Clothes found, Hwy of Tears link probed

Clothes found, Hwy of Tears link probed

By Thom Barker
May 16 2007

Hazelton RCMP are investigating women’s clothing found near Moricetown for a possible link to missing and murdered women on Hwy 16.

A decade ago, a wood cutter stumbling across clothing strewn in the woods near the highway probably would not have thought much about it.

But over the last few years, awareness that possibly more than 30 women have disappeared or been murdered between Prince Rupert and Prince George since the 1970s, the 742-kilometre stretch of road has been dubbed the Highway of Tears and garnered worldwide attention.

When Clarence and Lorraine Joseph discovered a backpack and some female garments dumped by the side of a deactivated logging road west of Moricetown, it raised their suspicion. They left the clothes alone and called the Smithers police.

Florence Naziel — Lorraine’s cousin and a relative of Tamara Chipman, the last-known woman to disappear — said they all felt it was significant because of the location.

“Matilda [Wilson] showed us where Ramona’s body was found and it was just like this,” she said.

Ramona Wilson disappeared in the spring of 1994 and her body was found a little more than a year later by a horse trail near the Smithers Airport.

Ray Michalko, a Surrey-based private investigator and former RCMP detective who is investigating the Highway of Tears disappearances, said the site is the type of locale a murderer might use for a body dump.

Two weeks after the Josephs made the discovery, they were once again in the area and the clothes were still there.

They notified Michalko and The Interior News. Michalko — who was in Prince George preparing to do a search with volunteers of the Norman Lake Road area for Nicole Hoar’s body — said he passed the information on to the Smithers RCMP detachment.

On Thursday, Lorraine and Naziel led The Interior News to the site. West of the Moricetown gas bar 6.6 kilometres is an abandoned logging road. Approximately 200 metres down the road, well-sheltered and out of sight of the highway, a backpack, a pair of women’s jeans, some black lingerie and an unidentifiable garment lay snarled in the branches of a bush approximately 10 metres to the left side of the road. Another 30 metres or so into the forest, two more piles of clothing were marginally visible matted into the forest floor. Within a 100-metre radius of the clothes there were no obvious signs of human remains.

Sgt. Tod Scott, Hazelton’s top cop, said Smithers had passed the file along two weeks ago, but officers were unable to find the location or contact the Josephs until The Interior News passed along the information on Friday.

Officers from the detachment, accompanied by Naziel, retrieved the garments on Friday afternoon. Scott said the clothing was too wet and mouldy to process immediately, but will be examined for some kind of identification and passed along.

“We’ll certainly make the [Highway of Tears] Task Force aware of [the discovery],” Scott said..

www.highwayoftears.ca