CANADA CANADA - 83 Missing & Murdered women of Edmonton, Alberta

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http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/canada/seeking-justice-canada-s-500-missing-native-women"Meanwhile, the Alberta RCMP has announced a task force to investigate 83 cases of murdered and missing women dating back to 1982".
 
The link says: "The requested document could not be found"

The number is in fact 20 missing or murdered women since 1983. In reading the title of the thread, one gets the impression that there are 83 missing and murdered women from Edmonton, but that is completely misleading and untrue.

Sorry otto, the link I provided was to my previous explanation from when you had enquired before. The very first post which starts this thread is:

[ame="http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showpost.php?p=854198&postcount=1"]Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CANADA 83 Missing & Murdered women of Edmonton[/ame]


which contains a link to the article that explains:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/svekla-thomas/

Otto ... there are 25 missing or murdered women on that page, which coincides with their statement:

Project Kare, a joint task force between the RCMP and Edmonton police formed in 2003, is investigating the cases of more than 20 Edmonton women who have been killed or are missing since 1983.

In other words:

There are 83 missing/murdered women cases in the Edmonton area. KARE has approximately 20+ of the total 83 cases, and the remaining 63 cases are investigated by RCMP and EPS, not KARE.
 
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/h...tion-is-overdue/article790137/?service=mobile
" A report published earlier this year, entitled Voices of Our Sisters in Spirit, makes for chilling reading, recounting the stories of many murdered and missing aboriginal women. The data therein are as humbling as they are sickening: More than half the murders of aboriginal women remain unsolved.

It's time to go beyond mere cataloguing of the carnage, and to understand the root causes.

In Canada, a death or a disappearance should not be taken less seriously because of the colour of a person's skin.

And Canadians should not tolerate that the horror of these crimes - 520 daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers stolen away from their families, friends and communities - be redoubled by indifference".
 
http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/canada/seeking-justice-canada-s-500-missing-native-women"Meanwhile, the Alberta RCMP has announced a task force to investigate 83 cases of murdered and missing women dating back to 1982".

Thank you. I'm still having a problem with the claim that 83 women are missing from Edmonton. The article gives a number of 83, but it does not say that these women are all from Edmonton. I also recall reading a report a couple of months ago (still looking for the link) stating that one of the problems that RCMP have faced in resolving the missing person's cases is that there is some lack of cooperation. RCMP want to determine whether the women are missing because of stranger abduction, or because of other reason. I understood that some cases were reclassified because they could not get information they needed.
 
Here are 60 missing/murdered victims from Edmonton. I still have names of approx 100 victims to find details for, so they are not included here. Whether they will be from Alberta/Edmonton or not is yet to be seen. In the meantime, the following are all from Edmonton and include the immediate surrounding area (i.e. Leduc, Bonnyville) and excluding other areas of Alberta (i.e. Calgary, Lethbridge).


19750423 Karen Ewanciw
19830000 Gail Cardinal
19830120 Tania Marie Murrell
19831218 Charlotte Baas
19860921 Melody Joy Riegel
19870000 Delores Whiteman
19870902 Lillian Berube
19880913 Georgette Flint
19890927 Bernadette Ahenakew
19901025 Mavis Mason
19901221 Lorraine Wray
19920526 Mandy Tremblay
19930211 Elaina Louise Ross
19931100 Joyce Marie Cardinal
19951115 Michelle Jeanette Harmer
19961222 Joanne Ghostkeeper
19970614 Jessica Cardinal
19970728 Caralyn Aubrey King
19971019 Joyce Anne Hewitt
19980805 Lisa Kopf
19990103 Sherry Ann Upright
20000830 Jutta Bentz
20010127 Kelly Dawn Reilly
20010426 Ginger Lee Bellerose
20020800 Deanna Marie Bellerose
20020922 Edna Bernard
20021104 Debbie Darlene Lake
20030101 Monique Pitre
20030110 Melissa Munch
20030427 Katie Sylvia Ballantyne
20040509 Corrie Renee Ottenbreit
20040513 Delores Dawn Brower (nickname Spider)
20040518 Cheryl Lynn Black aka Ford
20040604 Rachel Liz Quinney
20040720 Unknown victim
20041013 Lisa Marie Willier
20041203 Unknown victim
20041209 Maggie Lee Burke
20041227 Unknown victim
20050125 Samantha Tayleen Berg
20050218 Krystle Ann Julia Knott
20050218 Rene Lynn Gunning
20050408 Charlene Gauld
20060209 Michelle Louise Mercer
20060226 Daya Diane Gregory
20060302 Bonnie Lynn Jack (aka Bonnie Lynn Loyie)
20060417 Sangeeta Khanna
20060605 Unidentified
20060614 Melissa Ann Jondreau
20060720 Nadine Robinson Creary
20061029 Dazi Maria Max
20070314 Leanne Lori Benwell
20070408 Stephanie Rae Butler
20070613 Jessy Alain Lessard (male)
20070701 Norma Jane McNeil
20071200 Shannon Maureen Collins
20080221 Brianna Danielle Torvalson
20080628 Chantel Brittnay Robertson
20080827 Unidentified male/female
20100106 Leslie Ann Talley

Where a name is shown as unknown or unidentified, that is because LE has not released names/details for some reason.

I suppose if we had access to RCMP/KARE files, we'd know how they came up with the 83 cases. And as for files being "reclassified", that certainly doesn't make them any less disappeared or dead. Sorry if I'm not big on the semantics of numbers or how many might be black, white or green ... but I do care deeply about the lives of these victims, their names, faces, families, and finding who is responsible for their disappearances and deaths.

ETA: FWIW, the one male victim in the above list, Jessy Alain Lessard, was at one time a KARE file. Don't know if he still is or not.
 
I find it interesting to note that there are no Edmonton victims in the 8 years from 1975 to 1983. Then in the 19 years between 1983 to 2002, there were 23 victims for an average of 1.2 per year. Then in the 8 years from 2002 through 2010, there were 36 victims for an average of 4.5 per year (4 per year if we discount the unknown/unidentified).

Just an observation ... In BC, Pickton's first victim is believed to have been in 1983 (the very same year the disappearances and killings seem to have started in Edmonton). Since Pickton's arrest in February 2002, the Edmonton numbers have gone up substantially since then.
 
Something I need to clarify wrt the 5 "unknown" or "unidentified" on the above list:

4 are neither missing or murdered ...

3 are women who escaped an attacker
1 is a woman who survived a vicious attack

-and-

1 unidentified male/female body was found, but no further info has ever been released

These records are maintained in my files in the event details can be related to other cases.

So this has the effect of reducing the above total in my records to 56, but those records aren't 100% complete and the total will fluctuate (depending on if/when people are found, bodies turn up, new missing or murdered come to light)
 
83 in Edmonton (???) ... 602 in Canada (???) ... 5 million dollars spent in 5 years to set up an electronic database with information about those missing women, and now it's a volunteer organization. It's a bit mind boggling to think that one million dollars per year was spent by aboriginals to set up a website with a database of missing aboriginal women, especially given that once the website is created, families should be able to submit missing person's information without leaving home. Is it any surprise that they lost that funding? There are an awful lot of people that would gladly step up to the plate and accept 5 million dollars for setting up a database website for missing persons.

It appears that the RCMP has taken over responsibility for including those missing aboriginal women in their national database. It's my understanding that part of the problem is that the RCMP have been unable, in many instances, to obtain facts surrounding the missing person - making it difficult to include them in the database. They have also decided that aboriginal persons will not have a separate database ... and it sounds like the people that formerly paid themselves a million dollars a year are not satisfied with this decision.

It sounds like a real mess ... where aboriginal groups want money, but the money they receive seems to be spent in ways that doesn't make a lot of sense. When the RCMP wants to merge the list of missing aboriginal women with a Canadian missing person's database, they come up with different numbers of missing persons ... and the aboriginal groups are unhappy because the money has been re-allocated. That doesn't make sense to me ... why be unhappy that the RCMP are taking over management of the missing person's database? One of the reasons why people are not outraged about the missing persons could be that there is so much that doesn't make sense. For example, is it important to have the women included in a national missing person's database, or it is more important to have one million dollars a year to manage a separate database? From the article, I get the impression that the million dollars is more important.

The help that is offered to families of missing women seems to be money for fliers and gas money so the family can search on their own. That doesn't seem like an effective solution.

"An estimated 602 aboriginal women have been killed or gone missing since 1992, numbers that indicate the country is failing to protect its First Nations communities, Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau told Postmedia News.

...

The Conservative government hasn’t committed to any inquiry, but cites its $25-million investment in First Nations law enforcement and social programs aimed at reducing violence against aboriginal women.

...

In 2010, the Tories axed funding to Sisters in Spirit—the organization that built Canada’s first and only national database of missing and murdered aboriginal women. Without the database—which cost $5 million and took five years to establish—it’s virtually impossible to know the scale of violence native women face moving forward, some say.

...

Tolley runs Families of Sisters in Spirit, a volunteer campaign to keep the SIS database alive. Surviving off piecemeal donations, Tolley’s group also helps the families of missing aboriginal women find their loved ones."


Read more: http://www.canada.com/Calls+grow+inquiry+into+missing+women/7532747/story.html#ixzz2C1cqQEC7
 
November 2010

From:
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/11/siste...feds-squeeze-native-womens-association-canada

Sisters in Spirit then released a report that confirmed 582 cases of missing and murdered Aboriginal women up to March 31 …

After the release of its spring report, Sisters in Spirit has been in the process of analysing 20 new cases ...

The Sisters in Spirit database includes some historical cases that were not accepted by police. It also includes cases where police have closed the book on a woman's death, despite lingering questions from family members …
582 + 20 = 602

So, plus or minus, I truly fail to see why we should be concerned whether the numbers are 83/602 or 41/399 … the fact remains that an exorbitant number of Canadian women (primarily Native) are missing or have been found murdered. This is a social issue smacking of misogyny and racism that we cannot minimize simply because bureaucracy can’t provide the exactness of mathematics.

Study each case, look at each face, look into the eyes of their children, their parents, all those who grieve, and then tell me why we should care about specific numbers ... other than to acknowledge that the sheer magnitude of this is a disgrace to our nation.

JMO
 
November 2010

From:
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/11/siste...feds-squeeze-native-womens-association-canada


582 + 20 = 602

So, plus or minus, I truly fail to see why we should be concerned whether the numbers are 83/602 or 41/399 … the fact remains that an exorbitant number of Canadian women (primarily Native) are missing or have been found murdered. This is a social issue smacking of misogyny and racism that we cannot minimize simply because bureaucracy can’t provide the exactness of mathematics.

Study each case, look at each face, look into the eyes of their children, their parents, all those who grieve, and then tell me why we should care about specific numbers ... other than to acknowledge that the sheer magnitude of this is a disgrace to our nation.

JMO

Numbers are very important.

I'm not quite ready to accept the numbers put forth by the Aboriginal group. RCMP have well established criteria for identifying a missing person. When a private group spends five million taxpayer dollars in five years to develop a list of missing persons based on different standards, some which are not accepted according to RCMP standards, then I have to wonder what is going on. We know that this group is unhappy that they have lost the $5,000,000 they used to set up the database during the last 5 years. We also know that RCMP are unable to verify the numbers of missing women provided by the Aboriginal group.

What exactly is going on? Why are different "missing persons" standards being used by the Aboriginal group? Why is the RCMP unable to verify that all of these persons are actually missing? Why is the Aboriginal group unhappy that the RCMP is now going to receive the $5,000,000? Why is the Aboriginal group unhappy that the RCMP is going to oversee all missing persons, regardless of cultural origin?

In an article posted in 2008:

"Project Kare, a joint task force between the RCMP and Edmonton police formed in 2003, is investigating the cases of more than 20 Edmonton women who have been killed or are missing since 1983."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/svekla-thomas/

If there were 20 missing women in 2008 and that number is now 83, does that mean that 63 women have vanished in Edmonton in the last 4 years? I find that extremely difficult to believe.
 
If this group is so active in assisting families of missing women, shouldn't there be some sort of news article, missing posters, organized searches ... something ... related to each of these missing women? I somehow think there has not been any type of information about any of the 63 women that have been added to the missing person list in the last four years. Are there news articles related to any of these 63 women ?
 
In an article posted in 2008:

"Project Kare, a joint task force between the RCMP and Edmonton police formed in 2003, is investigating the cases of more than 20 Edmonton women who have been killed or are missing since 1983."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/svekla-thomas/

If there were 20 missing women in 2008 and that number is now 83, does that mean that 63 women have vanished in Edmonton in the last 4 years? I find that extremely difficult to believe.
<snip>

:banghead::banghead:

Seriously Otto, I've said this six ways to Sunday and simply don't know how to make this any more clear, but am going to try this ONE LAST TIME !!!

There were a total of 83 missing women in the Edmonton area (which were being handled by a combination of EPS in Edmonton proper, and RCMP in the areas outside the jurisdiction of EPS). Subsequently the Project KARE task force was formed (comprised of EPS and RCMP, and modelled after the Missing Women Task Force in BC). Of the total 83 cases in Edmonton and surrounding areas, only 20+ of those total 83 cases were turned over to Project KARE.
 
Click link (rather than image of video) to play.


"A haunted highway that attracts evil ... over 20 girls missing or murdered. Who killed them? "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant investigates Saturday, Nov. 17 at 10 p.m. ET/PT".



"
[ame="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50135149n"]Sneak peek: Highway of Tears - 48 Hours - CBS News[/ame]
 
Looking at KARE'S body recovery map from my earlier post:

Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CANADA 83 Missing & Murdered women of Edmonton


the first 4 victims are placed outside Edmonton in order of northwest, southwest, southeast, northeast. This could give some insight into the kind of mind we are dealing with.

ETA: I used date of disappearance (rather than victim # and body recovery dates on the map) because the date last seen, IMO, is much more representative of when the body was placed in its location. So, from the 8 victims on the map, the first 4 to disappear, in chronological order, were:


19890927 Bernadette Ahenakew (northwest)
20020922 Edna Bernard (southwest)
20021104 Debbie Lake (southeast)
20021124 Monique Pitre (northeast)

Apologies to folks who read this post earlier ... I've since deleted my statement wrt the "perimeter of Edmonton" because it was obviously incorrect.


Could the locations where the "first 4 victims are placed outside Edmonton in order of northwest, southwest, southeast, northeast" be related to certain work actions in those areas at that time, ie. logging areas , sales territory expansion
geographical studies, school sports travelling pattern,entertainment group ect.?
 
Could the locations where the "first 4 victims are placed outside Edmonton in order of northwest, southwest, southeast, northeast" be related to certain work actions in those areas at that time, ie. logging areas , sales territory expansion
geographical studies, school sports travelling pattern,entertainment group ect.?

I'm going to have another look at the specifics wrt those first 4 victims and see if i might be able to come up with any pattern that might relate to where they disappeared from vs where the bodies were actually placed (IOW, did the perp go out of his way to place the body a greater distance than necessary from where the disappearance occurred, with a view to forming a pattern).

IF the placements of the first 4 were related to employment, etc, then we would have to somehow consider the 13 year gap between the first and second victim as it relates to external influences (i.e. decisions made by others, therefore external and outside the control of the psyche of the perp).

Placement of any of these 8 victims probably won't have any bearing in the long run, because they are probably not his ONLY victims ... just ones that KARE has been able to make a connection between.
 
KARE was able to make a connection between victims 1 and 2 who were 13 years apart ... followed by a blitz of killings. Either the perp is responsible for some of the other killings during that span and KARE has been unable to make a connection for whatever reason, OR the perp was somehow I wonder if our perp might have been in federal prison somewhere for the bulk of those 13 years.

Hopefully LE has access to federal pen records to see who went to jail for a lengthy prison term some time after Bernadette was killed and who was released prior to Edna being killed.
 
Reposting video - and wondering if there is any chance the perp was nervy enough to be driving past in the background ...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRlaOsVrDY4"]Amber TUCCARO - MURDER INVESTIGATION - YouTube[/ame]
 
Wondering if this serial killer's background could shed light on this one...
http://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/hansen-robert.htm
"Born at Pocahontas, Idaho, in 1940, Hansen was the son of a Danish immigrant who followed in his father's footsteps as a baker. In his youth, Hansen was skinny and painfully shy, afflicted with a stammer and a severe case of acne that left him permanently scarred. (In later years, he would recall his face as "one big pimple.") Shunned by the attractive girls in school, he grew up hating them and nursing fantasies of cruel revenge.

Hansen was married in 1961 and divorced within the year, following his first arrest, on charges of arson. Six years later, he wed another Pocahontas native and she followed him to Anchorage, Alaska, where he opened his own bakery and prospered in a new land, safely removed from the painful memories of childhood and adolescence. Hansen took flying lessons and purchased his own private plane, earning a reputation as an outdoors man and hunter who stalked Dahl sheep, wolves, and bear with a rifle or bow and arrow.

In 1972, Hansen was arrested twice more, charged with the abduction and attempted rape of a housewife (who escaped his clutches) and the rape of a prostitute (who did not). Serving less than six months on a reduced charge, he was picked up again, for shoplifting a chain saw, in 1976. Convicted of larceny, he was sentenced to five years in prison, but the verdict was overturned on appeal, the Alaska Supreme Court regarding his sentence as "too harsh."

Unknown to local authorities, Hansen's visible activities were only the tip of a very lethal iceberg. According to his subsequent confession, Hansen preyed consistently on women in the decade between 1973 and 1983, murdering 17 and raping another 30 who survived.

As targets, he selected prostitutes, "exotic" dancers and the like, abducting them by airplane to the wilderness outside of Anchorage, where they were forced to act out Hansen's private fantasies. "If they came across with what I wanted," he explained, "we'd come back to town. I'd tell them if they made any trouble for me, I had connections and would have them put in jail for being prostitutes." Resistance -- or demands for payment after sex -- resulted in assorted victims being murdered, sometimes with the ghoulish touch of Hansen stripping them and stalking them like animals, making the kill with a hunting knife or his favorite big-game rifle.

The first indication of a killer at large came in 1980, when construction workers unearthed a woman's remains near Eklutna Road. Stabbed to death in 1979, she was never identified, dubbed "Eklutna Annie" by police assigned to work the case. Later that year, the corpse of Joanna Messina was found in a gravel pit near Seward, and a special task force was organized to probe the killings. Topless dancer Sherry Morrow had been dead ten months when hunters found her body in a shallow grave beside the Knik River, but the discovery brought authorities no closer to a solution in their case.

In 1983, Hansen decided to save time and energy by bringing his victims home. He called it his "summer project," laying the groundwork by packing his wife and two children off on a European vacation."
 
Wondering if this serial killer's background could shed light on this one...
http://murderpedia.org/male.H/h/hansen-robert.htm

... sometimes with the ghoulish touch of Hansen stripping them and stalking them like animals, making the kill with a hunting knife or his favorite big-game rifle ...
<rsbm>


The Hansen case was quite a popular story back in the day, and I could see it sparking an idea in others so inclined.

I've often wondered if there is an organized "blood sport" component to some of the girls who have been missing/murdered in Alberta (not necessarily the KARE cases). In the Pickton interrogation, I recall Don Adams asking Willy about "blood sport" at the farm (not that the question ever was answered, but the question itself is an indication of ideas that LE was pursuing):

from:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=bb59ed12-99a8-4c2b-9900-5c6de9bf8d58&k=78041


Adam said police also received confidential information that men were involved in "blood sport" at the Pickton farm that involved killing women.

The "organized" component that would be involved in such a sport is one of the reasons I find it so interesting re the increase in AB disappearances / killings AFTER Pickton was arrested in BC. Like dog-fighting, folks will travel long distances to be involved in such "sport", and there is a lot of money to be made by the organizers.

Something curious is why missing women's bodies aren't turning up in larger numbers than they are. Are they perhaps taken someplace remote for such "hunting" activities? I've read of women who are paid big bucks to run naked in paintball games, so nothing would surprise me what drug addicted stws might agree to to make some fast money.

Come to think of it, Hansen was arrested in June 1983 and that is the same year that these women started disappearing in large numbers throughout BC and Alberta.
 

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