Manitoba RCMP probe opens door to serial killer theory

By Keith Bonnell, Canwest News Service
August 4, 2009 5:01 PM

Is there a serial killer stalking women in Manitoba?

Bernadette Smith thinks so.

Her sister, Claudette Osborne, vanished a year ago after walking out of a Winnipeg hotel.

The sex-trade worker had never gone three days without talking to family members. Her disappearance left behind four children; the youngest was just two weeks old.

"I believe it's true that there's somebody out there preying on those women, that they believe, because of their lifestyle, that nobody cares and that they won't be missed," Smith said. "But it's not true."

The RCMP said there's no currently no evidence to support the theory that a serial killer is responsible for the dozens of missing and murdered women in Manitoba — but they've now opened the door to the possibility.

The force has announced it will be reviewing unsolved homicides where the victim was a woman. At least one of the cases stretches back to the 1960s.

It's a response to public pressure and follows meetings between the RCMP, residents and provincial Justice Minister Dave Chomiak.

The Manitoba RCMP's five-person historical case unit will be looking for any possible links, any new evidence, or any instances where modern methods, including DNA comparisons, could heat up a cold case.

"If there are any links among (the cases), obviously we will follow up on that," RCMP spokeswoman Sgt. Line Karpish said.

While the RCMP insists there's no reason to suspect a serial killer, a leading expert in the field say it's very possible, especially since many of the victims are believed to be women in the sex trade — a favourite target of those who repeatedly kill strangers.

Dr. Steven Egger is an associate professor of criminology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and the author of The Killers Among Us, a look into serial murder and its investigation.

"Police frequently don't see a pattern," he said, citing a "myopic view" among officers and commanders.

He said there a reluctance to dedicate the resources to looking at possible serial killings, as well as concerns over jurisdictional issues with other police forces.

Prostitutes are among the most common victims of serial killers, Egger said, calling slain sex-trade workers "the less dead."

"People just don't give a damn about prostitutes," he said.

Egger consulted with Project Kare, the Edmonton-based police task force looking into the disappearance of women in Alberta.

"The thing that struck me about Edmonton," he said, "is you've got a lot of places you can dump bodies outside the urban areas."

The same could be said of other Prairie cities, such as Winnipeg, he said.

The RCMP review will focus only on homicides, which means if there's no body — and foul play is only suspected — the case won't be reviewed.

The RCMP don't police the city of Winnipeg, meaning cases inside the city won't necessarily fall under the mandate of the review.

Both those limitations concern Smith, who said she wants a full police task force — with input from aboriginal community groups — dedicated to the missing women.

Nahanni Fontaine agrees.

The director of justice for Manitoba's Southern Chiefs Organization, Fontaine said she doesn't care who's killing aboriginal women in Manitoba — she just wants the disappearances to stop.

"They keep trying to reassure us that there's not a serial killer," Fontaine said of police.

"Personally I don't care," she said. "If it's not one or two really smart psychotic killers that are getting away with it, that means there's 20 murderers that are getting away with it who are on the street right now."

Her organization has long called for a task force into the disappearances, similar to Project Kare in Alberta.

She said among those often labelled "sex-trade workers" are young girls who are being forced to work the streets.

"Contrary to the way these particular women are portrayed as prostitutes or sex trade workers or just the lowest of the low, they're not," she said. "They're somebody's mother; they're somebody's daughter."

No one needs to tell that to the family members of the missing and dead.

Smith said her sister's now two-year-old son has a toy truck with his mother's picture in it.

"He pushes that thing around and talks to his mom," Smith said.

The boy's father recently tried to replace the worn picture and the boy didn't react well.

"He had a crying fit," Smith said.

"It's a roller-coaster every day," she said. "You don't know if today is the day she's going to be found.

"It's like you're living in a nightmare you just want to wake up from."

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