Mom remains optimistic that daughter still alive
By Jim Kelly - The Chronicle-Journal
May 27, 2005
The passing years haven’t dimmed a mother’s hope that her missing daughter will be found.
"There’s no evidence she’s one of the people (who were killed)," Thunder Bay’s Violet Garreau said of her daughter Ruby Anne Hardy, 37.
Ruby Anne Hardy with her daughter Crystal
In 2002, Hardy’s name was added to a list of
prostitutes who went missing from Vancouver’s downtown Eastside over several
years.
Hardy, who also used the name Ruby Galloway, was last seen in 1998 and was
reported missing to Vancouver Police on March 27, 2002.
Garreau’s comments coincide with reports this week that pig farmer Robert
Pickton now faces an additional 12 first-degree murder charges in addition to
the 15 already laid in the deaths of the women.
"I won’t ever give up hope," Garreau said in an interview Thursday. "I’m going
to hold up hope until it’s proven otherwise."
Garreau, who also has three sons, speculates Hardy may have become so addicted
to drugs that she has simply given up, doesn’t care about anyone and hasn’t
tried to reach her family.
Garreau pointed to the fact Hardy gave up both her daughters, Crystal, now 23
and Candice, now 18, who were raised by their grandparents. A third child, Troy,
was put up for adoption in Vancouver.
Garreau said she’s puzzled why Vancouver Police didn’t contact her before the
current charges against Pickton were laid.
"They usually phone to let you know there will be an announcement to lessen the
impact," she said.
Garreau is the eternal optimist, her husband Jack is more realistic.
"In a way I did suspect something happened to her," he said of his
step-daughter.
"She called regularly for five years and then the calls stopped. The rumour was
there was bad stuff going on out there," he said.
"People disappeared off the face of the earth. I do hope she’s still alive but I
do have my doubts."
Violet Garreau said an RCMP female officer and a female liaison with the Missing
Women’s Joint Task Force visited Thunder Bay last summer to talk to Garreau and
her husband.
The task force is comprised of RCMP and Vancouver Police.
It was one of a few visits to Thunder Bay by RCMP to take DNA samples from the
family, keep them up to date on the latest developments in the case and to
inquire how the family was coping.
"I guess that was their way of saying ‘we haven’t forgotten about you," Violet
Garreau, who is on a waiting list for heart bypass surgery, said.
The Chronicle Journal
http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=27347
Daughter remembers her mother Ruby Hardy-Apr 15, 2002
ctv interactive
Missing Women
Robert Pickton faces 12 more
charges involving Vancouver's
missing women