Following is a basic timeline. Please feel free to let me know if there are any additions or corrections:
Feb 1 2005 Approx date Krystle Knott of Dawson Creek arrived in Edmonton
Feb. 17, 2005, Rene Gunning and Naomi Ratcliffe hitchhiked from Fort St. John. They were picked up first by an older man in a truck. He offered to pay for sex. They got out at the next stop
(Dawson Creek). They were then picked up by some people outside Dawson Creek and arrived in Grande Prairie (about 3 hrs drive from FSJ). Naomi says she and Rene stayed in Grande Prairie with the people who had picked them up around Dawson Creek.
I'd say it was approx 9pm when we were picked up in dawson creek and brought to GP.ETA in GP was 11pm
Feb 18 2005 Approx 2:00 am, Naomi says she and Rene tried to hitchhike into Edmonton but didn’t get picked up.
We WERE picked up and went to a hotel on the outskirts of GP with someone in a taxi, we stayed with him for a while approx until 4am? and then went back to the other hotel and stayed with the guys who had orignially picked us up, until approx 8-9am.
Feb 18 2005
We were picked up at approx 10AM just past the edmonton exit sign by guys going ice fishing.When they were at their turnoff they dropped us off in Beazanson or Fox Creek, I remember the store we went into just not the "town" Rene and Naomi hitchhiked into Edmonton. A trucker picked them up and they arrived at West Edmonton Mall
Approx 6:30 or 7pm, I remember it was just getting dark.
That guy was a goddamned creep. Rene slept in the sleeper while we drove and he kept on looking back at her with a weird look on his face. He even made a "Joke" about killing us.They met up with Krystle and Sara McLeod. Rene and Krystle did not know each other prior to meeting this date
Rene knew Sara and I kindof knew Sara but I recognized Krystle from middle school in Dawson Creek. Gunning bought a 26er of vodka which the girls
(Rene And Krystle) drank. Rene and Krystle ended up together while Naomi and Sara went to a party at Sara’s boyfriend’s apartment in Edmonton.
Feb 18 2005 Rene and Krystle are said to have been following some boy around the WEM. The two girls were last seen together around 9:00 pm.
Feb 18 2005 At some point
(just after or before 9pm) Rene and Krystle called Naomi and Sara from a mall pay phone and asked for a ride. Sara claimed that the girls said "What are we going to do? The mall is closing and they're kicking us out". Sara says she and her friend (Naomi?)
Nope, I didn't have a license, probably referring to her boyfriend were too drunk to pick them up but they offered to pay for a cab. The girls are said to have refused the offer and called back, and said they were going to hitchhike back to FSJ (or the Dawson Creek area).
Feb 18 2005 That night (time unknown), Rene called her father Joe Gunning in FSJ and said she was coming home. According to Krystle’s aunt Doris, Krystle had called her father in Dawson Creek and said she was at WEM and needed a lift.
Feb
19 2005 Rene was reported missing in BC. The RCMP publicized her disappearance at that time and reported that she was “thought to be traveling with Naomi Ratcliffe, also missing from Fort St. John”
We were also thought to have been travelling to Penticton area for whatever reason? I've never figured out why they thought that..
July 2007 When it was discovered that there was a connection between the BC case of Rene to the Alberta case of Krystle, the two cases became linked together as Project KARE cases in Alberta. It is unkown when Krystle’s disappearance first came to the attention of KARE.
I don't undertand why they didnt figure this out sooner..
Feb 2008 Rene and Krystle’s case was publicized by Project KARE
May 9 to 11, 2011 Police search Henrietta Muir Edwards Park in Edmonton based on a tip received (later determined by reporter that the search was in relation to Rene and Krystle)
My understanding was that someone had struck a "plea bargain" and said there were various bodies buried there, including Rene and Krystle.Nothing was found.
May 21 2011 The remains of Rene Lynn Gunning were discovered by campers on the Forestry Trunk Road, 60 kilometres south of Grande Prairie, on May 23rd by a person camping in the area. Krystle’s remains were found shortly after (within a day or so)
I thought they were side by side?
makes me feel even worse. RIP girls.
May 21 2011 Krystle’s aunt Doris Goulet (who Krystle had lived with in High Prairie) says Krystle’s family said she was living in FSJ and would not admit she was missing