Several unsolved Manitoba cases of missing or murdered women going back possibly decades will be put under closer scrutiny by a police task force.
The nine-member team of RCMP and Winnipeg police officers -- officially named the Manitoba Integrated Task Force for Missing and Murdered Women -- has selected a number of cases to look for similarities between them in hopes of finding connections.
Though the task force launched its work in late October by examining 84 cases in which foul play is suspected, RCMP and city police spokeswomen gave few details Friday afternoon during an update on its progress. And they refused to reveal the number of original police investigations -- dating to 1926 -- that will be given another look.
At the Mounties' Manitoba headquarters, RCMP Sgt. Line Karpish and city Const. Jacqueline Chaput said the coming further review of the selected investigations will see results and recommendations handed to the original police agencies involved for officers to follow up.
Karpish and Chaput pointed out that the cases identified so far amount to a "starting point" for a deeper probe, and won't keep police adding on more cases for a second look.
The task force consists of four Winnipeg officers, three Mounties and two RCMP civilian crime analysts.
Pamela Masik began painting portraits of the many women missing from the Downtown Eastside five years ago in a plight to draw attention to the tragic cases. She has painted 69.
Photograph by: Arlen Redekop, PNG, Vancouver Sun
Sixty-nine massive portraits of women missing from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside will be hung in the Museum of Anthropology next year, Mayor Gregor Robertson is expected to announce tonight.
Robertson will join MOA director Anthony Shelton and the artist, Pamela Masik, at her studio at 7 p.m. for the announcement, and for a public viewing of more than a dozen pieces from the series titled The Forgotten. The portraits measure roughly 2.4 metres wide and three metres tall.
Masik began painting the images five years ago as a way to confront society about this tragic case. She plans to open her studio, near the Olympic Village, every Friday afternoon during the Games with the hope it will attract attention from visiting media and tourists.
"This is not a body of work that has to be a negative thing," Masik said. "I think it shows people that there are people in this community and society that care about these issues, and creating this dialogue is the beginning of change."
The police list of missing women contained 69 names a few years ago, but now sits at 64 after the whereabouts of five women were determined.
The DNA of 32 of those women was found on Robert (Willie) Pickton's farm.
The Joint Missing Women Task Force is investigating about 30 cold cases.
Eight years after a special joint task force was formed between the Vancouver Police Department and the B.C. RCMP to solve more than 60 missing women cases in the Downtown Eastside, at least half remain unsolved.
In a report sent to the United Nations on Tuesday, B.C. CEDAW Group, a coalition of a dozen B.C. women's organizations, says 38 women on the list are still missing.
But according to police, two of the cases were solved in the past two years.
Laura Kathleen Mah was reported missing by her family in 1999. Investigators discovered in spring 2009 that Mah, 42, had died of natural causes at Burnaby General Hospital in 1986. Her death was filed with B.C. Vital Statistics under the name Marie Laura Mah.
Lillian Jean O'Dare was identified in 2007 from a skeleton found in an East Side house in 1989. She had disappeared in 1978.
According to an email from RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Clary, six other cases have moved forward, though charges have not been laid.
The Joint Missing Women Task Force, which runs Project Evenhanded, is still investigating about 30 cold cases of women missing from the Downtown Eastside.
The budget for the fiscal year is $6 million, Clary said.
The B.C. CEDAW Group filed a report with the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women on Tuesday about the lack of progress on two priority recommendations the committee made in 2008.
The UN committee asked the federal government to provide a report by November 2009 on steps taken to deal with low social assistance rates and the disappearance and murder of aboriginal women and girls throughout Canada. The request was in keeping with Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
That report has not been filed, according to the B.C. CEDAW Group. "What we do know is aboriginal women and girls are still going missing and getting murdered," said Laura Holland, a founding member of the Aboriginal Women's Action Network, which is one of the member organizations of the group. "I think it's really important that Canada has an adequate response to this."
Throwing money into Project Evenhanded or other investigations isn't the answer, Holland said, noting no charges have been laid since Robert Pickton was convicted in 2008 of second-degree murder in the cases of six women from the Downtown Eastside. Pickton was charged with 27 counts of murder, with one case dismissed for lack of evidence. Twenty charges still stand.
The group wants the provincial and federal governments to work together to end the poverty that makes so many aboriginal women across the country vulnerable to violence, she added, and should work together to provide answers to the families of the missing women. "They have been aware of this pattern of racial violence [for a long time]," Holland said. "They need to find out what happened and how to prevent it in the future."
RCMP Cpl. Annie Linteau, spokesperson for Project Evenhanded, would not specify how many officers are working on the investigation, saying only that the number changes and that all of the cases are being looked at.
Linteau could not identify how many of the missing women are of First Nations descent or other specifics on the task force because she was away from her Vancouver office at a press conference in Prince George for the "Highway of Tears" investigation into missing aboriginal women in northern B.C.
Published: February 01, 2010 3:00 PM Updated: February 01, 2010 3:38 PM
On Wednesday it will have been four years since the last known sighting of 14-year-old Aielah Saric-Auger while she was alive.
Project E-PANA, a special police task force investigating cases of missing and murdered women along Highway 16, is appealing to the public for any information about two males who were seen talking to Aielah the night she disappeared.
On Feb. 2, 2006 Aielah left her family home to go and visit friends, Cpl. Annie Linteau said. On Feb. 10, her body was found in a ditch next to Highway 16 near the Tabor Mountain turnoff, 22 km east of Prince George.
The last known sighting of Aielah was between 12:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Feb. 3, in the 2100 block of Quince Street.
"She was seen walking northbound. A witness saw that two males attempted to engage her in conversation," Linteau said. "We invite these males to come and talk to us. We'd like to find out what the conversation was about; if they have any information. Did she give any indication where she was going?"
Aielah was wearing a miniskirt and dark jacket at the time of her disappearance. No description of the males is available, Linteau said.
The investigation team has received 1,300 tips and interviewed 400 people in B.C. and Alberta regarding the case, RCMP spokeswoman Cpl. Annie Linteau said. However, police have not been able to identify the two males who spoke to Aielah that night.
Police believe all three were walking at the time of the incident. RCMP do not know what Aielah was walking alone in that neighbourhood at that time of night, Linteau said.
"We have no indication that Aielah was involved in high-risk activity," Linteau said.
Anyone with any information which could lead to the identification of these two males, or about the whereabouts of Aielah after Feb. 2, is urged to call the B.C. Unsolved Homicide hotline at 1-877-543-4822 or Crime Stoppers at 1-888-222-TIPS(8477).
"We're talking about the murder of a 14-year-old girl," Linteau said. "No tip is to small."
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=81a0810d-3278-45a4-a6c9-8584c8337936)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a6929224-00d5-4533-8858-1e4424c04f22)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f4cde65c-7e52-4ef4-a2b2-0b3be7fea11c)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=30c8676e-9a5c-4dde-9380-e13d628dea2a)