Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Highway of Tears Pt. 2: More Missing and Murdered

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Every once in a while, authorities would catch an extraordinary break: In 1985, a tip led to a man responsible for three murders. Then in 2010, a routine traffic stop led to a man responsible for four murders. Even still, there were so many more women unaccounted for. And more cases to come. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Parcast listeners. It's Vanessa with some incredible news. You can purchase your copy of our book, Cults, inside the world's most notorious groups, and understanding the people who joined them. Available now at parcast.com slash cults. Cults is an expanded look at the people who led and followed the most radical groups in history, with an unflinching exploration into what happens when the most vulnerable recesses of the mind are twisted into the lowest forms of malevolence. details not featured on our podcasts. We're so proud to bring you this fantastic compilation of stories, and we're forever grateful for your support. Without you, none of this would be possible, so thank you. Visit parkast.com slash cults to order your copy of cults inside the world's most notorious groups and understanding the people who joined them.

That's parkast.com slash cults to order today. Due to the graphic nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder, sexual assault of adults and children, rape, substance abuse, and violence. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. For more information about the Highway of Tears and ways to support the search for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada, visit www.com. She already knew the risks. Everyone did. But Drusela Joseph wasn't the only woman who still chose to hitchhike along the highway of tears,

despite everything. Frankly, she didn't choose to hitchhike at all. When there's no other way to get around, even the most dangerous option is better than nothing at all. In 2016, Drusella was unemployed, mostly relying on her boyfriend's disability paycheck to get by. She didn't have money to buy a car. Living in a remote British-Columbian village didn't help matters. There was no public transit that could take her to the next town over. So if she wanted to go anywhere, there was only one option, hitching a ride.

Drusella's boyfriend often joined her on these trips, and he carried a weapon, usually a club or a screwdriver, something easy to carry just in case. But even that was hardly a comfort. The general belief was that there was a killer on the loose, that he was somewhere out there. in the woods or even in town. Maybe he was the driver that just pulled over, waving Drusella and her boyfriend over

so that they could climb in the back. But Drusella couldn't think like that, not when this was the only option she had. Maybe someday the region would finally get a free shuttle bus or a more reliable Greyhound line. But until then, well, she just had to take that chance. What other choice did she have? Hi, I'm Greg Pulsin.

And I'm Vanessa Richardson. And this is a special series on the Highway of Tears, presented by serial killers. We're taking a closer look at this lonely collection of roads that crisscrossed the British Colombian landscape, a region that has been the site of countless missing persons and homicide cases. Over three episodes, we're grappling with the history of these crimes, the bigger issues at play and how communities are taking action to protect themselves. Last time, we followed one of the oldest cases along the Highway of Tears, Gloria Moody. And through her story, we looked at the challenges that indigenous communities have to confront when their loved ones go missing.

Today, we're going to address another difficult question. Why does this keep happening? How is it possible that so many people have died in this one place over such a long period of time? There's no easy way of answering that. But in this episode, we'll explore some large-scale issues that make it easy for these crimes to continue. Within that context, we'll learn about two serial killers. who each took advantage of an already bad situation. We've got all that and more coming up. Stay with us.

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long after she was killed, and there will almost certainly be more. But this kind of thing doesn't happen in a vacuum. Each crime is directly tied to the place where it happened. So to better understand that, we have to return to the highway itself. Last time, we started by taking a brief trip along Highway 16, like you were a passing driver on your way to somewhere else. This time, we're going to do it again, but it's a little different. This time, you're hitchhiking at night.

You start your journey into town. It's easier that way. More traffic means more chances to wave down a passing car, and sure enough, it works. A driver pulls to the shoulder, leaning over to pop open the passenger side door. You ask them to give you a ride to the next town over, a dozen or so miles away.

The guy agrees, so you climb in, exchange pleasantries as you buckle up, and off you go, away from town, down the highway. The further you drive, the darker it gets. Whatever natural beauty you might have been able to enjoy during the day, that's gone now. frankly you can't see anything at all. There are no street lamps out here,

nothing but the headlights to illuminate the inky black night. Your cell phone loses surface quickly. Also, there are a few other cars. For long stretches, you and the driver are the only people on the road. The message comes through loud and clear. You're totally alone out here. There's just the woods, a black curtain as dark and impenetrable as everything else.

Once in a while, the headlights might catch up. a figure in the dark, the reflective eyes of a deer somewhere in the woods, or an owl flitting across the road, and sometimes those beams might briefly illuminate a woman's face as she stands on the shoulder, thumb extended. But your driver doesn't slow down. He already has his charge for the night. The car zooms by, its tail lights leaving the woman in a ghostly red glow. She'll have to wait for someone else to give her a ride. But that face, it's hard to shake.

Maybe you shift in your seat ever so slightly, your gaze fixed outside the passenger window. Perhaps your hand wanders into your pocket where you've brought a small knife just in case. After all, you've heard the stories. You've seen the signs. You know that it's dangerous to hitchhike. But when there's no other option, well, you have to make do with what you've got. When we talk about the highway of tears, we often do so through stories about individual people, one person who was hitchhiking who got into the wrong car.

A few months later, her body was found, dumped in a ditch. Fixating on singular cases, it can sometimes feel like the problems that plague this region come down to individual choices. If people go missing when they hitchhike, well, then the solution is just not to hitchhike. There are signs all along Highway 16 that state that very warning. Girls don't hitchhike on the highway of tears. It's tempting to want to stop there, to really have it be that easy. If it is just a matter of avoiding danger, then that should be pretty straightforward, right? But of course, it's not nearly that simple. Frankly,

nothing about the highway of tears is simple. So before we jump into today's story, we need to spend some time in this place. To expand beyond individual cases and take a broader look at the region itself. What makes it tick, how it's structured? Because that's where things get a little more complicated. It may sound redundant, but it bears repeating. These towns are extremely isolated. Geographically, yes, but also in another important way. They're isolated from infrastructure, and this lack of access plays a major role in the ongoing issues of the highway of tears. Take transportation, for example.

In the more remote communities in this region, there's no major form of public transit to get you from one town to the next. Even the unreliable Greyhound schedule was discontinued. Poverty is also a major issue here, particularly within indigenous communities. So many people can't afford to buy a car to get them from place to place. Walking isn't really an option, not when the next town is almost 10 miles away. So if you needed to go somewhere, how would you do it? You'd have to hitchhike, right?

Then there's the issue of communication. Self-service isn't always available, especially once you get out of town. Besides, buying a phone can be expensive, or frankly, just not worth it. So some folks just do without. These are issues that could be addressed through government aid, and local communities have been demanding exactly that. Starting in 2006, they've asked for things like better cell service. more frequent police patrols along Highway 16 and free shuttle rides for kids who needed to go to social activities in neighboring towns.

All are good ideas, but actually implementing those fixes has proved to be a frustratingly slow process. For example, cell service wasn't improved in the region until April 2021, 15 years after the request was first made. A few shuttle services have sprouted up along Highway 16, but they don't run every day and only stay at a given location. for a few hours. And as of this recording, the government has approved additional funding for shuttles. But for lots of folks, that so-called improvement doesn't come quick enough. With national help moving slowly at best, it might be tempting for communities to seek out help at the local

level. But that also comes with its fair share of issues. As Jessica McDermott writes in her book, Highway of Tears, many indigenous people describe their relationship to law enforcement as over-policed and underprotected. And she has ample reason for describing the situation that way. Indigenous peoples make up less than 5% of Canada's population, yet they comprised more than a third of the total population of people killed by police from 2007 to 2017. Studies also indicate that they're disproportionately more likely to be stopped

for random searches or detained for minor infractions. It's easy to see how all of this could make indigenous folks far less likely to rely on the RCMP for help, even in dire situations. And the distrust towards the cops has its own history, one that stems from centuries of racism and abuse by the Canadian government. For example, the RCMP were directly involved in forcing native children into residential schools, a program designed to assimilate kids into Euro-Canadian culture. That history heavily influences the strained relationship between indigenous people and the Canadian

police. And it creates a culture in which communities around the highway of tears, especially native communities, feel like they've been left to their own devices. They don't see much support from the government and have little faith that local police have their best interests in mind. This is even more true for people in high-risk situations, people who are often underprotected by the community at large, sex workers, people struggling with addiction, folks with disabilities, having access to free transit, better cell service, a generally safer community, all of this would directly help these populations. But along the highway of tears, that support is hard to come by.

Over the years, the lack of action has had real tangible consequences. Without the proper infrastructure, people are left with no choice but to put themselves in danger. Otherwise, they won't be able to get to work, they won't be able to pay rent or to buy groceries. In short, they're stuck. All of this leaves a vacuum, an empty space for violence to grow and flourish. For a certain kind of person, this region is like a dream come true, a place to act out their darkest desires without fear of detection. And at least two men took deadly advantage of that situation. Coming up, we'll look at the case of one killer who saw hitchhikers as the perfect prey.

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Now back to the story. In the context of the highway of tears, this story is one of the better ones, because unlike so many of the others, it has an ending. But that just shows you how bad this problem is, how bad it's been for decades. On October 9, 1981, Gene Mary Kovacs was out drinking in Prince George. She was there for several hours, downing a bit too much booze, it seemed.

At some point in the evening, she was removed from the bar. After that, she went home and drank some more, but she didn't stay there for long. In the late hours of the night, Jean took a cab out of Prince George down Highway 16. She had the driver pull over at an intersection with the old kid. Caribou Highway, she planned to hitchhike from here. It's not entirely clear what her plans were, but she told the driver that she was on her way to either Jasper or Edmonton. Both of these places are exceedingly far away, even to drive. Jasper is nearly a four-hour drive, while Edmonton is even further, a seven-hour trip by car.

Jean stood at the side of the road as the glow of the cab's tail lights faded away. Getting to either city would require hitchhiking. several rides, so she had a long night ahead of her. Maybe she thought she'd meet some nice people along the way. But that cab driver was the last person to see Jean alive, except, of course, for her killer. Her body was found on October 11th in a wooded area near the city of Purden Lake, about 40 minutes away from Prince George. She was naked and had been sexually mutilated. But it was a gun that killed her. She'd been shot in the head with a 22-calibur bullet. If there was an investigation into her death, it didn't find anything conclusive. It didn't

seem like Jean had anyone to advocate for her or to put pressure on the police to seek out a suspect. Things could have stayed like that. The mystery of Jean-Marie Kovacs could have just faded into oblivion, like so many other murders in the region. But within a month, another death cast her death in a different light, because this case was very, very similar. 13-year-old Roswitha Fuchsbegler also lived in Prince George, but on November 13th she told her parents she was going to have a sleepover with a friend, but instead she went to a party, pretty typical for a teen. The night went on without any incident,

but at some point Roswita decided she wanted to leave the party, and this is when her movements get a little confusing. Apparently, Roswita hitched to ride with two men, telling them to drop her off at another intersection, in town. That's where they left her. Where she went after that, we don't know. It took a little over a week for anyone to find her body. A pair of joggers first discovered her behind the way scales on Hart Highway outside of Prince George. She too had been stripped naked and sexually violated. But unlike Jean-Marie Kovacs, Roswita had been stabbed to death.

This murder was also much more of a media sensation. Part of the fervor could have been due to the clear similarities between Gene and Ross Witha's attacks. Many people noticed a pattern. But it's likely there were other factors at play. First of all, the Fuchsbeakler family were extremely involved in the initial investigation into their daughter's death, working directly with the RCMP. A 1982 article reported that local police had looked into 11,000 people and 6,000 suspicious occurrences in the hopes of finding the teenager's killer.

And that's a pretty common occurrence along the highway of tears. Parents putting pressure on police to sniff out anything that could lead them to the killer. But Roswitha's parents are different from most of the rest, in one key way. They're white. To better understand the gravity of this, we need to pause, because it's hard to look at the murder of Roswitha Fugskiekler without also thinking about Gloria Moody and other indigenous women and girls whose bodies were found in this region. Rosswitha's story is terrible, a tragedy that no family should ever experience. But it would be wrong to talk about her case without recognizing the differences that exist between her and someone like Gloria Moody.

Many indigenous people have pointed out the disproportionate support that white victims get, especially from the RCMP. As we discussed earlier, the police often shrug off the deaths of indigenous peoples. And if they do choose to investigate, many people find that they're involved. is begrudging at best. In a 2016 interview for the New York Times, Gladys Raddock expressed her own frustration about this. When her niece, 22-year-old Tamara Chipman, disappeared in 2005, the police pushed back when the family began putting up missing posters.

She elaborated saying, they knew we were searching day and night and they did nothing to help us. The day after Tamara went missing, a white woman disappeared in Vancouver, and as Ms. Raddock explained, quote, the police were out in the streets putting up posters. It can feel uncomfortable to talk about this in light of these horrific crimes, but recognizing this difference doesn't devalue the terrible nature of Rosweifa Fuchsbeakler's death. It doesn't take away from the pain that her family felt. And it is essential to understanding the highway of tears, because above everything else, it's a complex story to tell.

And importantly, the Fookspeakler's involvement in their doctor's, case did help push things forward. By putting such a strong spotlight on Roswita, people saw the pattern between her death and that of Jean Mary Kovacs, but it took one more murder for the pieces to fall into place. 15-year-old Nina Marie Joseph was a sex worker in Prince George. We know very little about the circumstances leading up to her death, and most of the details about her murder came a while later. We know that her naked body was found on August 16, 1982, but it's unclear if that was also the date she was killed. Like Roswatha, she had been stabbed repeatedly. The body had been dumped in a public park in Prince George.

Like with the other two crimes, there was no early evidence that led the police to any suspect. It's possible that, because of Nina's profession, her death wasn't treated with the same sense of urgency that Roswita's case was. urgency or not, all three murders remained in limbo for several years. No leads, no hope of closure for anyone. But in 1985, everything changed. That year, a young woman came forward, saying that she knew exactly who had killed Nina Joseph. It was her boyfriend, Edward Dennis Isaac.

Isaac's girlfriend told the authorities that she helped him move Nina Joseph's body to the park. allegedly he'd threatened her with a similar fate if she told anyone about the crime. It was only when she moved away from Prince George that she finally felt comfortable telling the police what she knew. Her information led investigators right to Isaac's door, and he was charged with Nina's murder. At some stage, it was determined that Isaac had strangled Nina with a rope when she refused to perform a sex act for him. Other than that, there's very little reported about Isaac himself, or his crimes, why he committed them or how he chose his victims. But regardless of his reason for killing,

it's clear that he was a violent, cruel man. During the investigation into Nina Joseph's death, a witness told the police that Isaac had also confessed to killing Roswatha Fuchsbeakler. And shortly thereafter, in 1988, another witness came forward, saying that Isaac had told them in great detail exactly how he killed Jean-Marie Kovacs. According to the witness, Isaac and his brother had picked Jean up and drove her to a remote logging road.

There, they raped her, shot her, and left her body in the brush. By the end of the decade, Isaac had been convicted of all three murders and was given three life sentences without the possibility for parole for 15 years. In theory, that means he was first eligible for parole in 2003, but as far as we know, he hasn't been released. In a way, this part of the story has a happy ending. Edward Dennis Isaac was found, convicted, and sent to jail. But even that doesn't feel especially satisfying.

And like we mentioned earlier, it's important to recognize that this case is the exception to the rule. In telling this story, we have to remember the countless others that are never told, murders that were ignored by the police or investigations that were never resolved. Edward Dennis Isaac is a perfect example of how a person, can take advantage of the lack of infrastructure along the Highway of Tears. No public transit means more hitchhikers. And for Isaac, more hitchhikers meant easy targets. And as we travel along these lonely roads,

we'll see other ways that people have taken advantage of the issues at play in this region. Because hitchhiking is just one piece of the puzzle. Coming up, we'll explore the case of the so-called Highway of Tears Killer. This episode is brought to you by. Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting.

Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. By now it should be clear that hitchhiking is a massive issue along the highway of tears, one that won't go away without massive structural change. It makes people, especially women, vulnerable to violence. But that's not the only problem at play here, not by a long shot. The following case is in some ways similar to that of Edward Dennis Isaac, one killer targeting an especially vulnerable victim pool.

But this time, we're not talking about hitchhikers. We're talking about sex workers. Like hitchhiking, sex work in this region is intrinsically tied to structural failures to neglect to racism. And these big issues have real, tangible consequences for individual people. 35-year-old Jill Stucchenko had been missing for four days when the police found her body on October 26, 2009. She had been beaten to death and left partially buried near a popular jogging spot in Prince George. It isn't clear how long Jill was there. before someone discovered her, or whether she'd been killed at that location.

Frankly, the police didn't offer much information at all. It took the RCMP until November 1st to positively identify her in the press, despite the fact that she'd already been reported missing. For her fellow sex workers, the news of Jill's death was their worst possible fear realized. There was no question in their minds about how this happened. It was a client date gone very, very wrong. What's worse, there was. no way to keep everyone else safe on future dates. Nobody knew who the killer was. Any John

could be that guy. But without any leads, all that Jill's coworkers could do was continue working and hope for the best. What they got was the worst. It took almost a year for it to happen again. But this time, two women went missing on the same day. 23-year-old Natasha Montgomery was described as living a high-risk lifestyle. She might not have been a full-time sex worker, but it seems that she occasionally relied on sex work to purchase drugs. She was last seen in late August of 2010 in Prince George. And then, no one heard from her for weeks. So, on September 23rd, someone reported Natasha missing.

35-year-old Cynthia Francis Moss was also reported missing that day, and it's worth spending a little more time with her before we move forward. Cynthia's background is, unfortunately, a perfect example of the way that structural issues can cause irreparable damage on the individual level. Unlike some of the other victims in this particular story, Cynthia was indigenous, and that one factor makes all the difference. From birth, Cynthia struggled with symptoms of what might have been fetal alcohol disorder. The true nature of her illness was never determined, largely because of a bureaucratic issue. It wasn't entirely clear whether the national or provincial government bore the responsibility for First Nations health care. So Cynthia fell through the cracks.

As an adult, Cynthia struggled with drug addiction. An issue that has plagued indigenous communities in northern British Columbia for centuries. We already know there is limited government aid offered to people in this region, and that includes addiction counseling. In other words, Cynthia was caught in a cycle that was practically impossible to escape. As her sister explained to Alaska Highway News, Cynthia didn't get the support she needed. That alone put the last nail in her coffin. On October 8th, RCMP officers were patrolling a wooded area off Highway 18 near Prince George.

It was a spot frequented by local sex workers, and the police were there to investigate various missing persons cases. But quickly, the sniffer dog picked up on something. There in the pine needles was a woman's body. She'd been brutally killed with a pickaxe. It took fingerprint analysis to identify her as Cynthia Moss. After Cynthia's body was discovered, the RCMP announced that 30 to 40 investigators had been assigned to her case. The authorities also asked the public to come forward with any information that could lead to her killer's capture.

But nothing came of the search, at least not that we could find. For well over a month, there were no leads, no developments. By November of 2010, the victim's families were starting to feel less hopeful. The killer was somewhere out there, but no one had any idea where. And there was no clear plan for how the cops were going to find him. As it turned out, it was pure luck. On the night of November 27th, an RCMP officer was maneuvering his patrol car over the snowy surface of Highway 27, near the town of Fort St. James.

It was an extremely quiet night, the car headlights serving as a subway. the lone source of light among the trees. All of a sudden, the silence of the night was ripped open as a truck sped onto the highway from a dark logging road. The officer immediately switched on his lights, pursuing the vehicle as it weaved erratically across the tarmac. At some point during the pursuit, the RCMP officer called for backup, and eventually the truck slowed, pulling to the shoulder. As the officers approached the driver's side window, they might have thought they were dealing with a drunk driver. But when 20-year-old Cody Legibokov greeted the two cops, it was immediately

clear that something was wrong, and it wasn't alcohol. His chin, his legs, even his shoes, were stained red with blood. When they asked him about it, Legibokov explained that he'd been poaching deer, which was a bloody activity, and at first the officers believed him, poaching was a finable offense, so it only made sense that the young driver might try to escape the police. Figuring that this was the worst of it, they called a conservation officer to check the whole thing out. In no time, the third policeman arrived and began retracing the path that the truck tires had made in the snow. He followed them down a logging road, peering through the dark for any sign of a deer carcass. As he approached a gravel pit, he saw a dark form on the ground.

It was the still warm body of 15-year-old Lauren Leslie bludgeoned and stabbed to death. All of a sudden, that routine traffic stop had turned into a full-blown murder investigation, and it didn't take long for the pieces to fall neatly into place. Initially, Legibokov claimed he found Leslie's body by accident and had sped away in a panic. But as he was questioned by police, his story changed again and again. Legibokov tried insisting that Leslie's injuries were self-inflicted, even the multiple stab wounds on the side of her neck. All he would eventually admit to was hitting her with her.

the wrench, but said that he only did that to, quote, put her out of her misery. As the RCMP continued their investigation, they made discoveries that helped connect Legibokov to three other deaths. Bloodstains found at his former apartment were an exact DNA match to Jill Stichenko. Police also confiscated multiple objects and weapons from Lejebocoff's apartment, including an axe and a pickeroon, a logging tool similar to an axe. When In forensic services tested blood left on the Pickeroon, they found that it was a match for Cynthia Moss. And amazingly, DNA left on the axe was another match to Natasha Montgomery. As of this recording, her body has never been found, but the evidence was enough to charge Lejeboakov

for her murder. Throughout his trial in 2014, Lejebocoff claimed that he was not responsible for any of these four deaths. He painted himself as just a regular guy caught up in a bad situation. In fact, he insisted that other individuals had forced him to assist in the killings, though he refused to offer their names. Ultimately, this tactic did nothing to keep Legibokov from jail. In September of that year, he was found guilty of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole for 25 years. Like the case of Edward Dennis Isaac, this story actually has an ending, albeit one that comes to, one that comes to with an element of dissatisfaction.

Isaac took advantage of a structural problem, the fact that women had to rely on hitchhiking to get around, and Cody Leggobokov did a similar thing. He mainly targeted an underprotected community, sex workers. In previous episodes, we discussed how serial killers target sex workers specifically because they live on the fringes of society. Cody Legibokov is no exception to this, but his case is also tied to much larger.

issues that are specific to this region. So let's pause here to take a look at how sex work exists in Canada. The stigma around sex work was, and is, the same in Canada as it is in many other places. For the most part, people think that the profession is somehow wrong or bad, and that the people who engage with it are of a low social status. Because of that, sex workers often struggle to access the same resources that a layperson may be able to use. Things as basic as health care, addiction capital, or safe housing are suddenly much more difficult to find.

A landlord might not want to rent a property to a sex worker because of this stigma, for example. Without these resources, it can be extremely difficult for a sex worker to live in a safe neighborhood or even find another job outside of the industry. But from the outside, it can be easy to blame an individual person for their challenges, instead of recognizing that the system has failed them. So the stigma around sex work is enforced, confirmed, and informed. forced again, leaving people in the industry floundering without any support. That was the world in which Jill Stucenko, Natasha Montgomery, and Cynthia Moss lived.

It's the world in which they died, and it would be great to report that things have improved since then, but they haven't. In fact, Canadian law has made the profession even more difficult to navigate. In 2014, a bill went into effect that criminalized nearly every element of the sex industry. The act of sex work remain legal, but the purchase of those services, or making any money from that work, those things were now criminal offenses. Potential clients even risked arrest if they communicated with sex workers in a way that solicited sexual services from them. That obviously didn't stop the industry from existing, but it did make things much more

complicated. Sandra Wesley is an advocate for sex workers. In 2020, she explained to CTV news in Montreal that all of these laws make things much more dangerous for people in the industry. She said, we have to make more and more compromises in terms of our safety, so the client feels safe from arrest. There are many safety precautions that are no longer possible under these new laws. Before the 2014 bill went into effect, women in the industry could vet any potential client. Even leaning over the passenger window of someone's car could provide helpful information about that person. what their personality was like and if their vehicle looked safe.

It wasn't a foolproof system, but it was better than nothing. But now, those basic safety precautions are no longer possible, spending too much time with a client out in the open endangers both parties. Wesley said that now, sex workers, quote, have to jump in the car really fast as soon as it slows down to avoid any detection. For many people, this 2014 bill made a bad situation even worse.

The relationship between sex workers and the authorities has never been good. But now there's even less incentive to seek out help from the police if and when it's needed. When you work in an illegal industry, there's no guarantee that the cops would want to help you in the first place. And now, if anything, you might be the one going to jail if you get the police involved. This isn't a unique problem here in northern BC, but it's yet another element that makes the highway of tears a dangerous place. Abuse and violence goes unreported, and as we've seen, there are plenty of people willing to take advantage of that. The region is in an impossible situation. The problems here are massive, and they don't get fixed overnight.

While locals wait, the stakes get higher and higher. Along the highway of tears, every day spent without change could mean yet another death. Something has to be done and quickly. But what exactly can be done? That's a whole other episode. Thanks again for tuning into our Highway of Tears special. In the final episode of this special, we'll look at some recent unsolved cases and see how local communities are trying to build a better, safer world for themselves.

You can find all episodes of serial killers and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. For more information about activism around the Highway of Tears, check out Highway of Tears.org. We'll see you next time. Serial Killers is a Spotify original from Parcast. Executive producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Michael Motion, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Nick Johnson, Trent Williamson, and Carly Madden.

This episode of Serial Killers was written by Georgia Hampton, edited by Joel Callan and Abigail Cannon, fact-checked by Anya Bayerley, researched by Brian Petrus and Chelsea Wood, and produced by Joshua Kern. Serial killers stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson. Listeners, remember to visit parcast.com slash cults to order your copy of our first book,

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