By Florence Loyie, Edmonton Journal
October 21, 2009
Delores Dawn Brower told people she had a plan to get off the streets she had worked on for close to 15 years. The 33-year-old woman disappeared in May 2004. Her family reported her missing in October 2005, and since then they have waited for news.
Photograph by: Edmonton Journal, Canwest News Service
EDMONTON — Hope. It is the only thing the families of Edmonton's missing women have left.
Hope that their missing loved ones simply decided to leave their former lives behind and start new ones somewhere else, without telling anyone of their plans.
Hope that one day they will return, even though the chances of that happening are remote.
Delores Dawn Brower told people she had a plan to get off the streets she had worked on for close to 15 years. The 33-year-old woman disappeared in May 2004. Her family reported her missing in October 2005, and since then they have waited for news.
Brower is one of three Edmonton sex-trade workers listed as missing with the RCMP's Project Kare. There are at least eight other women listed as missing with the Edmonton Police Service, nine if you count seven-year-old Tania Murrell, who disappeared on Jan. 20, 1983, while walking home from her elementary school for lunch.
Those listed with Project Kare lived high-risk lifestyles. Brower was the third sex-trade worker to go missing in 2004. Corrie Renee Ottenbreit, 27, went missing on May 9 and Maggie Lee Burke, 23, disappeared on Dec. 4.
"We are still hopeful that Miss Ottenbreit has chosen to make a change in her lifestyle and, after seeing this in the media, will pick up the phone and call investigators," Cpl. Wayne Oakes, spokesman for RCMP K-Division, said at the time of her disappearance.
"We also have to, however, face reality and investigate other avenues along with this."
One year after Burke was listed as missing, there were rumours she had been seen walking along a street in Vancouver. There was hope the five-foot-seven woman with a marijuana leaf tattoo on her upper left arm might be found, although Project Kare investigators have long believed foul play led to her disappearance.
Although Sangeet Khanna is listed with the EPS missing persons unit, investigators think the 41-year-old single mother was killed and her body dumped somewhere along the highway between Edmonton and Meadow Lake, Sask.
Khanna disappeared on April 17, 2006. That evening she told her 15-year-old son she was going to the bank and would bring some ice cream when she returned. Police found her vehicle in a bank parking lot after her son notified them of her disappearance the next morning.
Michelle Louise Mercer, 46, was a street person with no fixed address whose life was written up in articles by Alberta Vue Magazine and Reader's Digest. Both articles were published within days of her disappearance on Feb. 6, 2009.
Police have no idea what happened to her.
"I haven't seen Michelle Mercer in the downtown inner city in a long while," a friend posted on the Unsolved Murders/Missing Persons Canada website. "I hope she has taken off somewhere, and living a better life."
Annette Margaret Holywhiteman was reported missing to police last March by a social service agency. The 41-year-old was known to lead a high-risk lifestyle and has not been seen since Aug. 25, 2008.
Downtown resident Diana Gregory, 44, never showed up at her sister's home as planned on Feb. 26, 2006 and has had no contact with family since. Foul play is not suspected in her disappearance, but the woman who also went by the nickname Daya did require medication for an illness.
Rene Lynn Gunning, 19, and 16-year-old Krystle Ann Julia Knott were not from Edmonton, but the teenagers are believed to have last been seen together at West Edmonton Mall on Feb. 18, 2005. They told friends they were hitchhiking back to British Columbia. The teens are not believed to be involved in prostitution, but the files of both girls were added to Project Kare's caseload in July 2007.
Kamloops mother Glendene Grant has not given up hope she will find her missing daughter, although she admits that after more than three years she is "not one step closer to finding Jessie."
Jessica Foster was 21 when she disappeared in March 2006, four months after moving to Las Vegas. Jessie told her parents she was engaged to a man who was a "trust-fund baby," but Grant later found out Jessie was working as prostitute for an escort agency and the "fiance" was actually a pimp. Foster, who was born and raised in Calgary, is currently listed by the FBI as a missing person.
Grant has created a website dedicated to Jessie, a Facebook page and done numerous media interviews. She has posted YouTube videos and montages, made countless calls to police investigators and armed herself with as much information as she can find on the issue of human trafficking, because she is convinced Jessie was a victim.
"I have decided that if I can't find her, I can at least tell the world about her. If I can't do anything more for Jessie, I can keep her name alive," said Grant.
Grant said she will never give hope that Jessie will be found. "I don't want to ever give up on getting her back. Even if she is not alive, we want her back home."
Edmonton Journal
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service
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