S02E10: THE HIGHWAY OF TEARS (#MMIWG, PART IV)

There are hundreds of missing  and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada, and these are just some of their stories.

In the final part of our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls miniseries, we discuss the Highway of Tears- a 725-km stretch of highway in British Columbia where dozens of women have gone missing since the 1970's. A vital part of the national conversation about Indigenous issues in Canada, the stories of these missing women have gone largely untold.

In this episode, we discuss how the highway became a playground for evil and how government inaction over the years only perpetuated the issue.  We talk about some specific cases of missing and murdered women, how the Indigenous community has rallied to bring justice, and how systemic racism against the Indigenous community has contributed to this massive problem. By telling these stories, we hope to help bring justice to these women and their families- many who have been waiting decades for the pain they've endured in the shadows to be brought to light.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

History of Indigenous Peoples in Canada:
https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1307460755710/1536862806124

Hitchhiking and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Billboards on the Highway of Tears.
 https://www.jstor.org/stable/canajsocicahican.41.3.299

The Globe and Mail:  Deletion of government e-mails raises questions:
 https://advance-lexis-com.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5H7F-3361-F06S-32JF-00000-00&context=1516831.

48 Hours Mystery Highway Of Tears:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-explores-the-mysteries-and-murders-along-canadian-highway-of-tears/

 Bobby Jack Fowler, suspect in death of Newport teen girls, may have killed 20 or more people:
https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2012/10/bobby_jack_fowler_suspect_in_d.html 

Mclean’s: Two (bitter) solitudes. https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1976/9/20/two-bitter-solitudes

The Canadian Encyclopedia (The Highway of Tears):
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/highway-of-tears

The New York Times: Dozens of Women  Vanish on Canada's Highway of Tears, and Most Cases are Unsolved:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/25/world/ame

CBC: The Highway of Tears
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/bcs-infamous-highway-of-tears

"The Highway of Tears:  A True Story of Racism, Indifference, and the Pursuit of Justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls" by Jessica McDiarmid

Transcript

Coming up on this episode of Crime Family:

The atmosphere seemed fitting for a story that felt ripped from a gritty, murder mystery novel, except this was true crime and real grief. 

There was a woman named Mary Jane Hill. She was found near the highway and she had bronchitis. And so that's what the coroner said. She died from, it was like natural causes, except she was found naked on the side of the road.

The discrepancy in local newspaper coverage was stark, the white women were mentioned in a 511 articles, whereas the indigenous women were mentioned in only 82 articles. 

Stephen Harper was like, it's not really a Canadian issue it's an indigenous problem. And so it is a Canadian issue. 

This is why we're doing like a mini series. So people's names are out there. And so people can start caring about these women.

Hey,  welcome to Crime Family. This is our fourth and final episode in our miniseries of the .Murdered and missing indigenous women in Canada. And so today we are going to focus on the highway of tears. So going into this, what did you guys know or remember about the highway of tears?

 I mean, I knew like a little bit about it. I knew, um, like basically the general information that anyone would kind of know if they knew a little bit about it, but I didn't know, like the in depth information. So in preparation for this episode, I read a book on it. And so I know a little bit more now than I did before. 

Yeah. I'm going to agree with AJ like, I knew a little bit about it. I knew where it was. Um, but I didn't know the in-depth like story around it until I started reading some articles about it. 

Okay. Yeah, I was the same. So I'm just going to kind of give a description and describe what the highway of tears actually is. Just so everybody knows what we're talking about here.

So the highway of tears is an approximately 725 kilometer stretch of highway that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia. And it was dubbed the highway of tears because of the large number of indigenous women and other women who have disappeared from this highway. The exact number is unknown and RCMP say that it's around 18, but if we talked to indigenous communities Um, that are familiar with the highway, they say it's closer to 50. Um, so this highway is surrounded by vast wilderness with sporadic communities scattered throughout. It's really remote and it's very much under serviced. So, I mean at night there's like, no, there's no rest stops for like hundreds of kilometers. There's no street lights, it's pitch black.

And it's just like you picture, just like when you picture Canada, just like the open wilderness, all  forest, mountains. That's what it is. And there's just like this highway that runs through. So it's super desolate. So while it is very remote and under service, it is an essential connection between all of the communities that are out there in that area.

And because of its size and remoteness bus service is very minimal. And in some places it's non-existent along the highway and due to the marginalized populations that live in these communities, mostly indigenous. Um, a personal vehicle is really an unobtainable luxury for many of them. And so they resort to hitchhiking and it's quite common and it has been for decades along this highway there, like I said, there's very few places to stop in terms of like restaurants or emergency services for long stretches of the highway. And even cell phone service is sporadic and yeah. And so this highway has been the dumping ground or the last place that a lot of indigenous women have been seen, um, in Canada.

So, um, I just want to read a little snippet from an article from the New York Times written by Dan Levin about his experience while he was on the highway of tears. Um, researching. Says, quote, the skies over Northern British Columbia were great and ominous as I began a two day road trip to report on the scores of indigenous women who have gone missing or murdered along a desolate stretch of highway. The atmosphere seemed fitting for a story that felt ripped from a gritty murder, mystery novel, except this was true crime and real grief. So it just kind of like sets the tone for decades of missing and murdered people along the highway.

So one of the things that I mentioned is hitchhiking is really common along the highway. And there are billboards up now that are kind of warning women against hitchhiking, but there was like a problem with these billboards. Like back in the day, they were kind of almost like shaming, those who were hitchhiking, kind of increasing the stigma of, if you're hitchhiking, you're putting yourself in danger. So it's kind of your fault, your responsibility that you're out there. So I think they've are doing a better job of promoting the dangers of hitchhiking while you know, not shaming, those who don't have any other way to travel. So that's one improvement, but I mean, what do you guys see as like the biggest problems that feel like an easy fix for this highway?

For me, one of them is like having regular bus routes or bus stops or more shelters, or where people patrolling these desolate areas along the highway. 

Yeah. So it actually, what you're talking about that I was actually gonna mention like the bus routes stuff, because in the book I read about, um, highway of tears, the book is called the" highway of tears: a true story of racism  and the pursuit of justice for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls". And it's by Jessica McDiarmid. And there was, it describes, like there was an whole, whole inquiry done by the RCMP and really like the government as a whole, um, into like recommendations that can be done on the highway itself, um, to help protect people along the highway and obviously prevent some of this from happening.

 The Canadian Encyclopedia, it talks about, um, kind of what Katie said about having like RCMP patrol the area. Or have like better bus services and better transit, like transit services to help the people who want to walk that highway, like to get from point A to point B. And also maybe have like, I'm not sure. Um, I don't know if I read this anywhere or if I, if you guys mentioned it, but like having like a more lit like, like brighter than most highways. Cause I know some like from just from pictures and stuff, it looks like a really dull highways. Like have it, like a lot more brighter would be also be a very easy fix and very, more like a .. Like more safe for the people who are walking up and down that highway. 

Yeah. Um, there is places where there are no streetlights at all along the whole. But I guess I'm, I'm thinking if it's that remote and there's only like you hitchhiking and one other car, like, what is a streetlight really gonna do if that person's there to murder you? I mean, I know it will, it would help, but I think, I think there does need to be more than just streetlights obviously.

Um, oh, when I was researching as well, there was a lot of like Greyhound buses that would go up and down those routes, but they, because of the low ridership, they kind of pulled a lot of those routes out. So there's even less than there used to be. I know that there was in the works, transit system, an actual, like an actual transit system, not like a Greyhound, but you know how they have buses in big cities.

It was kind of like that kind of network being talked about. And I mean, there's like sketchy stuff, scattered out through all of this. Each case when you talk about it, like when you look at, I was, I was reading one article by David Hume for The Globe and Mail. And in 2006, there was a report that had recommended that BC government set up a shuttle bus service along the routes on this highway.

Um, that never happened. And that never happened even though the government was being pushed to act. And then again, in the summer of 2014, the department of transportation traveled along the highway 16 corridors and they held face-to-face discussions with over 80 communities and they met with 12 first nations and they spoke with 13 different municipalities and regional districts. So I think they were trying to figure out like the best way to build this transit system. But it, in November of 2014, there was like a freedom of information application asking for all government records that make reference to the issue of missing women along highway 16.

Um, and specifically including records related to meetings held by the ministry on this issue. So even though there was all these meetings and like these plans were in place for whatever reason, there was no records. Apparently someone had been going in and deleting all the emails and records of these meetings and communications. And one employee claims that he told his boss that there were records on highway 16 and that his boss told him to delete everything. And then when he refused to do that, his boss went in there and like, quote, "triple deleted" everything off his computer. And his boss says that that's not true. He denies it. But then he did resign after he was questioned about this. So it's like, what is going on? Why don't they want people to know about these records that they have? So that's just like one sketchy step in all of this. 

Yeah. As you were talking about that, I did, there was a lot of talk about that in the book that I read as well as the highway of tears book, um, about things being "triple deleted"  from like computers, which is obviously, and then they described like triple deleting. Like it's a very intentional act. It's not like you accidentally delete something. It's like, it takes like three steps. It's like deleting it from where it went to, and then all the backups that it would go to, like making sure it's completely erased.

 You know, from your inbox and then deleting it from your deleted folder. And then like, 

um, sorry, what I was going back. So what I was talking about before, how we have tears symposium, um, was like an event that was held. And it was between like members of the indigenous community and law enforcement and like government officials. So it was a huge event that was like years in the making.

And this is where they, you know, people came and they told their stories and it was really like when a lot of the. Like word was getting out about the highway of tears and that it was a huge problem. And then people were hoping that from this symposium, people were going to like present possible solutions.

I mean, it was hope was hopefully going to be like the beginning step in a lot of, um, in helping the issue. But, um, there were a lot of short-term recommendations that were determined during this. Um, so kind of like a little bit what you said there was like a shuttle bus to link each community along the entire highway, um, which might be helpful.

It's obviously preventing people from having to hitchhike as much. And then there was also an ask for increased RCMP patrols where, um, it quotes "for a new policy whereby officers had to stop to check in with any girl or young woman who they, that they passed hitchhiking and encourage her to find a safer way to travel".

So it's basically just being more proactive, um, having the RCMP officers to be more aware. And if they do come across somebody on the highway, who's hitchhiking and like, Also education too. Like the symposium was really educational for a lot of people and it was like being aware of the problem and then coming up with ways on how to, to remedy it.

So that was one of the, one of the ways also Greyhound buses, like you guys mentioned, like having increased transit routes along there, obviously that would be a huge, um, a huge help. Also besides just RCMP officers, there was an ask for like public sector employees, um, traveled the highway more frequently and start like a female hitchhiker detection network, which would kind of be a way to like report where girls and women were hitchhiking and have more like check-in points along the route. So then it was like, if they did go missing, there could be an easier trace of them. It's like, okay, this person was detected hitchhiking here and here.

Um, so just kind of having like a system sort of set up in that way, but obviously these things take money. They take coordination from a lot of different entities, so, these were like suggestions, but then it was like putting them into action. 

And I think you need  like government subsidies to help with these kinds of things. So when I was talking about the Greyhound buses, they were pulling services. Cause like ridership had dropped like 50% or something and it's like, well, that's a business, that's a company that makes money off driving people around. And if there's no business, then you can't expect them to be doing that while losing money.

Right. So somebody has to step in like the government to provide this money that, you know, it's not going to be not going, gonna make money, but it's going to help people  along the way. So yeah, you definitely need more things like that, people stepping in 

and also to sorry, another, another thing about the highway itself, like one of the major issues is that there is very little cell phone service along these highways. Um, so 

I just read an article  um, the other day about ... the having, providing more cell service to that area, um, The federal government and the provincial governments where it's supposed to like divie out $4.5 million towards establishing cell cell service in this area. But, um, and this, like it go the entire route.

So from Prince Rupert to Prince George will be the whole, like have more cell service, um, until it'll give, uh, the project will give residents a peace of mind knowing that they can reach out for help if they needed it. Um, I don't know if it actually happened. I'm not sure if they actually put more cell service in there. That was just something back in April of 2021 when this article was released. But, um, I'm not, I didn't really go into much detail about it, but I, I know that they were planning on putting more. 

Um, especially just to make people feel more comfortable. Cause like, have you ever, I don't know if my phone dies and I'm out like downtown at the mall or something, I'm like, oh, well, you know, what do I do without my phone? Like what if  my car breaks down, what do I do? So I can't imagine being isolated completely on a remote road have no way to contact anybody. So yeah. That's, I think that's definitely like an essential service that needs to be equipped out there. 

Yeah. And that was another thing. Yeah, that was another thing in the symposium that came up was like installing emergency phone booths in, in these rural areas. So like, because it also too is like assuming the fact that everyone, because we all like, you know, the indigenous communities, they are usually living in high rates of poverty. So that, to even assume that somebody even has access to a cell phone, you know, that might not even be a possibility.

So even if there is cell service, like they have to have a phone to connect to the cell service. So putting emergency phone booths along those highways too, might be something, um, that would be helpful. And also too just, um, something that came up in the symposium as well. It was just a suggestion that it kind of all starts with putting enough resources in the indigenous communities themselves, because then people won't have to travel outside their communities to get things like medical, basic medical services.

Like a lot of these communities don't have any of that in their own  community. So they're forced to go to other towns and stuff to get these basic things. So if you just put it in the community itself and make sure all communities are equipped with those things, like you'll have fewer people traveling along these routes just to get those, those things too.

 Yeah, that's definitely a good point. And I also think about, um, Something like tolls, not even like tolls they have to pay, but like check-ins for like truckers that are driving, they have to check in like this was the company and the person driving the truck. So something sketchy goes on, you can be like, this person passed this toll at this time, like this company. And I think that would help be like, even it's not even big trucks, just like anyone driving along the highway would have to check in at certain spots to see who was, who was where, when, so when things happen, it's like, well, we know who was there.  So I think that would be like a super helpful thing. You wouldn't have to pay. Doesn't have to be like a toll you're paying money, just a check-in point for everybody along the highway. Um, and the thing about this highway as well is like, it is really remote, but there's like tons of logging roads, like in and out. So people, someone that would be comfortable with kind of those logging roads would also be really dangerous cause they could take somebody out on one of these, these roads where nobody else would really think about looking.

So, I mean, there have been bodies that have been found on these old dirt logging roads. People just dumped off to the side. So yeah, there's lots of, it's not just woods. There is these access points that go deep into the woods as well. 

And that's the thing is like, uh, this book too, as like detailed, some of them. Obviously, I think like it touches on maybe not all of the cases, but many, many of them and like the missing women along the highway, but in all of them, that's a very similar situation. You know, they, the bodies were found off something like logging road or just along some ditch along like the highway or, yeah, like you said, there's lots of these logging roads in and out of these different isolated areas.

So a lot of those areas is where these bodies were just like discarded. So, that's like leading off the highway too, not just on like the main stretch of highway it's like in these little nooks and crannies along the route to where people just kind of assume like, oh no, one's going to really be traveling this way.

Or like be looking at this specific spot. Cause it's not even along the main. 

Yeah. There's a lot of cases that people would disappear from the 1960s and seventies. That's still are unsolved. So like when you guys think what cases kind of stand out to you the most, when you think about the highway of tears?

Well, what's interesting. I was actually just going to mention, so reading this book, the highway of tears, like halfway through the book, they mentioned the case of the missing woman. Her name is Nicole Hoar and they're talking about like the chapter that focuses on her disappearance. Um, it's talking about like she goes missing and then the ... her family reports, reports it and then there's like a massive, you know, police attempt like the investigation starts and I'm like, oh, this is kind of like, not in line with like everything that was in the first half of the book. And then I find out she went missing along the highway of tears, but she was a white woman.

Um, and that was the huge like thing, what, in the book I was like, oh, wow. Like now, cause every other chapter it was like, this person goes missing. Nothing's really done by the RCMP or anyone in law enforcement. And then all of a sudden, like this chapter, it's like talking about this huge effort. And then, um, and also too, it goes into a little bit about. Uh, Nicole's family because they attended the symposium. Um, and a lot of the, they were talking a lot about too, like the guilt that they felt, because it's like, yes, everyone's giving this case attention and they were all obviously happy for that. When they heard the stories of all of the other ... all the other, all the indigenous families who didn't get that attention, it's like, they almost suddenly felt guilty when it's like, they shouldn't feel guilty because their daughter went missing and was murdered just, or she went missing and just the same as theirs.

But they were talking about how, you know, they almost felt like bad because of all the attention that they were getting. And I don't know, like I can imagine how that would feel too. It's like, you don't want to feel bad that your daughter's missing persons case is getting attention. Um, but I guess she would, if no one else's is, or especially to that extent, 

uh, yeah, like definitely I can see that's like a tough situation, but also like you see like there's racism in the RCMP in communities today against indigenous people. And of course it was, it happened back then too. And one example that I have here. So it was in 1974, where there was a 20 old, 21 year old girl named Corrine Thomas. And she was deliberately struck by a truck who was driven by this racist redneck named Richard Redekop. And she was just like standing on the highway or walking along the highway.

Um, and she was pregnant and he just, you know, swerved and ran into her. She died and her baby died as well. And. Like, like crazy thing about this is that guy's brother, so Richard's brother Stanley, he ran over and killed Corinne's cousin, Larry Thomas on the same road a couple of years prior to Corinne's death.

And according to Judith Timpson who was writing for Maclean's magazine, the same judge that was involved in both of those cases. So both Richard and Stanley's cases, um, They were both let off on, you know, oh, these were accidents that had happened. And it came out later that Richard, even though he was let off, it came back later confirming that it was intentional, but like no other charges were laid against him.

And it also came out to that judge in the case was involved in alleged, he hit and killed someone. While he was drinking and he was just like let off with a slap on the wrist. This was years before this had happened. So it was kind of like he was, I don't know, paying it forward, like, oh, I did the same thing. So, you know, I'm going to feel sorry for you. So it's like this whole system of like, just like fucked up decisions and definitely racism that was happening. They deliberately killed these women or these two people and, you know, they got let off. So those are like some of the earliest examples along this highway.

Also, this was also back in the seventies, 78, there was a woman named Mary Jane Hill. She was found near the highway and she had bronchitis. And so that's what the coroner said she died from, it was like natural causes, except she was found naked on the side of the road. Maybe she did die of bronchitis, but like somebody left her there and then she died. Like it wasn't like bronchitis made me naked on the side of the road. 

Yeah. Yeah, 

yeah, exactly. It's like, obviously there was foul play involved somehow that might not have been, her cause of death might have  been bronchitis in the end, but something led her to being like dumped face down in this random place.

And she died at bronchitis cause I'm like dumped her on the side of the road. She couldn't do anything. Like that's why. Yeah. Like she may not have died from that if you know, someone who hadn't, you know, maybe beaten her up and dumped her on the side of the road. So it's kind of amazing how that was just deemed natural causes and put to bed.

Yeah. And there's, um, when I was reading like, um, an article about like each victim and like what they died from and like, some of them are solved and some of them aren't, but the ones that I, um, was I found kind of interesting where, um, there's three of them and all two were in 1981 and one was 1982 and they're all killed by the, by a serial killer named Edward Dennis Isaac.

Um, he was eventually charged with all of the, all three of the murders, I was just reading about them and like, it was just so disturbing to me. Um, one of the, uh, girl's name was, um, Jean Mary Kovacs. And, uh, her body was found naked in a watery ditch, about 40 kilometers east of Prince George. Um, the police say that she died from a bullet wound to the head, but she actually had four gunshots to the head and not just one. Um, but that's just like one of like of the, one of the victims that I was reading about. There's three of them in a row that they've actually found who killed them. And it was the serial killer, Edward Dennis... Edward Dennis Isaac. 

And the thing about this highway, It's you know, people, people talk about, I was like, people describe it as the perfect place to dump a body, or it's a perfect place to abduct somebody.

Because like we said, there's not really many, there's no lights, there's no service areas. There's nobody around. So we'll just get dumped on the side of the highway, but it's kind of scary how many actual serial killers they think are along this highway. Like even now they think there's still some out there killing, cause there's still girls going missing and dying.

So it's like, who is doing all this? And a lot of them are like really similar when they find the bodies. Like another guy that I want to talk about this serial killer, his name was Bobby Jack Fowler. And so this guy, he lived like a transient lifestyle and he was originally from the states, so he lived in Texas, but he kind of jumped around throughout the states and in BC a little bit throughout his life and some think that he jumped around to city to city when he had done something that he needed to get away from or didn't want to be identified for. So he would do something and then, you know, bail. So his connection to the highway of tears is that he once had a job as a roofer in Prince George. And he was a suspected serial killer, and they connected him not connected him, but some, some sources say that up to 20 women, he is connected to, and nine of them are from BC and he was only ever charged with one murder.

He was, he was caught when he actually tried to kill another woman. They were together in some motel or something, and he grabbed a rope and tried to tie her legs up. And he told her that she was going to end up in the ocean. She was able to like jump out a second story window. She was completely naked. She was yelling for help and the cops were able to catch Bobby as he was packing up his car, getting ready to leave. And that's how they caught him. And his DNA matched a murder victim that they had found. So Bobby Fowler, he was one of those guys that would go to bars and like pick up girls a lot and take them back to hotels or motels.

He would also pick up hitchhikers along the highway a lot and he would sexually assault them. And he said he believes that these women that he picked up, they wanted to be sexually assaulted. Like that was kind of their goal for the night. And that was his rationale, I guess, to why he did it. So he died in jail in the early two thousands. And, but his DNA is still like on record being used when they find bodies to see if it matches anybody. Um, He was convicted of killing Colleen Macmillan in 1994. And he was a suspect for the murder of Pamela Dorrington and Gale Weys and it's because like Colleen disappeared, she was hitchhiking, she was 16 years old and she was found nude along the highway and those other two women were also found in similar ways. So they feel like it's connected, but he's only ever been charged with one. So, I mean, that's pretty scary. He is, this guy was operating in the seventies. 

Yeah. It's crazy. Like it's crazy. And the thing is that there could be multiple serial killers that kind of operated along this highway too, because a lot of them know that if their targets are these people living transient lifestyles or like indigenous women who would like people know that the... it's easier for them to go missing and no, one's going to notice. So like it's easier for these serial codes to rack up like dozens of victims undetected. And no one would ever know, because obviously, like I said before, if it was, if, you know, if their first victim was a white girl with blonde hair, blue eyes, like that's going to catch a lot more attention of the media and that, and they know that so these serial killers can get away with doing stuff like that, which is really sad. Another thing they mentioned too, in the book talking about like systemic issues too, was there was a lot of talk about this, um, this judge, David William Ramsey, who was originally from Nova Scotia, but he ended up moving out to BC and he was a lawyer. He actually got indicted in the early two thousands for sexually assaulting, a lot of young minors. And he obviously lost his license and went to prison for it. A lot of those people that he would sexually assault would then end up in his courtroom. He would be, you know, judging he'd be the judge in that case. And a lot of these women in these cases where the people that he had sexually assaulted. So it was just crazy that they like, obviously he's in this position of power and a lot of them were indigenous as well.

So he was a whole other thing, part of the system too, of like systemic, disgusting predatory people. That kind of ties into it as well, too, because like no one came forward for a long time too, because of his position of power. So, it's a lot of things at play here. It's like, not just like the geographic location of this highway and obviously the systemic issues with the victims, but 

Yeah, it's crazy how, like we mentioned before, in another episode, how little trust these communities must have for like the authorities, because of like, shit like, like this. So they can't even trust the judicial system. Um, so like going back to serial killers, there is another more recent serial killer that, um, was convicted along, you know, killing people along the highway of tears as well.

So this story of this guy starts on November 27th, 2010, and there was a guy named Cody Legebokoff  and he was pulled over by an RCMP constable named Aaron Keller. And the reason this cop pulled him over was because this guy Cody was pulling out from a dirt logging road and it wasn't just pulling it out, but it was like of like frantic, like going really fast at night, pulling out of this dirt road and the officer felt like this was a weird situation. So he calls for back up, but he also pulls him over. He finds alcohol in his truck and he sees some suspicious things like a backpack in his truck that looks out of place. Like it looked more like something like a kid or a teenage girl would wear and he finds a bloody pipe wrench , a utility knife. And Cody was wearing shorts. And there was blood all over the shorts and he had blood on his face as well. So he was like, um, this is a very weird situation. And it's November in like Northern BC. So we know it was going to be like freezing and it was dark. It was like past 10 o'clock. So this is super weird.

And this officer, he calls a conservation officer in because he's thinking that, um, Cody is illegally hunting at one of these back roads. That's why he has blood all over them. And when he is questioned, Cody is like, oh yeah, I was illegally hunting, but I didn't.. I found a deer. I didn't shoot him. I took, um, that pipe wrench and like bashed this deer over the head and then put him in my truck and then dumped him along the road.

It's like, why would you go through all that trouble and not even keep a deer that you illegally went out and bashed in the head? It seems kind of weird, Cody didn't have an answer for this. So they go out and they're searching the ditches, you know, thinking they're going to find this body of a deer, but they actually find 15 year old. Uh, Lauren Leslie, who, you know, comes out later that Cody had murdered her and he's arrested and they're searching his house and they find blood and DNA from other victims as well. Um, So Cody is actually arrested and he's convicted with four counts of murder. He killed Cynthia Mass, who was First Nations, Natasha Montgomery who's First Nations, and Jill Stuchenko, along with Lauren Leslie and all of them except Lauren lived that lifestyle, like the marginal lifestyle, they were into sex work and they had drug addictions. Natasha's DNA was found in Cody's apartment, on an ax that was stored in his closet, but her body was never found, but he was charged with her murder anyway. But the crazy thing about this is that this guy was only 20 years old. So he had murdered four people by the time he was 20, he started when he was 19. And he was caught when he was 20. So he's like one of Canada's youngest serial killers. So that's just like scary. He, and this, this all happened in like the Prince George area of BC. 

It's crazy too. And I feel like this highway is like allowing these people to easily commit these murders, many murders for a long period of time, or I guess in his case, it was a short period of time, but like, it's kind of I don't know, for lack of a better word, it's like a playground for these people. It's like, they can like, do these things, get very little attention. Like no media coverage will come from these missing women. And like, they can just go on their Merry way without having to really like, worry that they're going to be caught or something. So it's like crazy to me.

Yeah, do you think that most of these are done by serial killers, or do you think some, a lot of them are one-offs as well? Like to me, I think we think of that road and like truckers and people that are traveling, like, a trucker could pick up a hitchhiker and then even kill her. And then dump her like somewhere else in Canada, even right? Like Ontario, even Quebec. That far, you know, like Northern Ontario is also super remote as well. So they could dump them in Ontario and there was no way to connect these, and they might never find them. But if they do, there's no way to connect them. So. I feel like a lot of that is happening as well. 

Yeah. I was thinking of that too. 

Yeah. I was going to say, like, I think there's a lot more serial killers out there who have killed some of these, um, innocent women. And it's kind of scary to think that they're, they could still be alive and like, we don't know where they are, who they're. 

That's the thing too, like going into that, it's like it, that's why it's so hard to predict what the actual number of victims is, because like you said, they could be like murdered along this highway and then dumped anywhere along Canada, anywhere in Canada, along these routes. Right. Like you said, if it was like a random trucker, who's just driving cross country anyway, and then just like dispose of the body anywhere. So it could be like hundreds and we don't even know. And no one's going to like, obviously if someone's found in like super rural, Northern Ontario, they're not going to think to connect it back to the highway. So, and especially if they find it like a long time after the body can't be identified, it's just like one of those Jane Doe's. So they have no idea like who it even is. So... 

Yeah, and it makes me think that there might be like a dumping ground somewhere out in the woods. If there is a serial killer, that's where they're dumping them, or like even like a ring of people that know about these back roads, that this is where they dump them.

Cause no one's ever found them before. That kind of thing always creeps into my mind. 

Yeah. I wanted to mention that like, um, back in, um, 1981, when the investigations were, I mean, investigation was started back in the seventies when this whole thing started, but like in 1981 to around 2005, the RCMP had done, had organized this like conference to investigate the growing number of unsolved cases of murdered and missing women on highway 16.

And, these, um, the officers, like they were like 40 police officers and detectives from British Columbia and Alberta that attended this conference and it was supposed to be a conference that um, that included like reports of suspicious vehicles and the names of persons of interest, initiatives identified like prime suspects in like certain cases between 1981 and 2005.

And they made up this project was called "Project E Pana" in 2005 and it was like to find like it was supposed to be in response to some commonalities between the murders and it was done on like three specific murders of three women. They were Alicia Germaine, Roxanne theoria and Ramona Wilson. This project was just to help investigators figure out like the, like I said, the commonalities of the women that are gone missing and like what, like how they went missing and how they were murdered and stuff like that. And they came up with,E Pana for the name and it was named after like an Inuit word. So anyway, This whole project had like three criteria's when reviewing the cases of missing and murdered women. Um, the three criteria were like the victims... the victim was involved in high risk activity that would expose them to dangerous, such as hitchhiking or being involved in a street trade, like prostitution.

The second criteria they looked for was like the victims were last seen or their bodies were discovered within the, within one mile of British Columbia's highway 16. And in 2007, they had broadened that to include highway 97 and highway 5. And they also, the third criteria was like, they were all female. In 2005, when this project first launched, the RCMP identified nine victims who had gone missing. It was just like this whole project of figuring out like what these women had in common. Yeah. How their bodies were found or where they were found.

Well, it was a task force, right? Like, I feel like they always come up with a task force, like in response to like, you know, like when they get called out for like mishandling an investigation, then they'll like put a task force together to like focus on that. That's what I always think. 

That's what, when I was reading it, that's basically what it kinda sounded like.

Um, some indigenous groups claimed that there are more like missing and murdered indigenous women, like outside of the project, obviously like, like the project, like the project that there they've only did it to 2005. So like since then there's been like lots more of cases. So I don't really think it's that it didn't really work that well, in my opinion.

I thought it was still ongoing. Like I knew, I don't know, maybe not E-Pana, but they are still have like task forces out there investigating this kind of stuff. Even though they have cut funding like multiple times. So it's like, they're, you know, in appearance they're still working on it, but not as much as they probably should be.

And I was watching a 48 hours mystery documentary called the highway of tears and they were kind of going over all of the cases that they had since the 1960s. And they apparently have interviewed over 60,000 people in response to the highway of tears missing and murdered. So it's not like they, you know, didn't do anything.

They have done a lot, but they just haven't been really getting anywhere when they got some people. But you know what I mean? Like there's still an ongoing problem. So. 

And also too like, we were talking a little bit before about like the government obviously has a huge part in it too. Like there's a part of this book here too, where they talk about when Stephen Harper was prime minister, he pretty much came out and said, like they quoted in the book, like.

It's not high on our priority list, missing and murdered indigenous women. There's just not right now on our priority list, priority list. So then it was when Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, he, within six months of being prime minister, he had like set up a new, like, I guess a task force. And he like put a bunch of funding into the investigation to this again, and then that kind of dwindled over the years, again.

So was he actually legitimate in that or like, that was one of his promises, like in his campaign was to focus on that. So that might've just been like an initial thing to like for appearances sake, but like then the funding did dwindle after that as well. So it's the funding is nowhere near right now as to what it was before, like back, even in 2015. 

Yeah. I remember watching one of these documentaries and it did say, um, Stephen Harper was like, it's not really a Canadian issue was an indigenous problem. And so it is a Canadian issue! Yeah, like an indigenous problem is a Canadian problem. So it's like, F you, and then, yeah. And then Trudeau came in maybe to make it look like he cared and like gave this all this money and taskforce and then kind of stepped back a bit from that.

So, I mean, it really is not as good as it should be at all. 

And also too, there was one. So the end, the book I wanted to mention too, like, just about like the whole media piece, again, like talking about the media coverage. So I'm actually just going to read. Uh, portion of the, of the section of the book.

Cause I want to make sure I like get it right. So I'm going to like read directly from the book, but it's from page 1 37 in the book by Jessica McDiarmid. So, so it just says "indigenous women and girls in Canada, although far more likely to be victims of violence, sexual assault. And homicide have received less media coverage and less sympathetic coverage in the 2010 paper entitled newsworthy victims? Exploring differences in Canadian local press coverage of missing murdered Aboriginal and white women.

Sociologist Kristin Gilchrist noted that previous research showed a severe violence, especially murder was considered newsworthy and that crime against young and elderly white females was particularly so. Within news coverage, a hierarchy of female victims was evident with the divide between those deemed good, innocent and worth saving, and those considered bad, unworthy victims beyond redemption."

Um, and then a little bit later on, it goes on to say, "so she analyzed the news coverage of six cases of women who disappeared between 2003, 2000 and 2009. Three were indigenous and three were white. Otherwise they were all have similar backgrounds, all attended school or were working all maintained, close connections with friends and family, and none had a connections to sex work or were believed to be runaways. The discrepancy in local newspaper coverage was stark, the white women were mentioned in 511 articles, whereas the indigenous women were mentioned in only 82 articles. When broken down to only count articles focused on the cases, three white women accounted for 187 stories versus 53 stories about the Indigenous women. And the articles about the white women were longer and more likely to appear on the front page and there were marked differences in how the victims were portrayed. In headlines, the indigenous women were usually described impersonally  or rarely by name. Whereas the white women were referred to by their names and headlines written as heartfelt personal messages from the victim's friends and families to the women". So just goes to show you, like, just from that small study of like three indigenous women and three white women, like the drastic differences in just that it's crazy. And I don't, and I believe every word of it because like you could, you just know, I feel like it's part of a thing now too. Like, because it's much more known in like the widespread consciousness now that like, it is a problem and people, it hasn't been given much attention. So I think people just know that it's happening and that they aren't given the same credit or the same coverage as white missing white women. 

Yeah. And in that document that I mentioned earlier, the 48 hours, one called the highway of tears. It mainly focused on two cases. Um, both of them were not indigenous. And the one they focus on the most was the case of Madeline Scott, who disappeared from Vanderhoof when she was camping at a party with her friends, they all left and she was there, and then they just never saw her again. And so that was the focus on this, but you're talking about some suspects of this other woman in the documentary who was also not indigenous. And um, like, yeah, we think that he killed her and also, you know, three other women. They didn't even name these other women. And I'm, I'm pretty sure it was some of them, a couple of them were indigenous, but they didn't even name them. It's like, you know, the headline is these white girls went missing, but you know, these other ones could have been hurt as well. So it's just like, it was super evident in this documentary about what you just said. 

Yeah. And it's just like, there's just like a number, basically. They're just like, you know, put like a case file number to their name and they're not like an actual person. And also too, like that, the thing I read too said that like the, the headlines about the missing white women were like, went into like, oh, there was such an amazing person.

And then all their friends and family would speak for how an amazing person they are. And then like the indigenous coverage was like, if you, if they even said their name, that was a plus. They didn't really go into much about their background at all, or there, you know, you wouldn't hear friends or family speak out about how great they were.

Yeah. I was going to say like, even like, when we were like, when we're doing our own cases for this mini series that we've done, like just finding like enough information on just one case just to like, get their name out there was even hard. Like there's like hardly anything on like most of these women, like, like who murdered them or like how they were murdered in like, it's so sad. Cause like social media, these days is so widespread and you feel like, like there's so many different ways to like speak out about indigenous women, but there's like, nobody seems to, nobody seems to care, but like, this is why we're doing like a, like a mini series. So people's names are out there. And so people can start caring about these women.

And also too, like a lot of stuff. Um, like there's a lot of connections to like, obviously the highway of tears is in British Columbia. And then there's a lot of talk in the book about like the downtown east side in Vancouver. So there's like a lot of, you know, theories or something about a lot of these missing women, you know, ended up, they were hitchhiking, they got into a car, they ended up in Vancouver and then just the ended up in the downtown east side and like are somewhere still like, somewhere in that... And obviously the downtown east side is notorious across Canada. It's like huge homelessness problem, huge drug problem, mental health, like all of that. So that's kind of tied in there as well. And then also there's a lot of talk in the book about Robert Pickton and like how early on into that investigation, a lot of the resources were strapped and like a lot of police officers, RCMP officers were taken off of the highway of tears cases and then put onto the Robert Pickton case.

Um, even now one took a long time for them to solve but a lot of his victims too, were like sex workers, like from the downtown east side. Um, so kind of like just all like jumbles together there, but there is definitely a link between those issues as well. 

Yeah. And in this one paper, I was reading called Hitchhiking and missing and murdered indigenous women: a critical discourse analysis of billboards on the highway of tears". And just one stat that I came from this paper was that there over one fourth of the missing and murdered indigenous women have disappeared. So one fourth of all in Canada have disappeared from British Columbia. And these are linked to the highway of tears and the downtown Vancouver east side. So it's like one fourth of all missing women in Canada or from these two places in Vancouver, the highway of tears in downtown east side.

So it is a super huge problem. And like you said, it probably is connected a lot. Maybe a lot of these women did hitchhike along the highway of tears, ended up in Vancouver in that lifestyle, or just never really seen again, definitely a huge connection there. 

And.. I still can't get over. I remember it a couple of weeks ago when you talked about, you're like the first part of this mini series, when you talked about that case of that woman who wasn't reported missing for 40 years, like to me, I couldn't get over that when you said that and just think like, Like a lot of these people, like, you know, a lot of, if they're indigenous, if they're don't have contact with their family, like they're losing contacts.

So they're not necessarily considered missing for a long time. They just kind of end up in the downtown east side and their family just doesn't know either doesn't notice or they don't say anything because they're just like, not really close with them anyway. And also that goes, ties back to like all the residential schools and the trauma there like addiction, mental health, like run rampant in these communities. So a lot of them do just like have little connection to, to their families. So it's easier for them to just like have their families not even advocating for them either, but there are lots of have their families advocating and even that seems to not be enough.

Yeah. I was just like, I'm just saying, like, it's just so hard to fathom, like why? I just said I can't get over why these, why these women are not being... are not important enough. Like, I feel like if it wasn't for podcasts like us, or like other podcasts out there that who've done, like this type of episode, or like episodes on Indigenous women, like that's the only way people know about these cases. And that's really sad because people need to know about, well, you're not just like missing and murdered people, like about the Indigenous background and history of itself. Like we just, we just had like a truth and reconciliation, like day of like for indigenous people.

And like, that's still not enough though. I feel like there still needs to be like a ton more to do about that. Like learning about more, just more of like the injustice stuff. Yeah. Like I think we just need to learn more and know more about it and like just speak up. 

Yeah. I think there's a lot that's happening on the community level. Um, like in one of these  documentaries, it was like in Vancouver every year they do like a big parade and a March, but that's really localized. It's not like a huge event, not huge news, but something like we had mentioned before, like the Gabby Petito case, right. Like that blew up across the world. And it's like th there's mass murder happening here right? It's kind of just communities separately that are worrying about it. So it's definitely is not as well known or being looked at as closely as it should be for sure. 

Yeah. Crazy. 

And, um, we'll put some links in the show notes where you can find resources on information about the background of indigenous peoples in Canada, and also the link to the website that includes a list of a lot of the missing and murdered indigenous women and a little bit of their background, just so you can look more into any of those cases that are of interest to you. Um, and there's lots of resources out there where you can support indigenous communities. Um, that are close to your community.

I think it's important to note that if you are supporting things like the, every child matters movement with the orange shirts that you purchase a shirt that is from an actual organization that is going to contribute to the indigenous community, not some cheap knockoff site that you're just paying them for shirts.

Like it shows your support, but you're not.. Like your money's not actually going towards somebody that's helping. 

Don't buy it off Amazon. Don't go to Walmart and buy. 

Yeah. Don't, don't go to Wish, like, just like those cheap sites. Like, I, I never even liked really clued into me. Like, you know, you're wearing your shirt showing support, but.

To support, uh, like an organization that's going to contribute that money to those organizations. So that's just like a side note. 

Yeah. I mean, like wearing the shirt is good in and of itself, but like go the extra mile and actually pay, or like buy it from an actual organization that's going to help the community.

Yeah. And if ever you're going to donate money to anything, like make sure it's a legit organization that is doing what they're saying, they're doing. Some random, like GoFund me maybe.

Yeah. Do your research. There's lots of good stuff online. Um, lots of, lots of stuff out there that will tell you and just familiarize yourself with the charities that are doing good in the community and familiar, familiarize yourself with like that kind of thing. It just takes a quick Google search and you'll find very quickly, which ones are legit.

 So that's all we have for you today. Thank you for joining us. And, um, you can find us on all social medias. You can find us on Facebook at Crime Family Podcast, on Instagram@crimefamilypodcast, on Twitter @crimefamilypod1. And we also have an email address, crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com. So send us an email and, uh, hope to see you next time. Bye 

Bye!

 Bye!