The Highway Of Tears: The Epidemic Of Heinous Crimes

Heinous crimes are committed on a daily basis. Investigation and manpower of these crimes are often determined by the victims race or socioeconomic status. The Highway of Tears, also known as British Columbia’s highway 16, is an example of this argument. This lonely 837-mile route has struck terror into the hearts of millions.

The hundreds of miles of asphalt has many breathtaking lake views and a snowy mountain backdrop. Slicing east-west through British Columbia, winding through dashing mill towns with a wilderness that seems as if it has not been touched since the dawn of time. Highway 16 has beautiful scenery, but the evil behind the 837 mile route makes the highway uninviting. The grim history behind the highway of tears dates all the

way back to 1969 when the first murder was committed. Glory Moody was the first victim of these horrific murders and unfortunately was not the last (Highway of Vanishing Women 1).
The desolate stretch linking Prince George and Prince Rupert is where most of the women have disappeared. More than forty young women have vanished in the last thirty years. Highway 16 is the trolling ground for the serial killer or killers (Highway to Hell 1). Some people blame the murders on truck drivers who regularly haul timber and other resources through the remote communities. Micheline Pear was the second victim. At the age of eighteen she was murdered in 1970. Along the route, roads split off everywhere and if someone has bad intentions they will find a victim (Highway of Vanishing Women 1).
Hitchhiking was a common aspect to do along Highway 16.

Many women hitchhiked to their destinations and no one ever had any concerns. October of 1973, Gale Weys disappeared while hitchhiking from Clearwater to Kamloops. Her body was soon discovered in a ditch on Highway 5. Just a month later, Pamela Darlington vanished while hitchhiking to a local bar and was brutally murdered. Bobby Jack Fowler was a prime suspect of these two homicides, along with the murder of fourteen year old Monica Ingas who was believed to be walking home from school and sixteen year old Colleen MacMillan who had both been killed in 1974 (Missing and Murdered 1). Thirty eight years later, Fowler’s DNA was found on Colleen’s blouse in 2012. He was not imprisoned until 1996. Bobby Jack Fowler died while serving a sixteen year sentence at the Snake River Correctional Institute in 2006 from lung cancer (True Crime Diary

1).
In 1978, Monica Jack went missing at the age of fourteen.

Her fate was unknown for seventeen years. In 1995, forestry workers found skeletal remains located off of a logging road 20km from where her bike was found. DNA and dental records confirmed her identity. Between the years of 1981 and 1990 Maureen Mosie and Alberta Williams were both murdered and their bodies were discovered. Unfortunately for the families of Shelly-Ann Bascu and Delphine Nikal the sixteen year old girls are still missing and are still yet to be found (Missing and Murdered 1). The killings escalated in 1994, when three 15-year old Inuit girls were brutally murdered in a six month time period (Highway of Hell 4). Lana Derrick went missing in 1995, Fowler was not a suspect for her disappearance even though investigators highly believed he was the man who committed most of the earlier

crimes.
The year of 1995, a total of fifteen young women were murdered or went missing along the highway of tears. “Someone is preying on these women without anyone standing in the way. It has left everyone terrified to travel alone” one worried resident stated to TV reporters (Highway to Hell 2). Investigation was not taken seriously and the cases of the girls were not looked into vigorously. The attitudes of police and investigators changed when caucasian tree-planter Nicole Hoar went missing in 2002. The disappearance of Hoar made national news and drew criticism from aboriginal community members. Many members argued that police did not adequately investigate the previous cases that involved aboriginal women. Families of the inuit women felt as if they were not taken seriously (Highway of Vanishing Women 2).
Tamara Chipman went missing in September of 2005. Since then authorities have made efforts to bring cohesion to the investigations of previous cases. Project E-Pana began in the fall of 2005. The task force was created as a result to British Columbia’s RCMP criminal operations, ordering the review and investigation of the murders linked to Highway 16. The goal of the project is to determine the killer or killers that have been lurking around the highway for years. E-Pana is comprised of eighteen cases involving thirteen homicides and five missing women investigations. The task force spends six million annually to investigate the killers but had no luck solving any cases until 2012 when they found Fowler’s DNA on Colleen’s blouse that linked him to the murder. Circumstances link Fowler to the murders of Pamela Darlington and Gale Weys, not DNA (E-PANA 1).