The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large (50 page)

This begged the question: if Pickton was the Low Track slayer, why had the searches of the farm in 1997 and 1998 not unearthed any evidence? And how could he have continued to abduct and murder victims afterwards, when he should have been under surveillance by the police?

The authorities were adamant that the evidence had been hard to come by as Pickton went to great lengths to dispose of the bodies. They were said to have been left out in the open to decompose or be eaten by insects. Otherwise they were fed to the pigs on the farm. Forensic anthropologists spent two years and $70 million shifting through the soil on the farm in an attempt to find traces of remains. Then in March 2004, the authorities said that the victims’ flesh may have been ground up and mixed with pork from the farm. This pork was never sold commercially, but was handed out to friends and fed to visitors to the farm – perhaps even visiting prostitutes themselves.

Meanwhile Pickton maintains his innocence of all charges. But even if he is guilty as charged, what happened to the other women who went missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside? Their number is disputed. The task force maintain there are another 47 unaccounted for. However, when Pickton was arrested, the Prostitution Alternatives Counselling Education said that 110 streetwalkers from British Columbia’s Lower Mainland had been slain or kidnapped over the past two decades. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have 144 cases of prostitutes murdered or missing with foul play suspected across the province. So it is likely that there is another – or possibly several – killers at large in British Columbia.

Canada’s “Highway of Tears”

A serial killer, or killers, seem to be at work along Highway 16 in northern British Columbia. The stretch that runs the 450 miles from Prince Rupert to Prince George has become known at the “Highway of Tears”. It is regularly flanked by posters showing pictures of teenage girls and young women under the word “Missing”.

It is a lonely stretch of road, especially in winter – though it can be staggeringly beautiful when the sun comes out and rays of light coming through the clouds play on the frozen lakes, creeks and vistas of mountains that disappear in the clouds. Sometimes at sunrise and sunset, the snow on the mountain peaks glows neon pink.

On some parts of the road there is nothing but wilderness for miles, interrupted by the occasional ranch house with smoke trailing from the chimney. There are signs warning: “Caution: Moose Next 20 km.”

Travelling through the towns along the way – Vanderhoof, Fraser Lake, Burns Lake, Houston, Telkwa and Smithers – the car radio announces meetings of the local knitting circle and the snowmobile club. Young residents have few choices but to hitchhike when they travel from town to town.

There are many side roads off the highway, leading to remote logging sites, lakes and other rural recreational spots. It is the kind of sparsely-populated rural countryside that attracts tourists and sports fishermen from Europe and the US – including late-night talk show host David Letterman – and, it seems, murderers.

The disturbing pattern of disappearances was first noticed in 1995, but they seem to have started much earlier. The victims were young girls, mostly Aboriginal in origin, and aged 15 to their early 20s. They vanished after being seen hitch-hiking along the highway.

Fifteen-year-old Monica Ignas appears to be the first victim. She went missing near Terrace on 13 December 1974. Her partially clothed body was found in a gravel pit on 6 April 1975, about four miles from Terrace. She had been strangled.

One area resident, Janet Hultkrans, recalls that Ignas used to hitch-hike from Terrace to her home just past Thornhill, on the outskirts of town.

“Maybe she was the first [to disappear],” she says. “She wasn’t much older than my kids and I had picked her up once and driven her to school, so she is forever in my memory. She was a nice girl and doesn’t deserve to be forgotten.”

In the early hours of 27 August 1989 a 24-year-old “First-Nations” woman named Alberta Gail Williams disappeared from Prince Rupert. The police were notified and the family under took a frantic search.

“I just knew something was wrong,” said Alberta’s sister Kathy Williams.

“My father said, ‘It makes me so sad to see my kids out there looking through bushes,’” Claudia Williams, another sister, recalled. “He said, ‘If she’s not alive I want to know what happened.’”

Nearly a month later, on 25 September, some hikers came across a body near the Tyee Overpass on Highway 16, about 23 miles east of Prince Rupert. It was identified as that of Alberta Williams. The body was flown to Vancouver for a post mortem and the coroners there confirmed that she had been murdered, though the police never released details of how she had been killed.

Earlier in that summer, Alberta and Claudia had come to Prince Rupert to take a summer job at a local fish company. They had family in town. The season had drawn to a close and 26 August was their last payday. They intended to move to Vancouver. But first they went out to celebrate in Popeye’s Pub – now known as the Rupert Pub – with sister Kathy, cousins Carole and Phoebe Russell, along with Phoebe’s boyfriend Gordon McLean. At around 2.30 a.m., Alberta left first, followed by the rest of the revellers.

“When I got outside, she turned towards the old Greyhound building and I lost her,” said Claudia.

What happened next remains unclear. The local paper reported that Alberta attended “a local bar and then a house party”. The Williams family heard something similar.

“I heard she was at a party and some people saw her,” said Alberta’s uncle Wally Samuel. But the people with her did not come forward.

The local newspaper also reported that Alberta Williams was seen with an unidentified man later that night.

“She loved people,” said Claudia. “Out of all my sisters she’s the best. I really think she’d be around today if she wasn’t the friendly person she was.”

“Murder investigations such as this remain active until they are solved,” said Constable Jagdev Uppal of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police some 15 years after the event. “The investigation into Alberta’s death, particularly at the time of the event, was extensive and includes over 200 tips. Due to the seriousness of the matter, and to protect the integrity of the investigation, details regarding the evidence are not being released.”

A new series of killings began with 16-year-old Ramona Wilson, who was last seen hitch-hiking along Highway 16 to visit a friend in Smithers, 130 miles east of Prince Rupert, on 11 June 1994. Her remains were found near Smithers airport in April 1995.

Ramona’s best friend Kristal said: “Ramona was such a dear friend and a young woman with more drive than anyone else I knew at age 15. She had hopes and dreams for her life . . . I still wonder what the purpose of her murder was, but I know that I have to look to the future as opposed to sitting back and wondering why things happen.”

Kristal was also one of the last people to see 16-year-old Delphine Nikal, who went missing while hitch-hiking east along Highway 16 from Smithers to her home in Telkwa on 13 June 1995. She has yet to be found. Delphine’s cousin Cecilia Anne Nikal had been missing since 1989 and another cousin Roberta Cecilia Nikal had been murdered.

Before Delphine Nikal disappeared, 15-year-old Roxanne Thiara went missing from Prince George in November 1994. Her body was found dumped near Burns Lake on 9 December 1994. Another murder occurred that same day.

Sixteen-year-old Alishia Demarah Germaine – also known as Leah Germaine or Leah Cunningham – had attended a pre-Christmas dinner hosted by the RCMP at the Native Friendship Centre on George Street, leaving at around 8.00 p.m. She was then seen at the Holiday Inn, on George Street, and at J. C. Funland.

At 11.45 p.m. that night, the police were called to Haldi Road School on Leslie Road. Three people who had taken a short cut through the schoolyard had come across the body of a young woman. It was Leah Germaine, dead from multiple stab wounds. The teenage had been a drug-user and supported her habit by working the city streets as a prostitute, though it seems she had plans to straighten out her life and finish her education. She never got the chance.

A composite drawing of the man Leah was seen with that night was produced. The police found the man, but this led them no closer to finding Germaine’s killer. The police were also on the look-out for the owner of a dark blue pick up truck with a homemade canopy on the back that was parked on Fifth Avenue downtown, near the Post Office the night Germaine was killed. Some of Germaine’s personal effects were found nearby – though the owner was considered a potential witness rather than a suspect.

Early on in the investigation, there were some suspicions that Germaine’s murder and those of Roxanne Thiara, Ramona Wilson and Delphine Nikal were connected. All the victims were between the ages of 15 and 20. Thinking that a serial killer might be at work, a team of investigators, including two FBI trained behavioural profilers, came to the area for a week in 1995. They dismissed the theory even though some made connections to an earlier murder of a First-Nations woman.

On 24 July 1990, the body of 21-year-old Cindy Angus Burk was found near a highway in Kiskatinaw Provincial Park outside Dawson Creek, 160 miles northeast of Prince George. She had been raised primarily in Regina, Saskatchewan and later moved to Carmacks, Yukon Territory. Cindy was new to northern British Columbia in the summer of 1990. She was last seen around mid-July in Prophet River, north of Fort St John and at that time was thought to be heading to Saskatchewan. At the time of the discovery of Cindy’s body an extensive search of the area was conducted, numerous people were interviewed and forensics were gathered and analyzed. Despite exhaustive efforts no one was arrested. But the file remained open and over 16 years later, on 16 November 2006, a 60-year-old man was arrested in Fort St John and charged with second-degree homicide in connection with Cindy’s death.

Despite the detectives’ scepticism, the disappearances continued. On 7 October 1995, 19-year-old Lana Derrick, a forestry student at Northwest Community College in Terrace, disappeared. She was last seen at a service station in Thornhill while home from school at the weekend. She has never been heard from since.

Things went quiet on Highway 16 for the next seven years. Then on 21 June 2002 a Caucasian woman went missing while hitch-hiking down Highway 16. Nicole Hoar was a 25-year-old young tree planter from Red Deer last seen hitching her way from Prince George to her sister’s home in Smithers. She was hoping to attend the Midsummer Music Festival, but never arrived.

Her family and friends got the story of her disappearance out to all the major news organizations. They organized a massive poster campaign and a reward was offered. The RCMP searched the area using helicopters and other aircraft. Two hundred volunteers including more than 60 members of trained search and rescue teams combed the highway. Despite everything, no sign of Nicole Hoar was ever found.

A campaign called “Take Back the Highway” was started. On 17 September 2005, there were marches, speeches and prayers to commemorate the dead in communities between Prince Rupert and Prince George. But four days later 22-year-old Tamara Chipman went missing somewhere between Prince Rupert and Terrace. She was last seen hitch-hiking eastbound on Highway 16 near Prince Rupert’s industrial park around 4.30 p.m. on 21 September 2005. She had been in Prince Rupert partying with friends for the previous three days.

She wasn’t reported missing by her family until 10 November as they thought she might have been visiting relatives in the Lower Mainland. It was also thought that she might have been hiding out from the law. She was facing three separate assault charges at the time, including one alleging forcible entry and assault with a weapon. Before she was reported missing, three warrants were issued for her arrest for failing to show up in court. She was also trained in judo, 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighing 130 pounds, and it was not thought that an assailant could easily have overpowered her.

“She was pretty spunky,” her father said. “She took judo lessons for years, so she knew how to look after herself pretty good.”

Tamara Chipman was said to be very close to her father and stepmother, though she sometimes did not contact her family for a couple of days and it was not unusual for her to be gone for weeks. But after 21 September 2005, her rent was not paid and no use was made of her bank account.

She did not have a job and liked spending time on her former boyfriend’s boat, liked water-skiing and looking after her two-year-old son Jaden, who she left in the care of his father, 42-year-old Rob Parker, when she took off. Parker, Chipman’s ex-boyfriend, said he was one of the last people to talk to her in Terrace on 17 or 18 September. She called him despite there being a no-contact court order in place.

“That’s the last time I ever heard her voice,” he said.

Parker said he had heard about her being seen hitch-hiking from Prince Rupert back to Terrace.

“I don’t believe she ever got here,” he said and believes that she got lost like other women along Highway 16. He agreed to take a lie-detector test.

Ten RCMP officers were assigned to the investigation and Tamara’s family undertook an extensive search of the highway. Her father walked long stretches of the road looking in every culvert. Officers also contacted the major crimes unit in Prince George which continues to investigate the disappearance of numerous women along Highway 16 over the last decade.

Meanwhile, 24-year-old Crystal Lee Okimaw disappeared from a women’s shelter in Prince George on 16 January 2006. Foul play was suspected.

The remains of 14-year-old Aielah Saric-Auger were found by a passing motorist on the side of Highway 16 near Tabor Mountain 10 miles east of Prince George on 10 February 2006. She was last seen by her family on 2 February. At the time, family members said she stayed overnight with a friend, but there were report of a sighting of her getting into a black van the following day. Two retired RCMP officers who had worked on the earlier investigation told the
Prince George Citizen
that Aielah had been the victim of a serial killer who was also responsible for the deaths of Ramona Wilson, Roxanne Thiara, Alishia Germaine and, possibly, Delphine Nikal.