Cold Case gets Traction

Charges have been laid in the disappearance of Katherine May Wilson, 12.  She went missing on her way home from the corner store almost four decades ago.  Despite eye witnesses who saw her being pushed down onto the floorboards of a vehicle, police took 38 years to arrest the suspect.

The case was reopened in 2006, a reward for information was posted.  There’s no word yet as to why the case was reopend, but I suspect it was due to an eagle eyed cop rifling through the old files.

Snip

Family members have always believed they know who killed Kathy. A website dedicated in her honour reads:
“Kathy, we miss you. We will never forget you. We know the truth, and we will never give up until the truth is revealed and you’re brought home to our loving arms.”

I’m not surprised to learn they thought they knew who the killer of their child was, after all the two eye witnesses (Kathy’s siblings)  saw her being driven away by a man who pushed Kathy down out of sight- told Mum and police straight away the identity of the man.   That man was Barry Manion, Kathy’s second cousin now charged in her abduction and murder.  A cousin who’s brother in law was an investigating officer back at the time of her disappearance.  At this time, police say there is no evidence his involvement jeopardized the investigation.

Yeah, maybe not, yet.

Just wait for it.

Now I want to direct your attention to my file Project Angel, Tips Saught

(Here are all my posts tagged Project Angel FYI)

This is a list I managed to snag off the Internet before the document was pulled offline.  I had been trying in vain to get RCMP and KARE to take a look at the Ontario murders of the late 60’s and early 70’s as my mother was a victim who managed to survive a seven day abduction from London Ontario.  She doesn’t know where they took her, but it was a farm.  She remembered that as they were drowning her in a lake, one man said No we can’t dump her here, they already found ‘the other girl”. This occurred in 1969.  No one believed her story.  Not then, and not now.  No one that is, but me.

A few years later, I was approached outside my house by a stringy haired dirty man with glasses and a rusted out junker of a car.  He tried to get me to go with him.  One look at the tarp in his back seat, and one whiff of what I called “farm dirt” sent me screaming down the street as he squeeled away.  The police were called, they told my mom they believed he was the one responsible for a series of child abductions and murders in the area. This was 1975-76.

At age twelve, I was told he was caught red handed.  I won’t go into the story save to say one of the two girls abducted got away and was responsible for leading the police to her deceased friend and the fiend who was chopping her up.

Turns out dude was a pig farmer.

So, as you can see I’ve been obsessed with the serial abductions and murders of women and girls since I was knee high to a toadstool.  Obsessed specifically with pig farming serial killers.

When I first moved to BC and started seeing missing women’s posters, I recognized these women.  Not personally of course, but historically.  These women were my mother, over and over and over again.  Young, drug addicted, unstable, hanging with the wrong crowd kinda girls.

When I first saw Pickton, well lets just say it was like looking into the past at yet another stinky dirty skinny hog.  And yes, I freaked out.  And yes I went to the authorities and yes I got nowhere.  So I started this blog. What else can I do?

Now back to the list:

* 1969 — Jacqueline English, 15, of London, was last seen getting into a car
Oct. 4 at the cafeteria of a store in the former Treasure Island shopping plaza
on Wellington Road, near the London Ice House. Her nude body was found five
days later in Big Otter Creek near Tillsonburg. She had been sexually assaulted and killed by a blow to the head.

I have no proof but my bones tell me this was the girl that saved my mothers life.

Mom was taken by one person, but she was delivered to a crowd of dirty stinky bearded filthy men.  It was a party on a farm.  This was how these guys got their kicks, by abducting and torturing women they knew no one cared about.

So this Barry guy, did he work alone?  Or was he part of a wider group as well?

When I was fifteen, my brother wanted into a gang.  In order to be let in he needed to be blooded.  So, he brought me along as his gift to the gang. Being raised by a survivor, I had been taught self defence as I began walk.  I was unharmed, but you shoulda seen the other guy.  I can’t help but wonder if Kathy was Barry’s initiation?

I wouldn’t jump so quickly to this consideration if it weren’t for the fact I’ve been researching this inside and out for the past five years and happen to have lists and lists of missing women and girls from Ontario, and guess what? They happen to cluster right around the location of Kathy’s last known where abouts.

Check it out:

* 1967 — Glenda Tedball, 16, was last seen walking into a bush on Halloween
day near her RR 4, Thedford, home. She has never been found.

* 1968 — Jacqueline Dunleavy, 16, of Byron, was a Grade 10 student at
Westminster secondary school when she was killed in January. She was strangled
with either her scarf or a belt and struck on the head. Her partially clothed
body was found in the driveway of what was then Katherine Harley school, near
the London Hunt and Country Club. There is evidence she was sexually assaulted.

* 1968 — Frankie Jensen, 9, of London, disappeared on his way to Westdale
public school on Feb. 9. His body was found two months later in the Thames
River near Thorndale. He had a fractured skull and was partially clothed. It is
unclear if he was sexually assaulted.

* 1968 — Scott Leishman, 16, of RR 1, Thorndale, was missing for three months
before his body was found in Port Burwell harbor on May 15. There were no signs
of violence but some of his clothing was disturbed. It is unclear if he was
sexually assaulted.

* 1968 — Helga Beer, 31, of London, was found in the rear seat of her car in
a parking lot off Carling Street near Dundas Street. She had been beaten,
strangled and sexually assaulted. She was last seen alive leaving a friend’s
downtown apartment Aug. 6 with an unknown man.

* 1968 — Lynda White, 19, of Burlington, was a student at the University of
Western Ontario who disappeared after writing a French exam on Nov. 13. Her
remains were found five years later in a shallow grave near St. Williams in
Norfolk County. No clothing was found and police were unable to determine the
cause of death.

* 1969 — Jane Wooley, 62, of London, was found partially clothed Feb. 3 in
her apartment on York Street three days after she was killed. She had been
brutally beaten. She was last seen leaving the London House on Dundas Street
where she was a $40-a-week hotel chambermaid. There was no evidence of sexual
assault.

* 1969 — Patricia Anne Bovin, 22, of London, was found stabbed and strangled
April 24 on the second floor of the King Street apartment where she lived with
her two young sons.

* 1969 — Robert Bruce Stapylton, 11, of London, disappeared from his
Piccadilly Street home June 7. His body was found in a woodlot in London
Township, six kilometres from his home. Police could not determine the cause of
death and there was no evidence of sexual assault.

* 1969 — Jacqueline English, 15, of London, was last seen getting into a car
Oct. 4 at the cafeteria of a store in the former Treasure Island shopping plaza
on Wellington Road, near the London Ice House. Her nude body was found five
days later in Big Otter Creek near Tillsonburg. She had been sexually assaulted
and killed by a blow to the head.

* 1970 — Soraya O’Connell, 15, of London, vanished after telling friends she
was hitchhiking from a camp at the Fanshawe Youth Centre in northeast London on
Aug. 14. Her body was found four years later in an old dump south of Stratford.
Little clothing was recovered but it is unknown if she was sexually assaulted.

* 1970 — Edith Authier, 57, of Merlin in Kent County, was found stabbed,
beaten and sexually assaulted in her home Sept. 5 by a friend.

* 1972 — Priscilla Merle, 21, of London, was last seen getting into a car
outside her sister’s home in London on March 4. Her left arm was found two
weeks later in Kettle Creek, north of Port Stanley. Her upper torso was found
beside a Kettle Creek marina a month later. For the next several months, police
continued to recover pieces of her body in the area.

* 1975 — Irene Francis Gibbons, 66, of Strathroy, was found dead in the
bedroom of the bungalow where she lived alone. She was strangled but not
sexually assaulted and no valuables were stolen.

* 1978 — Irene MacDonald, 36, of London, was last seen in September. She was
reported missing by family five months later and has never been found.

* 1983 — Donna Jean Awcock, 17, of London, was last seen leaving a
convenience store near her Cheyenne Avenue housing complex. Her strangled,
partly clad body was found about 15 metres down an embankment overlooking
Fanshawe Dam. She had been sexually assaulted.

Now, notice the last date 1983, Donna Awcock was the last on the list.

According to Kim Rossimo former geographic profiler of the Vancouver police there was a sharp increase of missing girls and women from the down town east side begining in 1983.

Coincidence?  I didn’t think so then, and I don’t think so now.  I think ’someone’ moved the base of operation from one farm to another.  A Cross country move.

Another coincidence I think is worth taking a look at:

Barry’s brother in law was a cop, and was involved with the first botched investigation into Katherines disappearance.

John Dragani was THE top cop for 20+ years handling the missing persons cases from the DTES.  No traction at all occurred during that time, well unless you count driving the talented Kim Rossino out of town. Pickton’s name and farm was implicated, just as Barry was.  But nothing happend until Project Even Hand took over the investigation.  (Yayy RCMP!)

Now the disgraced Dragani is facing criminal charges of his own related to the making and possession of child pornography.  Oh, by the way Dragani was also the region’s school liason. Lovely.

I don’t think there’s anyone left who believes Pickton acted alone.

Due to reveiwing the numbers of child murders and abduction’s in Ontario, I don’t believe Katherines murder was an isolated event either. I wonder who Barry’s mentor was and I wonder how many other murders he’s aware of, taken part in or done himself.

I have faith that the police will get to the bottom of this, more importantly I have faith Canadians will start to wake up and begin to demand answers and demand accountibility for these decades of mayhem.

One day, I pray all will be revealed.  I hope I’m still around to see it happen. I wish Kathy’s dad and brother survived to see her killer arrested and tried, but I suppose they already know because now, they are together on the other side of life.