Families of two missing women are anxiously awaiting results of an autopsy to be conducted Wednesday of a partially decomposed body discovered outside a Prince George park.
However, police on Tuesday said they could not confirm any link to the two missing women or to 18 other women who disappeared and are believed to have been slain along a stretch of Trans-Canada Highway known as the Highway of Tears.
"There is some sensitivity and awareness to the fact that we have this larger picture going on," Corporal Dan Moskaluk said Tuesday in an interview.
The decomposed body was found on the edge of a dirt road running up a mountainside on the edge of L.C. Gunn park, southeast of the city. The park is located next to the Trans-Canada Highway. The road, used by mountain bikers and off-road enthusiasts, is also known as an area for prostitutes, Cpl. Moskaluk said.
Women who work as prostitutes have been speaking to police about the incident, he said. "People in the sex trade have approached officers and discussed this file this weekend," Cpl. Moskaluk said. "They are all very concerned about what we are doing and if they can help."
Plainclothes officers with a police dog found the body late Friday while conducting a foot search in a wooded area of the park as part of an unrelated investigation. The cause of death was not immediately obvious.
The officers could not tell whether the woman was killed at the spot or just dumped there after she was killed someplace else, Cpl. Moskaluk said. They have also been unable to tell whether she was one of the two recent missing women. "You are dealing with decomposed remains. It is not a matter of looking at a photo," he said.
However, he raised doubts about whether the remains could be those of any of the women who disappeared years ago along the Highway of Tears. "These are not skeletal remains," he said.
Police have been speaking to the families of two women who worked as prostitutes and were reported missing this fall in Prince George, he said.
Cynthia Frances Maas, a 35-year-old aboriginal woman with brown eyes and long brown hair, was last seen on Sept. 10 in Prince George. Her friends reported her as missing two weeks later. Police say her family and friends were concerned, as she normally had regular contact with them.
Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23, was also reported missing in late September. Ms. Montgomery, who was from Quesnel, B.C., was seen in Prince George shortly before she went missing. She is a Caucasian woman with green eyes and brown hair.
Gladys Radek, the aunt of Tamara Chapman, who went missing along the Highway of Tears in 2005, said Tuesday she is still looking for answers about her niece. She had not spoken to the families of the Prince George women, but she knew what they were going through.
"They need time to absorb that it could be their daughter, sister, auntie or grandmother that is dead," she said. "Right now, we have [two]families who are anticipating who this woman is. There is a lot of pain going on in that community, as there was when Tamara went missing."
The police investigation into the decomposed body is headed by the Prince George RCMP general investigation section, assisted by the North District major crimes unit. A special investigative unit put together by the RCMP to investigate the missing and murdered women along the Highway of Tears, called Project E-Pana, have been consulted but they have not taken over the investigation.