Highway of Tears murders

The Highway of Tears murders is a series of unsolved murders and disappearances of young women along the 720 km (450 mi) section of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada from 1969 until 2011. Highway 16 is northern British Columbia’s east-west corridor, extending from Jasper in the east to Prince Rupert in the west. This route is a section of the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway, also known as the “Park-to-Park Highway”, which spans across British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. There are numerous municipalities and twenty-three First Nations communities that border the Highway of Tears. The region is plagued with poverty and lack of public transportation, forcing its occupants to turn to hitchhiking as a form of transit. Police list the number of Highway 16 victims at nineteen, but estimates by aboriginal organizations range into the forties, largely because they include women who disappeared a greater distance from the highway. Thirteen of the nineteen victims were teenagers while ten out of the nineteen victims were women of aboriginal descent. Project E-PANA: The unit investigated nine cases in 2006, but by 2007 its caseload had doubled to eighteen. The victims involved within the E-PANA investigation followed the criteria of being female, participating in a high risk lifestyle, known to hitchhike and were last seen or their bodies were discovered within a mile from Highway 16 , Highway 97 and Highway 5. In the 2009/2010 year, E-PANA received over five million dollars in annual funding but has since dramatically declined due to budget cutbacks; receiving only $806,109 for the 2013/2014 year. In 2013, Craig Callens, the RCMP Deputy Commissioner, warned that further budget reductions from the provincial government would greatly affect the Highway of Tears investigation. A 2014 Freedom of Information request stated that the task force had dropped from seventy officers to twelve officers over the past few years. E-PANA is responsible for solving the murder of sixteen-year-old Colleen MacMillen, who was killed in 1974 by the now deceased American serial killer Bobby Jack Fowler. E-PANA now considers Fowler a suspect in the murders of two other highway victims, Gale Weys and Pamela Darlington, both of whom were killed in the 1970s. In 2014, investigations by E-PANA and the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit brought murder charges against Garry Taylor Handlen for the death of twelve-year-old Monica Jack in 1978. E-PANA is still actively investigating the remaining unsolved cases although it is unlikely that all the murders and disappearances will be solved. Racism: Some critics argue that the lack of results arising from this investigation is the result of systemic racism. This was also believed to be an issue in the case of Vancouver's missing women and the Robert Pickton murders. The issue of systemic racism in these cases is explored in Finding Dawn, the 2006 documentary by Christine Welsh whose film includes a section on the Highway of Tears victim Ramona Wilson, including interviews with family and community members. Often overlooked in reports on the Highway of Tears is the fact that over half of the missing women are First Nation. Activists argue that media coverage of these cases has been limited, claiming that "media assign a lesser value to aboriginal women". Furthermore, despite the fact that these disappearances date back as far as 1969, it was not until 2005 that Project E-Pana was launched, investigating similarities between the cases. In addition, the individual case which has received the most media and police attention thus far is that of Nicole Hoar, a Caucasian woman who disappeared in 2002. Hers was the first of the Highway of Tears cases to be covered in The Globe and Mail, Vancouver Sun, and Edmonton Journal. Gladys Radek, a native activist and the aunt of victim Tamara Chipman, "believes that if it weren’t for Hoar, the police would have invested less effort in investigating cases, and the media would have done little, if anything, to inform the public about the tragedies along the road." Recommendation reports: Poverty and a lack of public transit has forced many disadvantaged Aboriginal women to turn to hitchhiking as a cheap means of transportation along Highway 16. Many of the Highway of Tears victims were last seen or reported to be hitchhiking before their disappearances. In March 2006, various Aboriginal groups hosted a two-day Highway of Tears symposium at the CN Center in Prince George. In attendance to the event were the victim’s families and over 500 Aboriginal leaders from across British Columbia. Shortly thereafter, the Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendation Report was issued with 33 recommendations to improve public transit, deter hitchhiking, and prevent violence towards Aboriginal women. Some of the recommendations from the report include a shuttle bus operation along Highway 16 , improved educational, health and social services for Aboriginal people as well counseling and mental health groups organized by Aboriginal workers. These propositions are part of a long-term recommendation to directly confront the issue of First Nations intergenerational poverty. The Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendation Report was endorsed by B.C. inquiry commissioner Wally Oppal in his 2012 Missing Women Commission of Inquiry recommendations. Oppal’s public inquiry report into the Robert Pickton case demanded urgent transportation improvement along Highway 16 . Like the Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendation Report, Oppal’s report also suggested implementing a shuttle bus service along Highway 16 to deter young women from hitchhiking. On November 24, 2015, the First Nations Health Authority and B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure held the Northern Transportation Symposium in Smithers, British Columbia. The symposium included Aboriginal communities and municipalities along Highway 16 and focussed on the issue of medical and non-medical transportation in those regions. Discussions included and expanded upon the 2006 Highway of Tears Symposium Recommendation Report and the 2012 Missing Women Commission of Inquiry recommendations. In June of 2016 Transportation Minister Todd Stone announced that as the result of collaboration across local communities, a bus service would become available along Highway 16. The project will be joint funded by the federal government and the government of British Columbia. Popular culture: One of the victims found alongside the highway, 16-year-old Ramona Wilson, was a subject of a 2006 documentary film by Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh, entitled Finding Dawn. Welsh’s documentary highlights the tragic reality that Aboriginal women face today; in the past 30 years, an estimated 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or have been murdered in Canada. Welsh uncovers the social, economic and historical factors that contribute to this grim statistic. Finding Dawn honours the women whose lives were lost and instills hope within a deeply wounded culture. The film can be accessed online on the Nation Film Board web page. In March 2014, a documentary was released by Canadian filmmakers Matthew Smiley and Carly Pope named Highway of Tears. The 80-minute documentary is narrated by Canadian-born actor Nathan Fillion and was featured in numerous film festivals since its release. Highway of Tears raises awareness about the notorious stretch of highway and those women who have seemingly been silenced. In a 2014 interview with CBC, Smiley reveals that during the editing of the film "over 400 missing and murdered indigenous women were estimated to be missing and or murdered across Canada. By the time we premiered the film, the number was over 600 in March of 2014, then the numbers increased to 900 and now over 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous women across Canada. We cannot turn a blind eye to this." In 2015, the online newscast VICE produced the mini series Searchers: The Highway of Tears. The program highlights the story of various Aboriginal women who have disappeared along the Highway of Tears and brings attention to the family, friends and detectives fighting for justice. VICE also offers numerous online articles pertaining to the Highway of Tears murders and disappearances. CBC's flagship news program The National has aired fourteen short episodes about Canada’s Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women. All episodes can currently be found online at The National's YouTube channel under the playlist Canada’s Missing & Murdered Aboriginal Women. An episode of the series 48 Hours about the Highway of Tears murders aired on November 17, 2012.