Arrest does little to comfort families of 50 missing women

Associated Press

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Michelle Pineault has learned that despite an arrest in two cases, her daughter’s disappearance is still one of dozens that remain unsolved.

A member of the joint Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Vancouver police task force investigating the disappearances of 50 women from Vancouver’s gritty eastside called Friday to tell her of the arrest.

Robert William Pickton has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, but the news brought little relief for Pineault.

"I was informed definitely that it was not my daughter," she said. Her daughter, Stephanie Marie Lane, disappeared in 1995.

"All I can say is that hopefully there will be a family or two that can sleep the night now," said Pineault, her voice dropping to a whisper.

Out of respect for the families, RCMP Constable Cate Galliford said the names of the two women Pickton has been charged with killing will not be released until Monday.

"This is a time for family grieving and for the families and friends to reconcile what is happening," Galliford said at a Friday night news conference outside Pickton’s ramshackle farm in suburban Port Coquitlam.

Task force members began searching the property Feb. 6.

Rebecca Guno was the first to disappear, in June 1983. In the years since then, at least 49 other women, most of them drug addicts and prostitutes, also vanished from the area.

The disappearances increased in frequency in 1997 and 1998. Nine women disappeared in each of those years, including Sarah deVries, who was reported missing in April 1998.

Sarah’s mother, Pat deVries, didn’t think Pickton’s arrest would provide any answers about her daughter.

"It’s not difficult any more for me, because I’m concentrating on the living," deVries said in a telephone interview from Guelph, Ontario. "I’m raising Sarah’s children, and I’ve got plenty to do.

"There’s nothing I can do for the dead. I’m looking after the living."

Pineault, 43, is raising her 5-year-old grandson.

"She went missing when he was 8 months old," Pineault said.

"He’s at the age now where he’s starting to ask questions. ‘Why did my mommy run away from me? Can we go see my mommy’s gravestone?’ "

"’Well, your mommy doesn’t have a gravestone, honey, she’s lost.’ It’s tough."

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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