Thursday July 25, 2013 (Vol. 38 No. 60)
V O I C E
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W H I T E
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S U R R E Y
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Three-peat: For the third year in a row, Japan took top spot at the Canadian Open Fastpitch International Championship in South Surrey. › see page 29
Dump truck seen ‘barrelling’ along
Fatal crash recalled Sarah Massah Staff Reporter
Evan Seal photo
Talented tot
Olivia Severson, 3, shows some of the colourful artwork she’s created since her grandmother, Connie Severson, introduced her to painting a year ago. The youngster’s work will be on display next month, alongside her grandmother’s, as part of an exhibition at the Newton Cultural Centre. See page 11.
New-found sister says Yukon family has embraced the addition of Surrey woman
‘I was never hiding,’ says mom she didn’t want to see me or anything. It turned out great.” Saturday was a momentous day for Surrey’s The conversation was short, but sweet. Linda Evans. For the first time in 52 “I said, ‘I love you,’ and she said, ‘I years, she got to speak to her mom. love you.’” As first reported last week, Evans Evans’ mom was last seen in Surfound her birth mother, Lucy, living in rey in 1961. She was known as Lucy the Yukon after she all-but-vanished Ann Johnson. Her maiden name was more than five decades ago. Evans was Carvell. a child of about seven when she last Surrey RCMP highlighted her case saw her. in its Missing of the Month series in The phone conversation on Saturday, late June as part of a renewed public said Evans, was a bit awkward at first appeal to generate tips on her where– she didn’t know quite what to say, abouts. It was one of the detachment’s while her mom, who is now 77, seemed Lucy Johnson oldest missing persons cases. After located to still be in a bit of shock. a story ran in the Peace Arch News “Then she said, ‘you have about 200 earlier this month, Evans began her relatives up here. I can hardly wait till you own search. come up here,’” Evans said. Knowing Lucy was born in Alaska and had The short talk provided long-awaited com- lived there and in the Yukon until 1953, Evans fort for Evans, 58, who believed for years that placed advertisements in some northern newsher mother was dead. papers in the hopes someone knew her. It listed “I felt so much better,” she said. “I thought her grandparents’ names, as well as Lucy’s date Sheila Reynolds Black Press
and place of birth. Rhonda (who didn’t want her last name used) was at work last week in Whitehorse when her brother called her. He had seen Linda’s small ad in a local paper and wanted her to check it out. Rhonda did. The “missing” woman, she quickly realized, was her own mother. She called her mom right away to tell her there was a missing persons report that had an old photo of her on it. “She said, ‘I’m not missing, I’m here,’” Rhonda told Black Press this week from the Yukon. “She said, ‘I was never hiding.’” Rhonda said her family (Lucy remarried and had three more children) lived in B.C. until about 1980, before moving to the Yukon. Lucy doesn’t want to speak to media at this point, Rhonda said, but didn’t seem overly concerned when her past life was revealed. “Maybe she just expected it to come out one day, I’m not sure,” said Rhonda, who said her › see page 5 Come in, Cool down. shop inside and win*
BORDER GOLD CORP.
The dump truck involved in a deadly 2011 head-on collision in Langley was “barrelling” by cars and passed at least one other vehicle before crossing a double-yellow line and smashing into South Surrey resident Jim Neiss, accord❝No one ing to an eye- wakes up… witness. thinking Details from they’re the minutes going to kill leading up to the fatality someone.❞ were recalled Dale Challice by Robert Blair bus driver in Surrey Provincial Court Tuesday. Glen Edwards Theriault is on trial, charged with dangerous driving causing death in connection with the collision. Blair said he was driving ahead of the dump truck as it headed westbound on 16 Avenue from 264 Street to the scene of the collision, just past 200 Street, on Jan. 18, 2011. He saw the head-on crash between Neiss’s Ford Explorer and the Sterling truck. According to Blair – a California resident who was staying with his girlfriend in Aldergrove at the time – the dump truck had already passed one car, just before Campbell Valley Park, before attempting to pass another car and Blair’s 2004 Dodge Magnum shortly after the intersection of 200 Street and 16 Avenue. Blair told the court that while looking in his rear-view mirror, he saw the dump truck pass a small white car directly behind him before coming up beside him in the eastbound lane. “I thought, my gosh, someone is passing. My gosh, it’s the dump › see page 4