By Chris Bartholomew
Aboriginal: people in Canada who belong to recognized indigenous groups in the Canadian Constitution Act of 1982, sections 25 and 35, respectively as Indians, Metis, and Inuit. Natives.
Often, even when the evidence is overwhelming, when it comes to a serial killer people just would rather not believe it, at first. “I don't think a serial killer is on the loose,” someone says. “It's easier for our society to lay the blame on one person, but I believe that there are multiple murderers out there who are racist and are targeting aboriginal women.”
Time and time again we see things like this being said and later, when someone sits down and looks at the evidence, they change and believe in the serial killer. This is one of those cases.
Some say it's a race thing, but it's really not a good idea to make statements like that when most of the time we find that the killer wasn't prejudice; they just like certain types of women. Statements that I've heard such as: “Would they say the same thing if 10 or 12 local white girls were raped or murdered or disappeared on the same road,” are moot until the serial killer is caught. Only when he is found out will we know exactly why he took mostly aboriginal women.
Someone has found himself a desolate area, vast and rugged. Witnesses are non-existent. There is a place that makes it seem as if women are vanishing into thin air. Numerous back roads lead into the woods from a highway. The terrain is difficult; the bodies could be dumped anywhere.
Highway 16. The British Columbia, Canada, section of the Yellowhead Highway. The number '16' was first given to the highway in 1942, and originally, the route that the highway took was more to the north of today's highway, and it was not as long as it is now.
Since 1988, at least 32 women, 31 of them aboriginal, have been killed or suspiciously disappeared along the 500-mile section of highway between Prince George to Prince Rupert. These crimes have remained largely uninvestigated.
Seven years ago, officers investigating two cold-case murders in Abbotsford had a suspect. The similarities in the murders combined with the suspect's criminal record, which included multiple rape convictions, left police thinking they had the right guy. Unable to prove anything, the suspect, in his 50s, was left to walk free and was last reported living in Ontario.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is officially investigating the unsolved murder or disappearance of nine women between the ages of 14 and 25 since 1974, most of who were hitchhiking along Highway 16. The murders of Kathryn Mary Herbert (11 years old when murdered in 1975), Theresa Hildebrandt (15 years old when slain in 1976) remain unsolved, although their remains have since been recovered. Monica Jack, a 12-year-old girl, disappeared in May 1978 while riding her bike home along Nicola Lake near Merritt. Police recently added the following murders to the Highway of tears probe: Gale Weys, killed in Clearwater in 1973; Pamela Darlington, found dead in Kamloops in 1973; and Maureen Mosie, found dead in Kamloops in 1981.
Many of the small towns that dot the highway have their own theories about the missing women. Some say a serial killer is on the loose. Others think it's one of their own, a person who knows the community and the women well. Since the Canadian police routinely have no suspects and make no arrests in connection with the disappearances, the rumors continue to thrive.
Along the highway there are posters of the missing girls tacked to utility poles. In gas stations, family members have posted pleas to help them find their lost little girls. A sign says, “Highway of Tears: In memory of the missing women.” Every town seems to have been affected.
There are 16, 4, and 12 year spans between the first, middle, and last murders respectively. If the killer first killed when he was in his late teens or early twenties, he would now be in his late forties or early fifties. Even if he waited until he was thirty to kill, that would still put his age well within a physically capable range to kill today. If he spent any time in jail or prison, that could account for some of the time. Maybe he led a quiet, non-criminal life during those periods. In the case of the latter, Dennis Rader has proven expansive amounts of time can pass without the requisite lockup.
While working, he may be emotionally stable and less compelled to search for victims. Amidst those periods requiring fewer commitments, he might be between jobs, he could experience increased stress in conjunction with protracted time during which to think over certain “fantasies” that cross his mind, intensifying the desire to act upon those ruminations. His fantasies are probably about the first time and later murders are an attempt to re-enact the experience. He probably made his first kill as a teen in Terrace, British Columbia, and he probably now resides in the Prince George, British Columbia area.
The first of the latest series of incidents was Ramona Wilson, 15, who was hitchhiking to a friend's place on June 11, 1994. Her remains were found near the Smithers airport a year later. Five months after that, Roxanne Thiara, also 15, went missing from Prince George only to be found dead, her body dumped near Burns Lake. The slaughter rose to three in a row when the remains of Alishia Germaine, again 15, were discovered December 9, 1994.
The next six months are event-free until Delphine Nikal, 16, from Telkwa disappears somewhere between Smithers and her home. She has yet to be found.
Lana Derrick, 19, was a forestry student in Terrace, who went missing while walking down a street in Terrace in October, 1995. She has never been heard from since.
Nothing happened for almost seven years. He could have been in jail. The next victim was the first Caucasian woman, Nicole Hoar, who disappeared on June 21, 2002. Nicole was a young tree planter hitching her way from Prince George to her sister's home in Smithers. She was hoping to attend the Midsummer Music Festival, but she never arrived.
On September 17, 2005, a number of ceremonies named “Take Back the Highway” were held in communities between Prince George and Prince Rupert. Activities included marches, minutes of silence, local speakers and prayers to promote awareness and in protest to the violence against these women.
Four days later Tamara Chipman, 22, went missing somewhere between Prince Rupert and Terrace. Tamara had taken judo for years and was considered able to take care of herself. Not this time. Meanwhile, Crystal Lee Okimaw, 24, vanished from Prince George January 16 and Aielah Saric-Auger, 14, was discovered dead just east of Prince George on February 2, 2006.
Guesses as to what sort of person the police might be looking at include a traveling salesman. A hunter. It could be a trucker who runs in, then out of the towns. It might be someone local who always seems to be at the right place to stop to pick up young women.
In Vancouver, B.C., Northern B.C., Edmonton, Alberta, Saskatchewan in Canada, over 500 women have disappeared and/or been murdered in the last 20 years. Many have been described as having high risk lifestyles.
June 21, 2008, there will be a Walk4Justice, Highway of Tears, from Vancouver to Ottawa. One of the reasons for the walk, besides of course to remember the dead and missing is to let the killer know that they are looking for him, and that he will be caught.
Yes, Police suspect they could be looking for one of the world's worst serial killers, perhaps more than one.
Editor's note: this article was written in 2008. The RCMP investigation described here was formalised as Project E-PANA, which covers eighteen cases along Highways 16, 97 and 5. One of them has since been resolved: in 2012 the RCMP announced that DNA had identified Bobby Jack Fowler, an American who died in an Oregon prison in 2006, as the killer of Colleen MacMillen in 1974, and named him a suspect in two further deaths. Cody Legebokoff, who has an entry in this archive, was arrested near Vanderhoof in 2010 and convicted in 2014 of four murders in the Prince George area, including that of fifteen-year-old Loren Leslie; those killings postdate this article and are not counted among the cases it describes. The wider question the piece raises was taken up by the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which reported in 2019. Most of the cases on this highway remain unsolved.