On Wednesday, Cara Louise Ellis's name was added to the list of missing women – along with seven others.

Cara Louise Ellis

Her sister-in-law, Laurie Ellis, says it took investigators years to follow up on the family's report of Cara's disappearance.

Laurie Ellis came from Calgary in 1997 and searched for the young woman, in vain. She filed a report with police – but didn't learn until five years later that the disappearance hadn't been treated as a missing persons case.

"I was horrified. I couldn't believe that in this country a missing person's report could not be put in on someone unless they were family."

Technically, Laurie Ellis wasn't family, because she hadn't yet married Cara's brother.

Even so, Ellis feels she was dismissed because of who her sister-in-law was – working the streets of Calgary by age 13, before winding up in Vancouver.

"Part of why this was not looked upon as important enough was because of the style of life she had," she says. "And I feel that was a problem with most of the girls."

Wednesday's announcement that Ellis was being added to the list was just a painful formality for the family. Police had already announced back in January that her DNA had been found on Robert William Pickton's pig farm in Port Coquitlam.

Wednesday's announcement that Ellis was being added to the list was just a painful formality for the family. Police had already announced back in January that her DNA had been found on Robert William Pickton's pig farm in Port Coquitlam.

Laurie Ellis says Cara's disappearance changed her life. She's now trying to help teens get off those same streets in Calgary where her sister-in-law once worked.

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Police have just added eight more names to the list of women who were last seen in the city's Downtown Eastside. Two of them are aboriginal.

Ernie Crey

High-profile Sto:lo leader Ernie Crey was told back in January that investigators had found the DNA of his sister, Dawn Crey, on Robert William Pickton's Port Coquitlam farm.

Crey says an overwhelming number of the missing women are aboriginal, and there is widespread grief in their home communities, where half the residents could be related to the victim.

"It's the entire community that would feel the loss and the grief and would be challenged to understand what happened, and would be confused about what police are doing," he says.

Crey says counselling services offered in B.C. are not enough, and he wants Health Canada to create a body similar to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which aided survivors of residential schools.

"We need to reflect on the mounting losses. We need to consider what it is we can do to help the many families that have been profoundly affected by so many losses on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside."

Crey has also asked B.C.'s First Nations Summit to take up his cause.