Fear of Killer-March 3, 1999
THE GLOBE AND MAIL--March 3, 1999.
Fear of killer haunts Vancouver sex trade
Prostitutes say a sharp increase in disappearances
shows the need for more police protection Fear of killer haunts Vancouver sex trade
Prostitutes say a sharp increase in disappearances
shows the need for more police protection dnesd
Wednesday, March 3, 1999
Ross Howard
British Columbia Bureau
Vancouver -- Vancouver
prostitutes say they have inadequate police protection and fear the city's worst red-light
district has become a stalking zone for one or more serial killers.
Eleven women in the sex trade on the so-called Lower Track area
around East Hastings Street on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside disappeared last year, police
confirmed yesterday. Nine of those were aboriginal women.
Twenty-one women known to work as prostitutes,
most of them on the Lower Track, have disappeared mysteriously since 1995. Four other
Vancouver prostitutes have been killed since 1995, although those crimes have all been
solved.
Police said yesterday there is no evidence pointing to a serial
killer, but the prostitutes say there is no other explanation for the sharp increase in
disappearances.
"There appears to be a particular block where almost all of
them worked before they disappeared," said Jamie Lee Hamilton, an unofficial
spokeswoman for many of the estimated 2,000 prostitutes working in downtown Vancouver.
"These disappearances must be treated as homicides,"
Ms. Hamilton said yesterday. "They are not the kind of people to just disappear
without telling their friends on the street." Many of the missing women were addicts
or mentally ill, she added.
Ms. Hamilton, who has argued in the past that a serial killer is
active, appealed for an increase in police investigations and protection. In the sprawling
and decrepit section of the city, drug dealing, the sex trade, open displays of addiction,
homelessness and violence are rampant.
"If these women were not street-involved, there would be an
outpouring of concern and immediate action to find their killers," Ms. Hamilton said.
"And if there were no prostitutes, these men would be
killing other women. These killers are men who hate women, not prostitutes. It's just that
prostitutes are more available and more vulnerable."
Ms. Hamilton called for the donation of cellular telephones,
preprogrammed to the emergency 911 number, to be distributed to prostitutes, and for a
$100,000 reward to be posted.
Vancouver police spokeswoman Anne Drennan said in an interview
the sharp increase in the number of missing prostitutes in the last two years "is a
cause for real concern" but does not point to a serial killer at work.
A number of those missing may have committed suicide, or moved
away to escape the rough and dirty trade, Ms. Drennan said.
"There is not a single piece of evidence to suggest a serial
killer," she said, beginning with the fact that no Vancouver prostitutes are known to
have been killed in the past 15 months.
Even among those whose bodies were dumped on the outskirts of the
suburbs, there are no clues to suggest a serial killer or killers.
"The only links are that they were involved in the sex trade
and were exposed to drugs and worked in the Lower Eastside," Ms. Drennan said.
She rejected Ms. Hamilton's claim that neither the police force
nor the city is greatly concerned about deaths and disappearances in the sex trade.
All missing-persons cases and homicides are treated equally, Ms.
Drennan said.