Unless you are Canadian or live in Canada you may not have heard of the “Highway Of Tears”…we hadn't!… But we feel it is important to highlight the disproportionately high number of women, who have either disappeared without a trace or have been found murdered in or around a 450 mile stretch of Highway that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert in British Columbia, Canada.
The 1969 unsolved rape and murder of Gloria Moody, a 26-year-old mother of two, who was beaten and left to bleed to death just outside Williams Lake, is considered to be its first victim.
Since Gloria's death, the total of known victims who have died or disappeared in similar circumstances around the same area is thought to be well over 40, and that is just ones that have been reported! Many but certainly not all of them are Indigenous Canadian women of all ages.
The phenomenon became so mysterious and frequent that in 2005 project E-Pana was set up by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) with the sole purpose of solving cases of missing and murdered persons along the Highway of Tears, and although it started with the scope of investigating victims of Highway 16, within a year of formation, it expanded to include victims along Highways 5, 24 and 97, for women who had vanished in similar circumstances.
Some of the missing have since been found murdered, although a large proportion of them remain unsolved, even after the emergence of DNA testing… For these victims families, although it is the worst possible outcome, at least they have been able to lay their loved ones to rest.
For others, the worst thing is not knowing what has happened to their loved ones who have just vanished off the face of the earth…For them there is no closure, no remains to bury and no explanation.
In this episode, we will focus just on disappearances in the hope that it will trigger a memory that could lead to unlocking the mystery of what happened to these women.
Episode narrated by Top5s
Music by CO.AG
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Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing cases involving serial killers. Listener discretion is advised.
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Thanks for listening and stay spooky!