I agree. Not to diminish her work, but its an undergrad honour thesis. There is no way any advisor would suggest tackling all the missing and murdered women in one honour's thesis. I know of some people working on similar topics for their doctorates and they wouldn't cover such an expansive topic.
ETA: yes it was reading week last week.
http://www.smu.ca/academics/academics-important-dates.html
Ten page undergraduate honour's thesis topic proposal sounds a bit like an optional term paper for humanities courses. If all the other grades are in the right range, it can open doors to a master's program. Loretta, according to her sister, wanted to apply to Law School. I'm guessing that the prof she selected to review her paper was going to support her application to Law School ... and Dalhousie University, NS has one of the best law schools in Canada. Loretta had a promising future.
A question posted upthread: why would Loretta sublet her apartment to people she met on kijiji without at least the first month rent and damage deposit, or is there a high vacancy rate and "one month free" deals in Halifax right now? ... Did Loretta check out the subletting couple on the internet or did they have a good reference? Was she in a hurry to sublet, or was she typically cautious? Did the couple con the ambitious sociology, criminology student? That wouldn't bode well for anyone's career, but it is also very unlikely that an ambitious sociology: criminology student aiming for honours would be so careless.
What is the relationship between the boyfriend and the couple? What is the likelihood that Blake, or Victoria, know the visiting student from an earlier time? Victoria seems fairly casual ... did she meet a Turkish boyfriend one night? Is Blake an opiate abuser? Suppose Loretta's boyfriend, a visiting student from Turkey, found himself with a pregnant girlfriend (known addict), he wasn't happy about the situation, and looked for ways to remove her from the picture? I'm not pointing fingers ...
I'm speculating, but this doesn't add up no matter how we look at it. The boyfriend not notifying someone, anyone, that his recently pregnant girlfriend vanished the day before Valentine's Day ... after she left to collect sublet rent ... a month after she moved in with him (his parents are flying in from Turkey as soon as visa possible) ... it doesn't sound right. Loretta vanished for 5 days and he said nothing to anyone? ... and this was his girlfriend of 2.5 years? ... and he's a 3-4 year student at Dalhousie University? I don't care if he's from Pluto, there's no excuse for that; no possible language and sensibility barriers that should arise because he is a visiting student from Turkey ... no wonder his parents are eagerly awaiting travel visas. I'm curious as to whether he's an engineering student.
It doesn't add up. Loretta leaving the apartment and not being seen again also doesn't add up. Suppose she drove away. Why didn't she arrive at home? Where were the car thieves at that time? Who phoned the cab? Who got into the cab, if anyone? Why didn't the boyfriend worry when she didn't show up for dinner ... they'd been together for 2.5 years. She was pregnant and parents wants a healthy pregnancy. That should have been a red flag. The phone call for mother's maiden name should have been the second red flag. He's got two red flags on February 13. Does he look at the methadone treatment pill jars and assumes that his pregnant girlfriend (recent roommate) is getting high and therefore he doesn't want to notify authorities that she didn't show up for dinner? Even five days later, it is her father that notified authorities. When did the boyfriend notify the family, or did he?
Or is this a social experiment, meant to demonstrate that when aboriginal women go missing in Canada, no one cares, and therefore the 500+ number of unnamed missing women (that distrust the RCMP) is real (rather than the 64 verified missing women). As a social experiment, it reveals that all of Canada cares when a University student vanishes, and no one cares where that student was born. If a disappearance is not reported, it's true that RCMP are unable to verify names, that no one will look for the missing person, and still no one cares where that person was born. Of the reported 600 missing aboriginal women, more than 500 have not been reported missing (64 are verified missing, 54 have been reported missing, but not verified).
On behalf of Holly Bartlett, I don't think there will be any imaginings and fitting the evidence to a theory in this missing persons case. Hopefully her case can be re-opened. Perhaps it was ... I didn't read the entire story yet. Clearly this was a murder. If it is still unsolved, it should be assigned again, especially in light of the number of women that are murdered in NS.