The deaths of a baby girl, a teenage girl, a man and a woman, all related to or near Maple Ridge, are among 200 unsolved cases involving unidentified human remains being investigated by the B.C. Coroners Service.
The Coroners Service and police agencies have launched a new interactive map that the public can access in an attempt to help solve them.
In Maple Ridge, a girl, aged less than one year, had been dead for no more than a day when her body was found on Jan. 6, 1980. She was found on the Lougheed Highway downtown, between 225th and 226th streets.
There is another red dot on the map in the Fraser River, indicating another female, near the foot of 240th Street in Maple Ridge. This was a teenage girl, between the ages of 13 and 16. She would have been 5’2” to 5’3” in height. She was found on May 9, 1977, and is said to have passed away between eight months and one year earlier.
On the boundary with Mission, just passed 288th Street, a woman’s body was found on the Lougheed Highway on Feb. 23, 1995. She was just beyond the boundaries of Maple Ridge, and it was a Mission RCMP file. She was said to be between 18 and 30 years of age, and she had died between two and 10 months earlier. The file includes a sketch of the woman.
Also, a man was found in the Fraser River near the foot of 223rd Street in Maple Ridge on Sept. 3, 1974. He was Caucasian, between the ages of 20 and 50 and six feet tall. He was listed as having been deceased for six months to two years when found.
The Coroners Service asks anyone with information or questions about any of these investigations to contact the special investigations unit at BCCS.SIU@gov.bc.ca. Title your email with the case number in question, and as much detail as you can regarding your query. Your email will be treated confidentially.
Andy Watson of the Coroners Service said it is already getting some tips since the viewer went live in late March.
“We are getting emails into our special investigations inbox.”
The Coroners Service works with police and the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains to input various cases into a federal database. Roughly 200 investigations of this kind are unsolved in B.C.
The map can be accessed here.
ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com
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