RCMP Say Highway Of Tears Killers May Never Be Caught

RCMP continue to investigate the deaths and disappearances of 18 young women along a 720 km stretch of northern B.C. dubbed the Highway of Tears. (Contributed/RCMP)

“We’ve turned over every stone we can” – RCMP

CBC News Posted: Oct 17, 2016

A decade after the launch of the RCMP’s high profile Highway of Tears investigation into missing and murdered women in northern B.C., police admit they may never find the killers or make more arrests.

‘Perhaps they’ll never be solved’

“I’ve been honest with our [victims’] families and I say perhaps they’ll never be solved,” RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Clary of the E-PANA unit, told CBC host Anna Maria Tremonti during a townhall on missing and murdered women packed with several hundred people in Prince George Thursday night.

For a decade, E-PANA has been investigating the cold case deaths and disappearances of 18 young women along a 720 km street of northern B.C. dubbed the Highway of Tears.  PANA is an Inuit word for the god who cared for souls in the underworld.

At the height of E-PANA’s work, 70 people worked the investigation. Now, just 8 investigators are left.

“That’s the reality and that’s what I tell the families,” said Clary. “We can’t keep that going forever when there’s no work.”

Women pore over a map that marks deaths and disappearances along the Highway of Tears. (Contributed/UBCIC)

RCMP have named 2 suspects in 4 women’s deaths

E-PANA was launched in 2006 amidst outrage over the number of deaths and disappearances of mostly Indigenous young women in northern B.C.

Indigenous leaders said 50 girls and women had been murdered or gone missing between Prince George and Prince Rupert since 1970.

E-PANA took on 18 of those cases, re-interviewing witnesses and families, following new leads and tips, and converting 700 bankers boxes of dusty police files into a searchable database.

Officers have identified a suspect in three of the murders, but that man is now dead. A different man has been charged with the death of Monica Jack, but that Highway of Tears case is still before the courts.

Still, many families are still waiting for answers and justice for their missing and murdered loved ones.

“We care and we’re trying and we’ll keep following up on the tips and interviews that come in,” said Clary.

‘These …are the toughest to investigate’

“These kinds of stranger-on-stranger investigations are the toughest to investigate,especially in this area, where it’s very isolated, it’s very lonely. A lot of these crimes happened a long time ago.  Some of our victims don’t get found, some don’t get found right away, and evidence is lost,” said Clary.

“Witnesses die. They may or may not know they had important information and [now] we’ll never retrieve it.  In some cases, some of the men who committed these crimes are dead,” said Clary.

Still, Clary says when victim’s families hold vigils or walk the Highway of Tears, the media attention often triggers a spike of tips to police.

“It’s important to keep this alive,” Clary said.

“Killer on the Loose!’ is the warning on a prominent billboard beside Highway 16 in northern B.C., where numerous young women have died or disappeared. (CBC )

‘I imagine 50 women missing from West Vancouver’

“It’s the people from the communities that are going to solve these crimes,” he said. “We’ve turned over every stone we can.”

“Who’s protecting our young Indigenous girls and women?” asked Mary Teegee, the Director of Child and Family Services at Carrier Sekani Family Services in Prince George. “I often imagine 50 women missing from West Vancouver. What would be the outcry? For one thing, the [death toll] would never reach that in West Vancouver.”

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rcmp-say-mmiw-highway-of-tears-missing-and-murdered-women-cases-may-never-be-solved-1.3805609

Pokemon No Go? Indigenous Woman Wants Burial Ground Pokestop Gone

Prince George Pokemon Go players gather at the entrance to the Lheidli T’enneh burial ground, a designated Pokestop. (Facebook/Kym Gouchie)

‘This is sacred ground. There should not be any Pokemon Go inside a burial site’

By Betsy Trumpener, CBC News: Jul 25, 2016

A traditional burial ground should be a No Go for Pokemon Go — so says a Lheidli T’enneh woman who wants to shut down a poke stop in an Indigenous graveyard in Prince George, B.C.

Kym Gouchie was visiting her father’s grave Sunday, when she encountered dozens of Pokemon players traipsing through her First Nation’s burial ground.

“To have a poke stop there and to have people searching around in the burial grounds is absolutely absurd … and very disrespectful– Kym Gouchie, Lheidli T’enneh 

Sacred burial ground is Pokestop

“It’s sacred there,”said Gouchie. “This land was once my ancestral land. This is the only little piece of land inside Prince George that is ours, and you are disrespecting it.”

“My dad, my uncles, my cousin, my great grandmother are all buried there,” she said.

The traditional graveyard  is located in a popular riverside park, where the Lheidli T’enneh once lived, before their village was burned to the ground in 1913 and their community forcibly relocated to reserve land.

Kym Gouchie spoke to dozens of people who came to a Pokestop in the Lheidli T’enneh Indigenous burial grounds as she was visiting her father’s grave. (Facebook/Kym Gouchie )

The traditional Lheidli burial ground is now open to the public, but it’s gated and enclosed by hedges within the Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park.

But this weekend, said Gouchie, she confronted a young man in the graveyard who pointed at the outdoor altar and Indigenous clan carvings and he told her it was a Pokestop.

‘Absolutely absurd and very disrespectful’

“To have a Pokestop there and to have people searching around in the burial grounds is absolutely absurd in my mind and very disrespectful,” said Gouchie.

A Pokestop is an in-game checkpoint, a location where players enter and click on their device to collect prizes and items available at that stop

A Lheidli T’enneh singer and artist, Gouchie said her adult children gamers who enjoy Pokemon Go.

But she is angry.

“I was being sort of a defender of the land. I was thinking, I need our K’san [traditional] drummers out here so we can block both these gates and … stop this,” she said.

Defender of the land

“This has to stop,” said Gouchie. “This game has only been live in Canada for one week. It’s only a matter of time before that burial site is filled with Pokemon Go people.”

Gouchie says she spoke with many players on Sunday and tried to educate them about the place they were entering.

She said many agreed a graveyard Pokestop was “creepy” and preferred to stay outside the burial ground’s gate while they played.

‘It should not happen’

But she said others told her they weren’t hurting anything by playing in the burial ground.

She doesn’t blame the players, but Niantic, the game’s creator, said Gouchie .

Gouchie has submitted an automated request to have the Pokestop removed.

She’s also reported it to her chief and council.

“It should not happen. It should not be on their map,” she said. “They didn’t consult us. They didn’t ask permission,” said Gouchie.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/poke-stop-in-indigenous-burial-ground-angers-lheidli-t-enneh-woman-1.3694224?cmp=abfb

B.C. House With 10,000 Dirty Needles Connected To Youth In Provincial Care

RCMP Corp. Craig Douglass said the house connected to nearly a dozen youth in Prince George was a “crack house” and “flophouse.” (Betsy Trumpener/CBC)

CBC News

Children as young as 12, some in government care, stayed in Prince George drug house

Children as young as 12, some in government care, were “effectively living” at a northern B.C. drug house where 10,000 dirty needles were found last month, CBC News has learned.

RCMP Corp. Craig Douglass called the rental duplex unit on Spruce Street near downtown Prince George, B.C., a “crack house” and “flophouse.” He said addicts bought drugs there and frequently stayed overnight while using crack cocaine, heroin, and crystal meth.

RCMP raided the home in response to a report of a woman being threatened with a firearm on Nov. 19. They arrested 15 people and found a vast quantity of used needles inside.

“A staff sergeant estimated 10,000 [needles] in this residence,” said Douglass. “They were in every cranny and crevice, in the couch, in bags of garbage, in any spot lying on the floor.”

Youth had nowhere else to go: Turpel-Lafond

B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, said about ten young people, aged 12 to 15 years old, were connected to the house.

“They were effectively living in what I can only describe as being a bit of a drug house,” she said.

Turpel-Lafond said she has been lobbying MCFD for several months to find them a safe place to live, but there are no beds or facilities in Prince George where they can get help.

“These are young people who are supposed to be in [ministry] care, living in a safe, appropriate home,” said Turpel-Lafond.

“These are some of our most vulnerable children, who are likely to come to serious harm. These are kids who’ve experienced abuse, who need a home and who need safety.”

Without a safe place to go, the youth have been surviving on the street, couch surfing, returning to abusive homes, or sleeping at a drug house, she said.

Turpel-Lafond said the youth may have been injecting hard drugs.

“They’re very easy prey for sexual abuse,” she said. “They’re in peril. This is an issue I’ve brought to the attention of  the ministry repeatedly.”

Turpel-Lafond is also critical of the community’s response.

“There must be people [who were] driving by that place every day and knew what was going on,” she said.

House previously raided

The ministry declined to comment on these specific allegations, citing privacy issues. It did say that the ministry has strict protocols in place to respond to allegations once youth are in its care.

Douglass said it wasn’t the first time officers had been called to the house and found young people there. A previous raid in August resulted in the arrest of a 14-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy.

“It’s not all that uncommon,” said Douglass. “We do find kids of all ages in these [type of] residences at times. Sometimes it’s toddlers crawling on the floor, sometimes it’s teenagers.”

Douglass said RCMP contacted the teenagers’ guardians and alerted the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/prince-george-house-10000-needles-1.3346500