Title: Highway Serial Mutilator and Killer of Canada

Dates: 1973 - 1981

Overview: Someone killed and mutilated a lot of young females.

Status: Cold Case.

Highway Killer of Canada

For the best part of a decade, between 1973 and 1981, Canadian authorities were baffled by a series of unsolved sex murders along the Trans Canada Highway, spanning the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. Victims ranged in age for 12 to 35, and while published sources could never agree on a body count (citing various totals form 11 to 33 victims), the most frequent tally lists 28 slayings spread over eight years. Many of the victims were apparently hitchhikers, sexually assaulted before they were beaten, strangled, or stabbed to death, with some of the bodies revealing postmortem mutilations.

Generally acknowledged as the first highway victim, 19 year old Gale Weys was thumbing her way home to Kamloops, from a job in Clearwater, when she met her killer on October 19,1973. Her nude, decomposing corpse was found a few miles south of Clearwater on April 6, 1973. By that time the killer had already claimed another victim, picking off 19 year old Pamela Darlington at Kamloops, on November 6, 1973. Her body was fished out of the Thompson River the next day, and crewmen on a passing train reported sighting a man with messy blonde hair near the scene of the crime, but the vague description led detectives nowhere.

Colleen McMillan, age 16, was last seen alive on August 9, 1974, thumbing rides near Lake La Hache. A month later, her nude, decomposed remains were found some 35 miles away. Police suspected a drug addict, who confessed to the slaying, and then recanted before committing suicide. The case remains officially unsolved.

On January 9, 1976, 16 year old Pauline Brazeay was found stabbed to death, outside Calgary. Six months later, on July 1, 19 year old Tera White disappeared from Banff, her skeletal remains discovered near Calgary in March 1981. Marie Goudreauy, age 17, was murdered near Devon on August 2, 1976, her female anatomy mutilated, probably before her death. Twenty year old Melissa Rehorek was killed near Calgary on September 15, her body discarded 12 miles from the spot where Pauline Brazeau had been discovered.

Barbara McLean, age 26, traveled all the way from Nova Scotia to meet her death near Calgary, strangled by a person unknown on February 26, 1977. Fourteen year old Monica Jack disappeared while bicycling near Merritt, on May 6, 1978, and she has not been seen since, though her bike was found at the bottom of a highway embankment. On September 26, 1979, 12 year old Susan Duff went biking near Pinticton and never returned, her body recovered from the outskirts of Bown on October 21. Marie Jamison, age 17, vanished while hitchhiking near Davis Bay, on August 7, 1980; nine days later, when her body was discovered in some nearby woods, the cause of death was listed as asphyxiation. Victim Oanh Ha, a 19 year old Vietnamese immigrant, was raped and strangled near Golden on February 28, 1981, her body mutilated posthumously. Two months later, on April 22, 15 year old Kelly Cook was reported missing, her body found near Taber, Alberta, on June 29. The only male victim in the murder series, transvestite Fredick Savoy, was parading in drag when the killer apparently mistook him for a woman, knifing him to death in a Vancouver parking lot. Mauureen Mosie, generally described as the last highway victim, was beaten to death at Kamloops on May 8, 1981.

Six months later, authorities convened a special summit meeting to discuss 33 of Canadas 200 unsolved murders, and while they generally agreed that there was no prime suspect. The long series of serial murders remains unsolved.

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