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THE RCMP is adding every unsolved murder, suspicious death and suspicious disappearance north of Kamloops to a computer database containing information on murdered and missing women along Hwy16.
The goal is to find out if there is anything in common between any or all of the cases that could eventually lead to an arrest, says RCMP media relations officer Staff Sergeant John Ward.
He did not know how many new cases were being added or over what period of time but said the new computer program being used will enable officers to sift through more information than ever before.
"The decision was that now we have people entering information into the database, we should see what else is out there and group them together," Ward said.
"You could characterize it as an expanded investigation but it is more of a review of files using new technology to see if there is a commonality," he said.
"It certainly will be comprehensive," Ward added of the new effort.
Ward said the new files being added to the Hwy16 database come in many forms, some of which are already in an existing sophisticated database called the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS).
It contains information on nation-wide solved or unsolved homicides and attempted homicides, solved or unsolved sexual assaults, suspicious missing persons cases, still unidentified bodies where homicide is either known or suspected and non-parental abductions or attempted abductions.
Information is entered into ViCLAS using a standardized questionnaire, which then allows investigators to search for links using key words or a combination of key words.
"It's not just ViCLAS. It's any other files not entered into ViCLAS," said Ward of the total cases reaching north of Kamloops.
Ward cautioned that people should not assume RCMP have never before looked for connections into missing persons cases or unsolved murders.
Investigators always talk among themselves and review cases, he added.
"Policing evolves as a science and we can keep on going back and looking," Ward said of new technology such as the database now being expanded.
In and by itself, the RCMP's Hwy16 list of missing and murdered women contains nine names, beginning with Monica Ignas, who disappeared outside of Terrace in 1974 to Tamara Chipman, a Terrace resident who was last seen hitchhiking outside of Prince Rupert in September 2005. The nine cases reach from Prince Rupert to Prince George and that stretch has now been dubbed the Highway of Tears by relatives and others who fear there is a serial killer or killers at work preying on young women.
RCMP first announced a major review of the cases this spring at a Prince George symposium held to discuss what needs to be done to prevent more women from going missing and being murdered. It's the third such review over the years.
This time RCMP said they were assigning eight investigators to the review under the overall command of Superintendent Leon van de Walle, an experienced homicide investigator who has spent time in the northwest.
Ward said RCMP investigators have never confined themselves to the nine women on the Tears list.
"They've been grouped together for us by the circumstances, if you will. As we've said many, many times before we've never looked at them as cases just along Hwy16. We've always looked beyond," he said.
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