2. INTRODUCTION
The highway of tears is an area that stretches over 800
miles across highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Prince
George and also passes through dozens of smaller
communities. The transit here is really poor so it has
become a large area for hitchhiking, which has lead to the
death of many women. Most of the women that have been
affected by this are Native women
3. History of the highway of tears
The true tragedy of these murders and missing persons
reports in that area are that most of them go unsolved. The
first disappearance happened in 1969 and the last
reported attack was in 2011. The police estimated that the
number of victims at around 19 while the aboriginal
community believe that the number is in the mid 40’s.
These numbers come from just the few cases that are
reported
5. Most recent attack
This problem still is apparent as the most recent attack
was in May 2011. Madison Scott age 20 went missing after
a party, her tent and truck was found but her
body/remains were never located
8. Project E-PANA
In 2005 the RCMP finally decided to take action and
launched a program to look into all unsolved murders that
happen on highway 16 over the past 37 years. The E-PANA
project has officially solved 4 murders the murder of
Colleen MacMillen, Gale Weys, Pamela Darlington and 12-
year-old Monica Jack. The E-PANA project is still actively
investigating the unsolved murders but it is very unlikely
that most of the cases will be solved
10. Corruption in the provincial
government
There are many question being asked of the provincial
government. These questions are being asked due to the belief
that many records on the highway of tears were destroyed,
when multiple groups requested accesses to these files. These
accusations surfaced when Tim Duncan a former executive
assistant to Transportation Minister Todd Stone came out and
said that he was told to delete files after the New Democratic
party filed a freedom of information request on all records
concerning this issue. Do you believe the Provencal
governments hiding something
12. BOBBY JACK FOWLER
Bobby jack fowler was the first man linked to any of
murders regarding the highway of tears. He was linked to
three of the murders and may be connected to 4 other
murders as well. RCMP believes he could have killed up to
20 people on the highway of tears his DNA was found many
times but not enough evidence. Three more murders
occurred well he was prison so there must be another killer
on the loose as well
13. IS RACISM A FACTOR
It is suspect that not much is being done about the
disappearance of the women from highway 16 due to the
fact that most of the missing women were native. Many
groups and activist believe that the media is giving less
attention to the subject due to Native women being a
minority in our country and if they happened to be white a
much larger effort would given on this issue
14. Investing in a solution
Doing some research into this topic I notice a very simple
answer on how to make highway 16 much more safe. It was
quite simple invest more into transit and it look like the
provincial government had the same idea The B.C. government
is committing $3 million to improve public transit along B.C.'s
so-called Highway of Tears. The funding comes following a
recent meeting between transportation officials and First
Nations leaders in the area, to address the major issue about
the number of women who have gone missing or been
murdered while hitchhiking Highway 16, which runs between
Prince George and Prince Rupert. Personally I believe that this
is a step in the right direction
15. Leland Vincent Switzer
Leland Vincent Switzer is a killer that been linked to the
highway of tears mystery. He is currently serving a life
sentence for the death of his brother. He was the subject of
an RCMP investigation because they believed he was
linked to the murder of Nicole Hoar. She was last seen
hitchhiking to a music festival before she disappeared. The
RCMP announced that he went under a polygraph test
linked to her murder. No further details have been
released by the RCMP on his this subject
17. With New Government comes
new attitude
The newly elected government has shown more interest
into the topic of missing aboriginal women, which would
also connect to more interest into the highway of tears.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged 40 million into
a national inquiry on missing native and indigenous
women. He promised that he would take action on a
subject that was being ignored, prime to his time in office
