JULY 2012
JUNE 2012
Serving Northern British Columbia
Big North
The Northern REPORT www.pgfreepress.com
The Northern Gateway pipeline
Inserted in your Big North today is our premiere edition of The Northern Report, a publication looking at issues facing northern B.C. In this issue – the Northern Gateway pipeline.
What you need to know about the project
FREE PRESS
FEEL
THE
Michalko still looking
POWER
DELYNDA PILON newsroom@pgfreepress.com
DeLynda PILON/Free Press
Melissa Jaeger with STEP felt the power when she got up on a dozer during Fiddler industries’ open house last month.
By 2010 Ray Michalko, a private investigator and former RCMP officer, logged about a year’s worth of hours looking into the murders and disappearances along the Highway of Tears. Although he expected to return to the area in the spring alongside a few other experts he was calling in on the investigation, he said he hasn’t moved forward with that plan yet. Instead he’s hoping to come to Prince George, if everything works out, in August. “Every time I think I’m going to stop, I get a call with information that seems quite interesting,” he said. Currently he said he has a couple of leads he wants to follow up on though he won’t say, specifically, who he needs to talk to. Michalko’s focus in the Prince George area includes the murders of Roxanne Thiara and Leah Alishia Germaine and the disappearance of Nicole Hoar. Thiara was 15 when she went missing from Prince George in November of 1994. Her body was discovered dumped near Burns Lake. Germaine’s body was found Dec. 9, 1994. The Prince George girl was 15 and knew Thiara. Hoar, 25, was hitchhiking on Highway16 and last seen June 21, 2002 in Prince George. Her body has never been found. Michalko added he’s spent a fair amount of time looking into the murder of Alberta Williams.
FIREPLACES & INSERTS
Williams, 24, was last seen Aug. 26, 1989 in Prince Rupert. Her body was found Sept. 16, 1989 on Highway. 16. The first nine women who went missing, he added, remains a focus for him though he doesn’t believe they are all the work of a serial killer. “There may be a serial killer involved with a couple of them, but for the most part the information I’m getting is these women were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is sometimes worse because then you’re looking at nine killers instead of one.” He added that, from listening to the news, the RCMP said at one point they felt there were three serial killers operating in the province. One was dead. One was Robert Pickton. The other, he believes, is being hunted by EPANA, a special unit put together by the RCMP to investigate the Highway of Tears disappearances and murders. Also of interest, he said, is the official investigation into missing women in the province. One transcript of testimony he read with interest, he said, came from a retired RCMP officer testified that the force is not very adept at handling disappearances. “There seems to be a big problem with missing women across Western Canada,” he said. Michalko said if he finds something of interest in his investigation, he shares it with the police after he pursues the lead as far as he can. Something, he added, he does on his own time and own dime.
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