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'Highway of Tears' forum hears demand for action
Updated Thu. Mar. 30 2006 11:27 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The emotional family members of nine women who have gone missing or were discovered slain along a stretch of road in northern B.C. known as the "Highway of Tears" are appealing to the RCMP to take action.
"We have to keep making noise to the government, to our justice systems, to anybody," Sally Gibson, whose niece has been missing since 1995, told a crowd of more than 500 on Thursday.
"We don't put up any fusses and you find that silence is acceptance. And we can't just accept this. We can't," Gibson said.
Since 1990, nine women have been murdered or disappeared along Highway 16, a remote 720-kilometre stretch of highway between Prince George and Prince Rupert.
Aboriginal groups, community leaders, politicians and police are in Prince George for the two-day conference to examine why women, most of them native, are dying or disappearing in the area and what they can do about it.
"If this happened in the United States, they would have a hundred officers, they'd have a task force and I think it's up to the politicians to get involved," said Tim Chipman, whose daughter vanished last December.
Lucy Glaim, whose sister is missing, called on the RCMP to undergo sensitivity and cross-cultural training.
"Even as late as 1998, an investigator came to my place of work and while questioning me, he asked me why I was crying," she said.
RCMP Supt. Leon Vanderwalle acknowledged that there were concerns about sensitivity.
"All I can tell you is Chief Supt. (Dick) Bent said we haven't always been great at it, but we're sure working hard to get better at it," Vanderwalle said.
RCMP Sgt. John Ward said the remoteness of the region where many of the women have gone missing makes it difficult to investigate.
"You are looking at a situation where a perpetrator looks for an opportunity, will see someone on a lonely stretch of highway," he said. "There are no witnesses."
The RCMP sought to reassure family members that police are responding to their concerns and will review at least 10 files.
"Once we've finished gathering the material and entering it into the database, comparing it and what we call collating it, comparing it to each other, we will then start the review," Vanderwalle said.
"This will be done by eight skilled investigators, operating in isolation. This will be their only focus and their only job."
But Ward said it was still too early for police to conclude a serial killer is involved.
"We're looking at it with an open mind," said Ward.
Among the missing or dead women along the highway since 1990 are Saric-Auger, 14, Tamara Chipman, 22, Lana Derrick, 19, Ramona Wilson, 15, Delphine Nikal, 15, Roxanna Thiara, 15, Aleisha Germaine, 15, Nicole Hoar, 25. Only Hoar, who has been missing for four years, is not a member of the aboriginal community.
Monica Ignas was 15 when she disappeared from the highway in December 1974 and 27-year-old Alberta Williams vanished on Aug. 27, 1989. Cecilia Anne Nikal, a cousin of Delphine Nikal, has been missing since 1989.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Kate Corcoran and files from The Canadian Press
