118 replies to this topic

[todd]

Listened to my first in a while podcast last night:

“ Season 3: ‘Missing Michael’ is the story of Michael Dunahee, a little boy from Victoria, BC, who vanished from a playground in 1991 at the age of 4 “: https://frequencypod...s/island-crime/

[todd]

I guess in this world in which we live you can pretend to be whoever or whatever you want to be. But not a specific other person, dead or alive.

People impersonate singers all the time

[Victoria Watcher]

Imitate. Not impersonate.

[pontcanna]

Upcoming docuseries gives ‘behind-the-scenes look’ at efforts to find Victoria’s Emma Fillipoff


 

Filmmakers are releasing another preview of an upcoming docuseries they say will give viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the efforts to find Emma Fillipoff, who has been missing from Victoria for more than a decade.

The official release date for the series Barefoot in the Night: The Search for Emma Fillipoff has yet to be announced, but preview three, The Man in the Green Shirt, is coming Nov. 28, according to Bayberry Films.

 

Link: http://www.bayberryf...n-the-night.php

“Shelley Fillipoff has been searching for her daughter Emma for ten long, heartbreaking years,” reads the series’ synopsis on Bayberry Film’s website.

“Barefoot in the Night, a six-hour docuseries, is a behind-the-scenes look at the effort to find Emma, covering the timeline, tips, sightings, and witness accounts. This is Shelley’s story. She will not let Emma be forgotten.”

VicPD officers have received hundreds of tips from across Canada and the globe, “but none have proven to be confirmed sightings of Emma,” the police department said in November 2022.

Complete series in post-production

The complete series will chronicle Fillipoff’s life and disappearance and includes interviews with those close to Emma, those involved in the official investigation, and the many other persons linked to the case…” said Bayberry.

The upcoming preview, in particular, is 22 minutes long and “highlights the unresolved story of The Man in the Green Shirt, and a new initiative put forth in the hopes of breathing life into this old, yet compelling lead that is still a possible link in Emma’s case,” reads the synopsis.

More: https://www.cheknews...arance-1116674/

[pontcanna]

Where is Scott?

Port Alberni, Missing Person

2023-12-04 

File #2022-12523

On December 8, 2022 the Port Alberni RCMP received a report that Scott Bezanson had not been heard from by his family in over a week. Through a thorough investigation the RCMP determined the last time Scott was seen by friends was nearly a week earlier on December 2, 2022.

Our original release from December 14, 2022 can be read here: 

https://bc-cb.rcmp-g...contentId=77796

The Port Alberni RCMP have worked with Search and Rescue teams from around Vancouver Island, and looked deeply into Scott’s life, but the trail has gone cold. After a year, the RCMP are still looking for Scott and are calling for the public’s assistance.


 

This week marks a year since Scott disappeared and no one has heard from him, stated Constable Richard Johns. I think it’s important to note that even though it’s been a year now, these cases don’t go cold — they stay open until he’s no longer missing. And he’s still missing, so that investigation is ongoing.

If anyone knows anything about Scott’s whereabouts or the details surrounding his disappearance please call the Port Alberni RCMP detachment at 250-723-2424.

Released by

Cst. Richard Johns
Media Relations Officer
Port Alberni RCMP

 

[max.bravo]

Seems like most of the missing middle aged men turn out to be suicides.

Very sad. But wouldn’t it be nice if they left a note ?

[Nparker]

Sadly, I imagine for those seriously contemplating suicide, leaving things "neat and tidy" for the people they leave behind isn't much of a priority.

[pontcanna]

Mother suspects son who went missing in Port Alberni met with foul play

A mother is asking for your help in finding out what happened to her adult son, who went missing in Port Alberni more than one year ago.

 

The family of 51-year-old Scott Bezanson has presumed he died, but his body has never been found, and they want answers.

Bezanson’s van is still parked in the same spot as when he lived in it before he went missing last December.

 

Bezanson's van

 

His mother, who lives in Campbell River, says as soon as she learned the details surrounding her son’s disappearance, she knew immediately that he was dead.

 

 

“For one thing, he would be in contact with me. We were very close. The other thing was that his dog was more than a best friend, and we had found he had left his dog in the van, so he was expected to come back.”

Jean Dumont had agreed to let Bezanson park and stay in his van on his Old Nanaimo Road property in Port Alberni until he could move into a cabin.
 

 

“The heater was going, and the dog was on the bed there, and then I shut the door and checked again three or four times during the day, and I thought that was kind of weird because he never leaves his dog behind,” said Dumont.

Bezanson’s family and friends held a memorial service for him in Campbell River in April despite his body never being found. His mother says he was struggling with a drug addiction, but his life had taken a positive turn. He had a place to stay, had some work, and had seen a doctor about his addiction.

“It was suggested he might want to take his own life. No, he was not that type of man,” she said. “He was a strong Christian, an addict but a strong Christian.”

“I’m scared to know what his last hours were, but at the same time, I’d like to know where he is to know what could’ve happened,” said Doucette.

His dog, Chase, still lives at the property with Dumont, waiting for Bezanson’s return.

 

More: https://www.cheknews...l-play-1180819/

[Victoria Watcher]

View Royal teen 'vanished into thin air' 50 years ago after getting off the bus

 

Carmen Robinson, 17, took the bus home from her dishwashing job and got off two blocks from her View Royal home on Dec. 8, 1973. She was never seen again

https://www.timescol...the-bus-7942071

 

[pontcanna]

2008:

 

"Clifford Olson was living in Victoria at the time, bilking pensioners out of small amounts of money. In 1982, he confessed to killing 11 young men and women. He told police he knew where Robinson was buried.

 

The RCMP flew Olson from his cell at Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario to Victoria on Nov. 30, 1982. He led police to a rocky spot at Fort Rodd Hill, near Royal Roads University, said (Bruce) Brown (retired RCMP). Police used sonar machines to examine the ground but couldn't find any evidence of bodies.

 

"It became apparent Olson was using any unsolved case to either gain access to the media or as a trip," said Brown. Police shipped him back to his prison cell."

 

More: https://www.timescol...om-1973-4564995

[pontcanna]

‘We want justice’: Mothers of young couple murdered in Duncan appeal for an arrest

Dec. 22, 2023 

 

 

On Friday, the two mothers returned to Charles Hoey Park in Duncan, where their children, 29-year-old Nellie Williams and 37-year-old Fran Shurie, were murdered on Christmas Eve 2019.

According to the victims' families, the couple, who had been together for 11 years, were living homeless on Duncan’s streets, and just hours from spending a Christmas breakfast with their children who were in care.

“They were excited to go meet their babies for Christmas morning,” said Nellie Williams, mother Linda Williams.

Instead, just hours before the meeting, the two were attacked as Shurie tried to retrieve his stolen cell phone. Adding to the tragedy is that the victims’ mothers were told by investigators that Williams died trying to save Shurie.

 

Nellie Williams & Fran Shurie

 

“It’s very frustrating because they know who did it. They know exactly,” said Williams.

Yet, when RCMP presented evidence gathered in a four year long investigation, Crown counsel determined it wasn’t enough to charge. In a statement to CHEK News, Crown lawyer Anne Seymour wrote:

“The BC Prosecution Service can confirm that no charges were laid in this case. The prosecutor reviewed the file materials and concluded that the charge assessment standard was not met. In these circumstances, not laying charges is the appropriate course of action,” stated Seymour.

“I just wish those people who know any information [would come forward] to close this case,” said Williams.
 

More: https://www.cheknews...arrest-1183231/

 

[pontcanna]

‘It tortures me:’ Parksville mother gives up search for missing daughter

• Times Colonist
• 11 Feb 2024
•  
•  
• 

 A surveillance photo of Carmel Gilmour at the Liquor Depot on the evening of Nov. 14, 2017.

 

Barbara Gilmour has decided to lay her missing daughter to rest so she might get some rest, too.

 

For the past seven years, the Parksville mother has done everything she can to find her daughter Carmel, who disappeared in November 2017.

 

Gilmour is under no illusion she will find her daughter alive. Carmel, 36, was a mother of two, and also an addict who hung around with dangerous people living in a homeless encampment near Parksville.

 

“I will not torture myself with 20 years of searching,” she said. “I don’t believe it’s a missing person’s case. At this point, I think it’s going to be DNA.”

 

 

Gilmour understands the instability and addiction that rocked her daughter’s life.

 

“She put her hands on her hips when she was 14 and said: ‘I’m tired of being the good girl. I’m going out to be the bad girl,’ ” Gilmour recalled. “She spent many years struggling with drugs and alcohol — half her life.”

 

Carmel gave birth to a son in 2001 and a daughter in 2010. Despite her addiction, she kept trying to find some stability. 

 

“But things really tanked when her boyfriend introduced her to people who took her down a really bad path … a thugging lifestyle in the last two months before she went missing.”

 

Carmel’s mental health was deteriorating, probably because of crystal meth, her mother said. She became violent. She was using and abusing people and stealing from them, said her mother.

 

“I tried to keep the door open for her, but the mental illness was really showing itself. She was paranoid and thought people were after her.”

 

Carmel told her ex-husband she’d been coerced into being a driver for one of the “bosses” in a nearby homeless camp. 

 

Carmel was reported missing on Nov. 15, 2017. The last confirmed sighting of her was between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Nov. 14 on Little Mountain.

 

(Her) van was found on Nov. 21 in a public parking lot on the waterfront in Qualicum Beach. It had been seen on Nov. 15 and was reported as suspicious when it had not moved in six days, said Worth.

 

Police did not find her keys, cellphone, purse or wallet. Investigators do not believe her boyfriend is responsible for her disappearance, said Worth.

 

She learned Carmel was involved with the people who were murdered three years later on Oct. 31, 2020 at a homeless encampment in a gravel pit at Whiskey Creek, said Gilmour.

 

“I know she knew them. I know she was providing transportation for them.”

 

The homicides are being investigated by the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit but there is no update, said RCMP Cpl. Alex Bérubé.

 

The situation hasn’t improved since the murders at Whiskey Creek, which (LeeAnn Salter) believes were drug-related. “In fact, it’s worse,” she said. 

 

More: https://www.timescol...aughter-8288926

 

 

Edited by pontcanna, 11 February 2024 - 07:08 AM.

[pontcanna]

Podcast examines historic murders of three Victoria teens

Apr. 3, 2024

Del Gallup keeps treasured items made by his late daughter, Kimberly Gallup.


Kimberly Gallup

“This she made in grade two at Lake Hill School,” he said, pointing to some pottery. “There’s an autograph in there somewhere. Yep.”

Between June 1990 and June 1991, someone murdered three teenage girls living in Victoria, including Kimberly. Their unsolved cases are now the focus of a new podcast series, “Sweethearts.”

The eight-part series aims to change how the stories of the three murdered teens are told to a new audience.


Cheri Lynn Smith died in June 1990. She was beaten to death, and her remains were not discovered for three months in the bushes off Munns Road north of Thetis Lake.

That November, 17-year-old Kimberly was strangled to death in a motel room at the Colony Motor Inn in Victoria.


Seventeen-year-old Melissa Nicholson’s body was found at Shawnigan Lake in June 1991.

“Melissa was not just a prostitute. She was out there to support herself. She did not have any other way or know any other way to survive,” said a friend at the time.

The murder of three 17-year-old girls in one year would typically attract much more attention.



“Once the Dunahee investigation kicked in, the rest was kind of history. I don’t think I’ve really heard anything since,” said Del.

More: https://www.cheknews...-teens-1197907/

[pontcanna]

Podcast explores unsolved murders of three teens in Victoria more than 30 years ago

Sweethearts, the sixth season of Laura Palmer’s Island Crime podcast, looks at the lives and deaths of the three girls, and argues the cases could be connected

 

Kimberly Gallup had just turned 17 when she was found strangled to death in a Victoria motel in November 1990.

She is one of three teen girls who were involved in sex work who were found dead on southern Vancouver Island within a year. Their deaths remain unsolved more than three decades later.

Kimberly, Melissa Nicholson and Cheri Lynn Smith are the focus of a new podcast by former CBC journalist Laura Palmer.

The first episode of Sweethearts, the sixth season of Palmer’s Island Crime podcast, was released this past week, and dives into Kimberly’s life and death.

At the time, Saanich police were investigating the death of 18-year-old Cheri Lynn in similar circumstances. Cheri Lynn was from Regina but ended up in sex work in Victoria after falling in love with a man at a carnival.

About a year later, while six months pregnant, she was killed in Victoria after meeting a man in downtown Victoria. Her body was discovered in Saanich in the fall of 1990, Palmer said.

Both girls were picked up from around the same area and were strangled, Palmer says in the episode.

Forensic evidence links Kimberly’s death to the deaths of three Vancouver sex workers around the same time, an officer said at the time.

The second episode tells Cheri Lynn’s story, while the third centres on Melissa, who was 17 in June 1991 when she was killed. Her body was found in the Shawnigan Lake area. She was also in and out of sex work in Victoria and trying to get out at the time of her death, her family told Palmer.

At the time of the girls’ deaths, headlines described them as “teen hookers,” and a lot of reporting focused more on the nuisance of sex work than on the fact that teen girls were being manipulated by men pretending to be their boyfriends who lured them into sex work, Palmer said.

Today, the girls would be considered victims of sex trafficking, because they were too young to consent, she said.

Palmer hopes the podcast series will bring new life to the cases. If they’re going to be solved, it will likely be through genetic genealogy, the process of using DNA evidence and genealogy to build a family tree and pinpoint a suspect, she said.

More: https://www.timescol...ars-ago-8564688

[Victoria Watcher]

 

Podcast examines historic murders of three Victoria teens

Apr. 3, 2024

Del Gallup keeps treasured items made by his late daughter, Kimberly Gallup.

 

 

Kimberly Gallup

“This she made in grade two at Lake Hill School,” he said, pointing to some pottery. “There’s an autograph in there somewhere. Yep.”

Between June 1990 and June 1991, someone murdered three teenage girls living in Victoria, including Kimberly. Their unsolved cases are now the focus of a new podcast series, “Sweethearts.”

The eight-part series aims to change how the stories of the three murdered teens are told to a new audience.

 

Cheri Lynn Smith died in June 1990. She was beaten to death, and her remains were not discovered for three months in the bushes off Munns Road north of Thetis Lake.

That November, 17-year-old Kimberly was strangled to death in a motel room at the Colony Motor Inn in Victoria.

 

 

Seventeen-year-old Melissa Nicholson’s body was found at Shawnigan Lake in June 1991.

“Melissa was not just a prostitute. She was out there to support herself. She did not have any other way or know any other way to survive,” said a friend at the time.

The murder of three 17-year-old girls in one year would typically attract much more attention.
 

 

“Once the Dunahee investigation kicked in, the rest was kind of history. I don’t think I’ve really heard anything since,” said Del.
 

More: https://www.cheknews...-teens-1197907/

 

 

 

You have misidentified KG above.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 April 2024 - 05:44 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

^ Maybe a mod can fix that error?

 

I don't think it is very good to have the wrong name associated with the first photo in post #113.

 

Post #114 has the correct names and photos.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 April 2024 - 08:18 AM.

[Mike K.]

What would you like changed?

[Victoria Watcher]

It's fixed now.

[Mike K.]

Oh I see. Ok I’ve removed the images from the initial post since there are photos in the subsequent post.