Highway of Tears murders

Warning sign on the Highway 16 stating "Girls don't hitchhike".

The Highway of Tears murders is a series of unsolved murders and disappearances of young women along the 800 km (500 mi) section of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada from 1969 until 2011.[1][2] Police list the number of victims at 18, but estimates by aboriginal organizations range into the 40s, largely because they include women who disappeared a greater distance from the highway.[3]

Victims

No. Name Age Fate Last location Year Notes
1 Gloria Moody 26 Homicide Williams Lake 1969 She was last seen on October 25, leaving a bar in Williams Lake. Her body was found in the woods at a cattle ranch 10 km away.
2 Micheline Pare 18 Homicide Hudson's Hope 1970 Last seen on Highway 20 at the gates of Tompkins Ranch situated between Fort St. John and Hudson's Hope. Two women who had given her a ride had dropped her off there.
3 Gale Weys 19 Homicide Clearwater 1973 (October) Disappeared while hitchhiking from Clearwater to Kamloops. Her body was found in a ditch on Highway 5 south of Clearwater.[4] Bobby Jack Fowler prime suspect
4 Pamela Darlington 19 Homicide Kamloops 1973 (November) Vanished from Kamloops while hitchhiking to a local bar. Her body was found the next day.[4] Bobby Jack Fowler prime suspect
5 Monica Ignas 14 Homicide Thornhill 1974 (December) She was believed to be going home from school when she was last seen on Dec. 13, 1974 in Thornhill, B.C. Her body was found on Apr. 6, 1975, east of Terrace. She had been strangled.
6 Colleen MacMillen 16 Homicide 100 Mile House 1974 (August) Last seen leaving her home in Lac La Hache to hitchhike to a nearby friend's house.[4] Suspect Bobby Jack Fowler's DNA was found on her body in 2012.
7 Monica Jack 12 Homicide Merritt 1978 For 17 years her fate was unknown; In June 1995, forestry workers found skeletal human remains in a ravine off a logging road on Swakum Mountain, about 20 km from where Monica's bike had been located. Dental records and DNA testing confirmed her identity. In December 2014, a serial rapist named Garry Taylor Handlen was charged with the murder of Monica Jack and 11-year girl named Kathryn-Mary Herbert, who has also been speculated as being a victim of the Highway of Tears murders. Police said that he was previously a suspect, but there was not enough evidence to charge him. The December 2014 arrest was attributed to new advances in DNA analysis, but the specific details have not yet been released.[5][6]
8 Maureen Mosie 33 Homicide Kamloops 1981 Maureen Mosie, 33, was believed to be hitchhiking from Salmon Arm to Kamloops in the B.C. Interior, when she was last seen on May 8, 1981. Her body was found the next day by a woman walking her dog along a road off the Trans-Canada highway about 16 kilometres east of Kamloops. She had been severely beaten.
9 Shelly-Ann Bascu 16 Missing Hinton, Alberta 1983 Several days after disappearing, personal items including clothing and blood droplets matching her bloodtype were found near the Athabasca River.[7]
10 Alberta Williams 24 Homicide Prince Rupert 1989 The body of Alberta Williams, 24, was found on Sept. 25, 1989, about 37 km east of Prince Rupert, B.C., near the Tyee Overpass. She had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
11 Delphine Nikal 16 Missing Smithers, British Columbia 1990 Delphine Nikal vanished on June 13, 1990. The 15-year-old teenager was hitchhiking east from the town of Smithers, B.C.
12 Ramona Wilson 16 Homicide Smithers 1994 She was hitchhiking to her friends home in Smithers, BC on June 11, 1994. Ramona's remains were found April 1995 near the Smithers Airport.
13 Roxanne Thiara 15 Homicide Burns Lake 1994 She went missing in Prince George on the July long weekend in 1994. She had worked as a prostitute and told a friend she was going out with a customer. She walked around the corner of a building and was never heard from again. Her body was found Aug. 17, 1994, in the bush along Highway 16, six kilometres east of Burns Lake.
14 Alishia 'Leah' Germaine 15 Homicide Prince George 1994 (December) She was found murdered on Dec. 9, 1994, behind Haldi Road Elementary School off of Highway 16 W. outside of Prince George. Leah, 15 years old, part-native was stabbed to death.
15 Lana Derrick 19 Missing Terrace 1995 She was last seen in October 1995 at a service station in Thornhill. Fowler was apprehended (for crimes in USA) in June 1995, and could not have committed this crime.
16 Nicole Hoar 25 Missing Prince George 2002 Fowler was imprisoned in 1996 until his death in 2006, and could not have committed this or later crimes
17 Tamara Chipman 22 Missing Prince Rupert 2005 Last seen in Prince Rupert, British Columbia while hitchhiking east on Highway 16.
18 Aielah Saric Auger 14 Homicide Prince George 2006 The body of Aielah Saric-Auger, 14, was found shortly after she went missing on Feb. 2, 2006. A motorist found Saric-Auger in a ditch on Highway 16 near Tabor Mountain, nearly 20 kilometres east of Prince George.

Investigation

In 2009, police converged on a property in Isle Pierre, in rural Prince George, to search for the remains of Nicole Hoar, a young tree planter who went missing on Highway 16, on June 21, 2002. The property was once owned by Leland Vincent Switzer, who is currently serving a prison sentence for the second-degree murder of his brother. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) also searched the property for the other missing women from the Highway of Tears; however, no further actions followed the investigation.[2]

On September 25, 2012, the RCMP announced a link between the murders and deceased United States criminal Bobby Jack Fowler. His DNA was found on the body of Colleen MacMillen, one of the presumed victims.[8] Investigators first compiled a DNA profile of the perpetrator in 2007, but technology available at the time did not yield a strong enough sample. New technologies allowed police to reexamine the DNA in 2012, leading to the identification.[4] Fowler is also strongly suspected to have killed both Gale Weys and Pamela Darlington in 1973. The RCMP believe that he may have also killed as many as ten of the other victims.[8]

Despite identifying Fowler as the killer in these cases, investigators are doubtful that they will ever solve all of the murders. They do have persons of interest in several other cases, but not enough evidence to lay charges.[4]

Accusations of racism

Some critics argue that the lack of results arising from this investigation is the result of systemic racism.[9] This was also believed to be an issue in the case of Vancouver's missing women and the Robert Pickton murders. The issue of systemic racism in these cases is explored in "Finding Dawn", the 2006 documentary by Christine Welsh whose film includes a section on the Highway of Tears victim Ramona Wilson, including interviews with family and community members. Often overlooked in reports on the Highway of Tears is the fact that over half of the missing women are Aboriginal.

Proponents of the concept of systemic racism argue that media coverage of these cases has been limited, claiming that "media assign a lesser value to aboriginal women".[10] Furthermore, despite the fact that these disappearances date back as far as 1969, it was not until 2005 that Project E-Pana was launched, investigating similarities between the cases. In addition, the individual case which has received the most media and police attention thus far is that of Nicole Hoar, a Caucasian woman who disappeared in 2002. Hers was the first of the Highway of Tears cases to be covered in The Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, and Edmonton Journal. Gladys Radek, a native activist and the aunt of victim Tamara Chipman, "believes that if it weren’t for Hoar, the police would have invested less effort in investigating cases, and the media would have done little, if anything, to inform the public about the tragedies along the road."[10]

Popular culture

One of the victims found alongside the highway, 16-year-old Ramona Wilson, was a subject of a 2006 documentary film by Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh, entitled Finding Dawn.[11][12]

An episode of the series 48 Hours about the Highway of Tears murders aired on November 17, 2012.[13]
In March 2014 a new Documentary is released named "Highway of Tears".[14]

References

  1. ↑ Lee, Miyoung (November 17, 2009). "BC's infamous 'Highway of Tears'". CBC Digital Archives (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 10 December 2009.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Highway of Vanishing Women", Daily Beast, July 10, 2011
  3. ↑ Human Rights Watch, 2013, Those Who Take Us Away: Abusive Policing and Failures in Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls in Northern British Columbia, Canada. http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/canada0213webwcover_0.pdf
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Culbert, Lori (September 26, 2012). "Victim's family still heartbroken after dead U.S. sex offender linked to Highway of Tears slaying".
  5. ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/garry-taylor-handlen-charged-in-2-child-slaying-cold-cases-1.2856285
  6. ↑ http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Suspect+killings+well+known+police+serial+rapist/10431704/story.html
  7. ↑ "DF - 771BC563". Missingincanada.angelfire.com. 1983-05-03. Retrieved 2012-09-26.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sep 25, 2012 10:59 AM PT. "Deceased U.S. convict linked to 3 B.C. cold cases - British Columbia - CBC News". Cbc.ca. Retrieved 2012-09-26.
  9. ↑ "Murder and racism along the Highway of Tears". Canada.com. 2009-08-29. Retrieved 2013-06-17.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Rolston, Adriana (2010). "Highway of Tears Revisted" Ryerson Review of Journalism, http://www.rrj.ca/m8461/
  11. ↑ O'CONNOR, JENNIFER (Winter 2009). "FINDING DAWN". Herizons (Bnet).
  12. ↑ de Vos, Gail (January 11, 2008). "FINDING DAWN". Canadian Materials (Manitoba Library Association) XIV (10).
  13. ↑ "Episode Detail: Highway of Tears - 48 Hours". Retrieved 19 November 2012.
  14. ↑ IMDB Entry about "Highway of Tears"

External links