"She was quite excited about the whole thing," Jack said.
"She said ‘Don’t come and get me, I’ll be home when I’m ready, I’ll be home soon.’ That’s the part that’s hurtful, she was ready to come home."

CHRIS BUSH/The News Bulletin

Grandparents Jack and Laila Cummer have created a music CD in memory of their missing granddaughter Andrea Joesbury

The days soon became weeks and the weeks turned into months, and the Cummers’ fears were fed by news reports of a string of disappearances in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Though they wouldn’t mention it to each other, they both secretly began to worry their granddaughter was one of the victims.
"The worst scenario you can think of came to our minds because we had heard about Pickton," Jack said.
"We just put a mental block on it – when it happens, we’ll find out. Otherwise it will drive you crazy."

Andrea disappeared on June 5, 2001. The following February police knocked on the door asking for dental records, to compare against human remains found on Robert Pickton’s Port Coquitlam pig farm.

"It’s something I would wish on no one and it’s something a lot of people are still going through, because they reckon there’s 60-something missing, and only 26 he’s been charged with."

The Youngs still hope Lisa Marie will be found.
"I wonder where is she, where is she," says Cecilia Arnet, her grandmother.

Last February the family brought in Norm Pratt, a psychic who pointed police to the body of a 23-year-old woman who disappeared while hiking in Nelson the previous month.

Pratt accompanied Joanne to Colliery dams, Buttertubs Marsh and several other locations, but he said he didn’t feel Lisa Marie’s presence at any of those spots. He led searchers to MacGregor marsh on Rutherford Road. The search only turned up animal bones, but Joanne says something changed that day.

"That’s when I really believe our family began a bit of healing," she says.
"It’s really hard because you can’t put faith in everything you hear, but you always have that bit of hope this is the one thing that can help us find her."

The Cummers say closure is something they’ve always wanted.
"I find there is no closure," Jack says.
But at least he and Laila recently found a way to say goodbye to a granddaughter who was more like a daughter to them, at a beach where they once spent time together.
"I wrote her name in the sand and watched the tide wash it away."