clinic, or their doctor, or their welfare cheque — it
just stops. And you have to ask yourself, why did that happen?"
In so many cases, he says, it's what
you can't do for desperate families — the anguished ones seeking
closure years or decades after a sister or daughter has vanished —
that haunts him and other officers assigned to search for the
missing.
Too often, he says bluntly, "you can
never give it to them. It's difficult to convey to them that there's
nothing more you can do."
And the sad reality, he says, is that
the disappeared — in many or even most of the cases on file — are
dead.
But without evidence to prove that a
missing woman was murdered or otherwise lost her life, families are
naturally reluctant to turn the page. The word "missing," for all of
its horrifying connotations, preserves at least a shred of hope.
One weekend in September, in the
remote woods near Thunder Bay, an Ontario family and a team of
volunteer searchers were clinging to such hope.
They scoured the forests of Rainbow
Falls Provincial Park looking for clues that might point to the
whereabouts of Christina Calayca, a vivacious, 20-year-old childcare
worker from Toronto who disappeared — literally "without a trace," a
police spokesperson says — after setting off for a morning jog from
a campsite on Aug. 6, 2007.
Was the young Filipina-Canadian woman
snatched by an unknown assailant or human trafficker? Did she
intentionally vanish to create a new life and identity? Or did she
simply lose her way in the trees, slip into a stream, fall from a
rock ledge?
Police do not have evidence pointing
to foul play, says Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Shelley Garr, but
they just don't know.
"There are a number of possibilities,"
she says, "but we don't speak to hypotheticals."
There's a website,
www.findchristinacalayca.com, that details a 2008 fundraising gala,
holds a cache of news stories, promotes a CD — "Missing You" —
that's dedicated to Calayca.
The site exudes affection for the lost
woman.
"Each day since her disappearance
months ago, Christina's loved ones have hoped and prayed that she
would return to us safely," a message states. "If hope alone were
enough, she would already be home; but she unfortunately is not."
There have now been six searches —
three led by the OPP, three organized by Calayca's family, including
one with sniffer dogs supplied by a benevolent search-and-rescue
specialist from the U.S.
"She went missing and there's been
nothing since," Garr said in a recent interview. "Christina's mother
was up again this past weekend. They are still actively searching
for answers. But it must be frustrating for them."
The best chance for discovery, she
adds, might have been during the initial 17-day search in August
2007, a full-scale operation involving aerial crews and extensive
grid-pattern sweeps by emergency personnel on the ground.
"But then we got into fall," says
Garr, "and fall turns into winter."
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
|
|
Part II: The spirit of the
sisters
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service October 20, 20
Strengthening the Spirit, a committee of service providers that works to
meet the needs of Aboriginal people affected by domestic and sexual
violence, hosted their annual conference on March 26, 2009. Speakers
(left) Bernice Williams-Poitras, and (right) Gladys Radek shared stories
of their own and others who have lost family and friends.
Photograph by: Dean Bicknell, Calgary Herald
They are the keepers of the flame for more than 500 missing and murdered
aboriginal women in Canada. And their crusade has become — for the
moment, anyway — the whole country's crusade.
From a cramped, west-end Ottawa office decorated with dream catchers and
infused with hope, the place where a great divide is bridged between
hundreds of grieving communities across Canada and the powers that be on
Parliament Hill, a small team of researchers and outreach workers is
trying hard not to say: "We told you so."
But the people behind Sisters in Spirit, a five-year, federally funded
initiative launched in 2005 by the Native Women's Association of Canada,
have been saying all along what most Canadians are just now waking up to
after a recent media blitz about murdered and missing women in Western
Canada.
Judy Peterson talks about her missing daughter Lindsey, in this May
25, 2009 file photo.
Photograph by: Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
|
|
Part III: A wound that
never heals
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service October 20, 2009
Judy Peterson, shown here with her daughter Kim, wants a national
missing children's registry. Peterson's daughter Lindsey disappeared 10
years ago.
Photograph by: Rob Kruyt, Canwest News Service
When the Jaycee Dugard horror story broke in late August, news of the
California woman's kidnapping at age 11 — and her 18-year imprisonment
in the squalid backyard compound of her alleged abductor and rapist —
struck Vancouver Island resident Judy Peterson in a way that might
puzzle most Canadians.
"People I've talked to say they feel so sorry," for Dugard and her
family, Peterson says. "I'm thinking, oh man they're lucky. It's like
they've won the lottery. Obviously, it's a horrendous situation that it
happened but, for her to come out the other end of it alive, I'm sure
the mother is very, very grateful."
Peterson's perspective arises from her own immeasurable, unresolved
grief. Her own 14-year-old daughter, Lindsey, went missing near
Courtenay, B.C., in August 1993 and has never been seen or heard from
since.
Read the rest of the story on Monday.
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Sisters of Spirit shines a light on missing aboriginal women
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service October 25, 2009
Strengthening the Spirit, a committee of service providers that works to
meet the needs of Aboriginal people affected by domestic and sexual
violence, hosted their annual conference on March 26, 2009. Speakers
(left) Bernice Williams-Poitras, and (right) Gladys Radek shared stories
of their own and others who have lost family and friends.
Photograph
by: Dean Bicknell, Calgary Herald
They are the keepers of the flame for more than 500 missing and murdered
aboriginal women in Canada. And their crusade has become - for the
moment, anyway - the whole country's crusade.
From a cramped, west-end Ottawa office decorated with dream catchers and
infused with hope, the place where a great divide is bridged between
hundreds of grieving communities across Canada and the powers that be on
Parliament Hill, a small team of researchers and outreach workers is
trying hard not to say: "We told you so."
But the people behind Sisters in Spirit, a five-year, federally funded
initiative launched in 2005 by the Native Women's Association of Canada,
have been saying all along what most Canadians are just now waking up to
after a recent media blitz about murdered and missing women in Western
Canada.
They've been telling Canadians that the dead and disappeared are almost
everywhere across the country; that there is no single serial killer at
work, except apathy; that the tragedy runs deep into the history of
aboriginal dispossession and discrimination; that jurisdictional tangles
and cultural blind spots help explain why so many killings and so many
vanished women have been relegated to the cold-case file.
Among the startling statistics that Sisters in Spirit researchers have
compiled - apart from the group's showcase figure of 520 missing or
murdered Canadian aboriginal women since about 1970 - is that the toll
would be equivalent to 18,000 dead or disappeared women from all ethnic
groups for all of Canada.
The awareness of such facts is only dawning nationwide after a
late-August splash of publicity about one of the 18 disappeared women
along B.C.'s "Highway of Tears," and a coincident push by Manitoba
police to re-energize a probe into the murders of two native women in
Winnipeg.
The alarm blared again in early October when vigils were held across the
country - including one on Parliament Hill - to remember the lost and to
demand, yet again, more resources and more action to solve old cases and
prevent new ones.
"We're dealing with a very marginalized, vulnerable community - I call
it the cycle of distress," says Sisters in Spirit director Kate Rexe.
"It's not just about violence. It's health issues, housing issues,
economic security, drug and alcohol abuse, mental health, racism, and
all of those social factors that create a situation of being
marginalized or vulnerable."
The cruel irony, notes Rexe, is that it took renewed interest in the
fate of the only white woman among the 18 who went missing along a
lonely stretch of B.C.'s infamous Hwy. 16 - Red Deer student Nicole Hoar
- to finally prompt broader questions and revelations about the national
tragedy unfolding among Canada's native women.
Hoar's disappearance "put the Highway of Tears on the map," says Rexe,
but the "17 other aboriginal women" were given footnote status.
And there's more cruel irony. Just when the message Sisters in Spirit
has been spreading for years may finally be sinking in with politicians
and Canadians in general, the project itself is facing a fight for
survival - a potential victim of divided funding priorities.
Rexe and the eight other Sisters in Spirit employees at the Native
Women's Association of Canada headquarters have applied for a fresh,
five-year mandate and another $1-million-a-year funding promise from the
current Conservative government. But they've been waiting months for
federal approval of the project's next phase.
The funding commitment would match the original 2005 outlay made by Paul
Martin's Liberal government and, says Sisters in Spirit, help the group
sustain the momentum behind its research, prevention and publicity
initiatives.
Those initiatives include tool kits - distributed to native communities
throughout the country - to combat sexism, promote safety-conscious
behaviour and generally help prevent violence against women.
But as a measure of the relentless sorrow gripping many aboriginal
communities, another Sisters in Spirit tool kit offers grieving families
advice on dealing with police and the media after a loved one has
disappeared or been murdered.
"The best part about going to the communities is that we let them know
this is a larger problem," says Sisters in Spirit outreach co-ordinator
Jennifer Lord. "We go in as a third-party to say no, you're not alone.
Trust me. Communities across the board are going through this. Urban,
rural, aboriginal, non-aboriginal communities."
The driving force behind the creation of Sisters in Spirit, former
Native Women's Association of Canada president Terri Brown, had been
spurred by personal tragedy: the beating death of her own sister, Ada
Elaine, in 2001.
"How many more of our sisters have to die before it matters?" she said
at the time. "I guess people think, 'Just another dead Indian.' But she
was our baby sister. She mattered to us."
In January 2008, Brown's successor - ex-Native Women's Association of
Canada president Beverley Jacobs, who left the post in September - was
also touched by a family tragedy. Her cousin, 21-year-old Tashina
General from the Six Nations native community near Brantford, Ont.,
disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
At a police press conference to rally search efforts, Jacobs said: "I
have been following stories like this for years, but this time I'm
personally involved. I'd never thought it would ever affect me. We just
want to know that she's safe."
But General wasn't safe. Her body, pregnant with the unborn son she'd
planned to name Tucker, was found in the area that April.
Tashina General's biography is now part of a growing Sisters in Spirit
library of heart-wrenching but inspiring "life stories" - published
accounts of the achievements, qualities and unfulfilled promise of the
lost.
The spectre of unfulfilled promise now haunts Sisters in Spirit itself.
The uncertainty about the group's future has arisen amid rumours that
federal funding could be cut or dispersed more broadly - and less
effectively, Rexe argues - among dozens of groups combating violence
across the country.
Even further delays this fall before Sisters in Spirit's financial
future is clarified means that the organization - even if funds finally
come through next spring - "could potentially go for a year without
funding and lose the continuity and staff and the knowledge," says Rexe.
"We're in a very tricky position."
The government, so far, is providing expressions of support for the
"great work" being done by Sisters in Spirit but no clear comment on the
organization's fate as the end of its funding draws near.
The uncertainty has emerged despite the fact that Status of Women
Minister Helena Guergis has repeatedly highlighted Sisters in Spirit's
achievements to rebuff opposition charges that the Conservative
government is doing too little to deal with Canada's epidemic of missing
and murdered aboriginal women.
Liberal MP Anita Neville, the party's critic on women's issues, has
called for a national investigation into the high rate of missing and
murdered native women, and for stronger measures from the "so-called
tough-on-crime" Tory government to combat human trafficking - the
suspected crime behind some cases of missing aboriginal women.
In response, Guergis has hailed Sisters in Spirit as "an example of a
partnership that works to create tangible benefits" for aboriginal
women.
"Sisters in Spirit aims at quantifying the actual number of missing and
murdered women by understanding the root causes of racialized and
sexualized violence, and by implementing a public awareness strategy,"
she said in August, acknowledging that the group's $5-million allocation
runs out in 2010.
She expressed similar sentiments in response to the October vigils: "We
absolutely support the great work that Sisters in Spirit has done,"
Guergis said.
Sisters in Spirit, created by a Liberal government and kept alive - so
far - by Conservatives, maintains a decidedly non-partisan posture.
But its director persists in asking hard questions of investigators and
all parties and governments - federal, provincial and territorial - when
it comes to the disturbing numbers of missing and murdered native women
that the group generates in its yearly reports.
"Has there been a bias of some sort against aboriginal women?" Rexe
wonders. "Have there been gaps that have essentially ignored the red
flags and the warning signs when a woman goes missing or has been
murdered?"
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Everywhere on
Internet, but still missing
By Sherri Zickefoose, Calgary HeraldOctober 21, 2009
|
|
Jessie Foster |
|
Calgary-born Jessie Foster was 21 when she disappeared in March 2006,
four months after moving to Las Vegas.
Photograph by: Calgary Herald, Canwest News Service
CALGARY — Glendene Grant's days begin around 3:30 a.m. by typing her
daughter's name into online search engines and monitoring dozens of
websites devoted to missing women.
Daughter Jessie Foster may have vanished in the underbelly of Las Vegas
in 2006, but her presence on the Internet is inescapable.
"She's to me the most well-known, unknown missing person in the world,"
said Grant, who has created nearly a dozen websites in her daughter's
name. She adds Foster's photograph and story to every missing persons
list and forum she can find.
Calgary-born Foster was 21 when she disappeared in March 2006, four
months after moving to Las Vegas.
Grant believes her daughter is caught up in a human trafficking ring,
lured to glamorous Las Vegas by a recruiter who helped turn Foster into
a sex slave.
Before her abrupt disappearance, Foster painted a picture of happiness
to her parents. She told them she was engaged to a wealthy man, Peter
Todd, who drove fast cars and lived in a fancy house in north Vegas. She
phoned often and came back to Canada for visits.
Grant eventually learned her daughter's so-called fiance was a pimp with
a prior conviction for spousal assault, and that Foster was working as
prostitute for an escort agency.
Foster had twice been arrested for solicitation in 2005.
Prior to her disappearance Foster travelled to Nevada, New York and
Florida with high school friend Donald Vaz. She called home and said he
asked her to earn funds turning tricks because he gambled his money
away.
Despite her work in the prostitution trade, Foster kept in touch with
family unfailingly, Grant says.
In March 2006, Foster called home to announce she was coming to Kamloops
for a visit in a few days and on to Calgary for her stepsister's
wedding.
She never arrived.
March 28, 2006, was the last day Foster was seen alive. Since then,
Foster's credit cards and bank accounts haven't been touched.
Her frequently used cellphone hasn't been used.
All of these clues are leading Grant to the same horrible conclusion and
she is doing everything she can to keep Foster's story alive.
"I want her to be Canada's poster child for human trafficking. It's a
symbol of the whole thing. Human trafficking needs to take on a face so
people will remember," says Grant.
"Whether she's back or still missing, whether she's alive or not alive,
she's already helped a lot of other people start talking about this."
Her website, www.jessiefoster.ca, and YouTube montages offer a $50,000
reward for information about Foster's whereabouts.
She spends hours every day trying to track down leads.
"We're slowly getting Jessie's case saturated around the world. I write
enough stories and tag her enough that her name is alive out there."
Grant says she doesn't want to think about her daughter's death, because
she wants to focus on finding her alive.
"I think the absolute worst is knowing you're never going to see your
child again. But I think I will see Jessie again. I know I will."
Calgary detectives have an average case load of 3,200 missing person
reports each year, but "99 per cent of those people are found or find
their way home," said Det. John Hebert of the Calgary Police Service
major crimes unit.
Calgary simply doesn't have a number of unsolved high-profile cases of
local women disappearing under sinister circumstances.
"We're certainly not seeing them. In terms of missing persons we're
seeing resolutions of the vast majority of cases as opposed to having a
great number of outstanding ones," said Hebert.
"The vast majority of our outstanding missing persons that are reported
are resolved in one way or another in a reasonably timely manner."
szickefoose@theherald.canwest.com
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
'I love
you' — a missing mother's last words to her son
By Lori Culbert, Vancouver Sun October 21, 2009
It has now been more than three years since anyone — her husband of 30
years, her three siblings, her five children — has seen Shirley Cletheroe, who vanished June 9, 2006.
Photograph by: Vancouver Sun, Canwest News Service
VANCOUVER — Back in June 2006, Shirley Cletheroe was raising her five
children, working at a mill in Fort St. John, and leading a middle-class
life.
One night she didn't come home after attending a house party. At first,
family members thought she was staying at her sister's place, which she
did from time to time. Then she didn't show up for work.
It has now been more than three years since anyone — her husband of 30
years, her three siblings, her five children — has seen the aboriginal
woman, who vanished June 9, 2006.
Cletheroe's file is classified as a missing person's case, although
police say foul play has not been ruled out.
Cletheroe, 45 years old when she vanished, is one of more than 1,500
women across Canada — many of them aboriginal — who the RCMP has
classified as missing.
Perhaps because there are so many of these women, or perhaps because
British Columbia just lived through the Robert (Willie) Pickton murder
trial, there has been little media attention to Cletheroe's case.
But she, like every other woman who has disappeared, leaves behind a
trail of tears and questions.
"My dad's had a hard time since my mom went missing. For him to work and
try to keep the family together is challenging," said Brent Cletheroe,
Shirley's oldest child.
"My little sister just had her 14th birthday."
Brent Cletheroe, 29, said his faith in God has given him comfort over
the last three years as he has grappled with dread and doubt.
"My brothers and sisters have wept on my shoulder and said, 'I know God
is looking out for us,'" said Cletheroe, who is a youth pastor at the
Fort St. John Pentecostal church and the Zamboni driver at the local ice
rink.
The last time Brent spoke to his mother was just a few days before she
vanished.
"She phoned and said, 'I love you.' It was really random. I said, 'I
know you love me, Mom,'" he recalled. "She said, 'That girl that you're
dating . . . That's the one that you need to marry.' My mom had never
said that about any of my girlfriends. She said, 'I love you.' And
that's the last time I heard her voice."
Brent, who did marry his girlfriend and is now the father of a
one-year-old daughter, said his mother was a loving but no-nonsense
parent who raised her children while their father worked on oil rigs.
She would be proud today, he said, to see his four siblings navigating
through life's difficult obstacles.
"In every single one of their lives, I can say I see her in them. And I
know they have what I have, what has steered me through the hard times
on my path in life. And I owe it all to my mother," he said.
His mother, he said, does not fit the stereotypical profile that many
people think of when they hear about an aboriginal woman going missing:
she was not a drug user or a sex-trade worker.
She was, however, going through a depression and drinking a bit too much
in the weeks before she vanished, he said. The family does not believe
Cletheroe disappeared intentionally, but that something bad happened to
her at the house party she attended across the street from her sister's
house — the last place any one saw her alive.
Brent Cletheroe said he understands his mother had an argument with the
owner of the home where the party was held, who the family claims
meticulously cleaned up his house and car after the party. However,
Brent said police will only tell the family that the case is under
investigation, a response he finds frustrating.
"It's three years now and (the police) have given up, really. That's how
we feel."
The RCMP appealed to the public for more tips in the case in June,
saying they had followed all the leads they had received from the family
and the public.
"Nobody just disappears. I think there's somebody out there that has
information that can help us. I think somebody could have heard
something," said Fort St. John RCMP Const. Jackelynn Passarell.
"There is hope that this can be solved, but it will require that piece
of information to come forward."
She said Cletheroe is still considered a missing person, unless "hard
fact evidence" is uncovered to suggest otherwise.
"Because foul play hasn't been ruled out, that means it is something
that might have occurred here, so we have to keep all avenues of
investigation open," Passarell said.
She would not say whether police believe Cletheroe is still alive.
Officers have conducted numerous searches, some in the rural areas
surrounding Fort St. John.
"Shirley's family has been holding on for three years, just having that
looming question: Where is Shirley? We'd like to solve that for them,"
Passarell added.
Brent Cletheroe maintains some hope that his mother may still be alive
but he cannot, he said, be consumed by "the anxiety of always wondering
if she is going to call." Through his faith in God, he has also found
the ability to face the fact she may never come home.
He does not, however, have the strength to join other members of his
family, who have conducted their own searches of forests and rivers
looking for clues.
"I would never want to find my mom like that . . . I apologized (to my
auntie) that I was not a part of it, but I was not strong enough," he
said. "I have peace. I know that we've done all that we can do."
lculbert@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Daughter's
disappearance haunts family.
By Matthew Coutts, Canwest News Service October 24, 2009
TORONTO - Elizabeth Rutledge's two-bedroom apartment is awash with
photographs of her missing daughter, Christina Calayca.
Above the television, the young girl's wide smile shines like the silver
cross around her neck.
Near the couch, a photo from her high school graduation leans next to
another picture, black and white, of the girl smiling over her shoulder;
the word ``missing'' is scrawled in its border.
``You can take a picture, I have plenty of them,'' Rutledge, a
52-year-old insurance broker, tells a visitor to her east end Toronto
apartment in early October. And she does. Two boxes filled with images
of the wide smiling Christina Calayca appear from out of nowhere.
It is left unsaid, but the photographs help Rutledge cope with the loss
of a daughter who, at 20 years old, was already working at a daycare and
helping her single mother pay the mortgage.
Christina Calayca vanished in August 2007, while camping with a cousin
and friends in Rainbow Falls Provincial Park, 200 kilometres east of
Thunder Bay, Ont. She has never been found.
While officials do not suspect foul play, her mother is unable to find
peace, spending the past two years running through scenarios.
``As a mother, my instinct up to now is that I don't feel like she is
dead, '' Rutledge said, sitting amongst the photographs in her cluttered
living room.
Minutes later, she is certain her daughter was murdered in the quiet
isolation of the morning. ``It's depressing to the family because we
just don't understand.''
Friends and family described Calayca as a mature, religious woman. She
had obtained a degree in early childhood education from George Brown
College and was working at a Catholic daycare before she disappeared.
``Christina was so faithful. She was a beautiful girl,'' said Angie
Carboni, the manager of St. Bernadette's Daycare Centre.
Carboni said Calayca would come in on her days off to put up Christmas
decorations for the children, or bring in cake for her co-workers. The
money she earned, Carboni said, would go to helping her family.
``That girl was filled with God, from the top to the bottom.''
Calayca told her mother the week before she disappeared that she wanted
to do missionary work in the Philippines, before returning university
and becoming a teacher.
``Her passion from the beginning was to work in the poor areas,'' said
Rutledge. ``She sees it not just as a Filipino tradition but as God's
order - help other people.''
Calayca was camping with her female cousin and two male friends from a
Christian youth group when she disappeared. She was reportedly jogging
alone in the early hours of Aug. 6, 2007.
A search by Ontario Provincial Police found no sign of Calayca, but her
family would not give up hope, financing as many as six private
searches.
The cost, about $20,000 each, was paid for from their own pockets, with
help from money raised by the Find Christina Calayca Foundation.
Volunteer search groups and cadaver dogs combed the rugged, heavily
wooded parkland and hiking paths that cut along precarious cliff ledges.
``As a mother, I will try everything to know what could have happened
that day,'' Rutledge said.
Last month, the family led one last search, reporting to Ontario
Provincial Police that they may have located a body. OPP Sgt. Shelley
Garr said a team of officers resumed the search for one day, on Oct. 14.
They had no success.
Rutledge said closure will come when her daughter's fate is certain, but
that seems less likely with every passing day.
Already forced to sell her house and move to an apartment, Rutledge said
there was simply no money left to fund another ground search.
Her son, Michael, is about to turn 18 years old, and is enrolled at York
University. He says he wants to be a math teacher.
``I have the choice of either sending my son to university or searching
for my daughter,'' she said. ``I have to choose one or the other.''
National Post
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
Others Missing in Canada
Audio slideshow
Reporter Randy Boswell discusses this series.
Missing since 1984
Time is fixed in the photo — an attractive, young ...
Missing since 2009
Violet Marie Heathen was grieving the loss of one ...
Missing since 2004
Hope. It is the only thing the families of Edmonton..
Missing since 2007
Elizabeth Rutledge's two-bedroom apartment is awash..
Missing since 2000
The people who knew and loved Sheilagh Coleman admit...
Missing since 2006
Tiffany Morrison was someone who resonated in a room...
Missing since 1988
In one memory, Janette Brunet roars, pretending to...
Missing since 2001
Some days it would be easier for Amanda Farnham to...
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