Crime
RCMP Historical Homicide Unit investigating deaths of three women
January 22, 2018
Edmonton, AB – Investigators from the RCMP’s “K” Division Historical Homicide Unit (HHU) are continuing to push forward with three separate investigations, each involving a woman who initially had been reported missing in Alberta but believed by police to have been victims of homicide.
The three cases, although not believed to be related, span a period of approximately 30 years; from 1983 to 2013. The victims in each case are women who vary in age from 16-years-old to 70 years-old and none of them have been found to date. All three cases remain unsolved, but it is the belief of S/Sgt. Jason Zazulak, who heads up the “K” Division HHU, as well as of the investigators who comprise the unit, that each case can and will be solved.
The first case is that of Shelly Ann Bacsu who was 16 years of age when she was reported missing to Hinton RCMP on May 3, 1983 after she failed to return home from a friend’s residence in Hinton; a walk of seven kilometres which she had done many times before. Family members became concerned when Shelly Ann did not arrive home by 9:30 that evening and when their own search failed to locate the teen by 11:30 p.m., they reported her missing to the RCMP detachment in Hinton. Extensive searches by the RCMP of the Town of Hinton and the surrounding rural area did not locate Shelly Ann but police did find several of her belongings alongside the Athabasca River near the Town of Hinton. Investigators believe that Shelly Ann was killed and continue to seek her remains.
Stephanie Stewart (70) was working at the Athabasca Fire Lookout Tower near Hinton as an employee of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development in the summer of 2006. Colleagues became concerned about her well-being when she failed to call in on the morning of August 26, 2006. A visit to Stephanie’s cabin revealed that all was not well and the RCMP was called in to investigate. Evidence at the scene led investigators to believe that Stewart had been murdered. Searches throughout the surrounding area and elsewhere failed to locate her.
It was on November 30, 2013 when 44-year-old Deanna MacNeil was reported missing to the Vegreville RCMP detachment by a friend after she had not been heard from within preceding 48 hours; something which the friend though very unusual as Deanna was in the habit of contacting her several times a day. The police investigation confirmed that Deanna had been seen in Mundare at the Servus Credit Union ATM, the Mundare Liquor Store and lastly at a friend’s place around 12:30 p.m. on the morning of November 28, 2013. Police conduct several searches including two extensive ones of the Mundare townsite, but Deanna was not located. Friends and family have not had any contact from Deanna since she was reported missing. The RCMP believes that she was the victim of homicide.
S/Sgt. Jason Zazulak, NCO i/c “K” Division HHU believes that these investigations will be solved and that the key pieces of information which will allow HHU investigators to identify the persons responsible for the deaths of these women are known by members of the public. “In each of these three cases, we know that there are people out there who have knowledge of what happened to Shelly Ann, Deanna and Stephanie. We want to hear from those people, whether it be through Crime Stoppers, through their local detachment or through our own social media channels.”
The rapid expansion and adoption of social media in many facets of the lives of Canadians has opened up the opportunity for the RCMP to receive new information about cases through the use of social media accounts held directly by the homicide investigators themselves. Cpl. Kerry Shima of HHU is the lead investigator for Stephanie Stewart’s case. He has a Twitter account and will be tweeting about Stephanie’s case as well as topics related to unsolved homicides. The Twitter account is @KerryShima_RCMP.
The RCMP encourages anyone with information about any of these cases to contact their local detachment or police agency. Individuals may guarantee their anonymity by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or submitting their information at www.crimestoppers.ab.ca. Also, details can be submitted to the Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at www.canadasmissing.ca.
The families of these three women deserve to know what happened, to bring their loved ones home, and see a resolution through an arrest of the person or persons responsible.
Case Summaries:
Shelly Ann BACSU – Hinton RCMP Detachment – Occurrence Date: May 3, 1983
On May 3, 1983, Shelly Ann BACSU was reported missing from Hinton, Alberta. At approximately 8:15pm, on that date, Shelly Ann left a friend’s house in the Sunset Trailer Park in Hinton and began to walk home, a distance of about 7 km. Witnesses saw her cut through the trailer park and then walk westbound along the shoulder of Highway 16 carrying her school books. At approximately 9:30pm, friends and family members became concerned that she had not arrived home. Despite their efforts to locate Shelly Ann, there was no trace of her and at approximately 11:30pm Shelly Ann’s mother notified the RCMP that her daughter was missing. A dark colored van had been observed stopped on the side of Highway 16 in the same area where Shelly Ann was last seen, on the western outskirts of the Town of Hinton. A western Canada search for the van and/or its occupants was not successful. Several days after Shelly Ann was last seen, some of her belongings were found alongside the Athabasca River near the Town of Hinton. Extensive ground, air and river searches in the area have yielded no further clues and Shelly Ann BACSU has never been located. The investigation to date strongly suggests that BACSU was a victim of homicide.
At the time of her disappearance Shelly Ann BACSU was 16 years old, was about 5’ tall and weighed approximately 90 lbs. She had shoulder-length dark brown hair and brown eyes. She was wearing a grey and burgundy jacket, a burgundy shirt, “Fancy Ass” jeans with a burgundy stripes and grey running shoes when she was last seen.
Stephanie STEWART- Hinton RCMP Detachment – Occurrence Date: August 26, 2006
On August 26, 2006, Stephanie STEWART was reported missing from the Athabasca Fire Lookout Tower near Hinton, Alberta, where she lived and worked as an Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) employee. Stephanie had worked at the tower for 13 years during the fire season of April to October, and was a very physically fit and experienced outdoors enthusiast. On August 26, 2006, Stephanie failed to call in the morning weather report, which was highly unusual. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact her, Stephanie was reported missing by her ESRD supervisor. Another employee was sent to check on Stephanie and found her cabin empty with obvious signs of a disturbance; blood was found on the steps and a boiling pot of water was on the stove. A large scale Search and Rescue operation was launched, but Stephanie STEWART has never been located. Based on the totality of the investigation to date, RCMP believe STEWART was also the victim of homicide.
Stephanie STEWART was 70 years old when she went missing. She was about 5’2’ tall and weighed approximately 105 lbs. Stephanie had chin-length grey hair and blue eyes.
There is no clothing description associated to the last time she was seen.
Deanna MACNEIL – Vegreville RCMP Detachment – Occurrence Date: November 28, 2013
On November 30, 2013, Deanna MacNEIL was reported missing from Mundare, Alberta. Deanna was last seen two days earlier, on November 28, 2013. Video surveillance footage showed Deanna at the Mundare Servus Credit Union ATM at 9:03am and at the Mundare Liquor Store at 10:37am. She was last seen by friends at her residence in Mundare at approximately 12:30pm on the same day. A female friend reported Deanna missing to the Vegreville RCMP on November 30, 2013. Deanna was in the habit of calling her friend several times a day and it was very unusual that she had not checked in and had not been seen anywhere in a 48-hour period. Two extensive ground searches of the Mundare townsite were conducted with negative results. Deanna has had no contact with her family or friends since she was reported missing and her body has never been recovered. Here too, investigators believe that Deanna MacNEIL was the victim of homicide.
Deanna MacNEIL was 44 years old when she went missing. She was about 5’5” tall and weighed approximately 125 lbs. She had shoulder-length brown hair and hazel eyes.
There is no clothing description associated to the last time she was seen. However, she was wearing a brown winter parka in the November 28th video surveillance recordings, and this jacket was not found amongst the clothing recovered at her residence.
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From LifeSiteNews
Andrew Bridgen says UK security agencies ignored detailed information about child trafficking, including names of people involved and where the children were being taken.
A former UK Member of Parliament says the top security agencies of Britain, including the police and MI5, are refusing to act on detailed information they’ve been given about child trafficking into the country.
Andrew Bridgen, who served as a popular Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire from 2010 until 2024, told Infowars founder Alex Jones in a Friday interview how he had raised concerns while in Parliament about “a number of individuals” who were evidently pedophiles.
“It was always passed to the police, to the National Crime Agency, and it involves senior politicians, very senior police officers, and nothing was ever done about it,” Bridgen told Jones.
He had explained that early in his career he had seen London police quash an investigation into child prostitution — and so this appeared to be a repeating pattern of cover-up of child sex crimes.
A former policeman named Jon Wedger had discovered that “children were being taken from children’s homes in the UK and prostituted on the weekend,” and were returning “under the influence of drugs and often with terrible venereal diseases, and the people at the homes were doing nothing about it.”
Upon further investigation, Wedger “wrote a report he sent to his superiors pointing out that child prostitution in London had not been investigated for decades.” However, instead of attempting to protect the children and stop the abuse, the police “threatened” Wedger, told him to retract the report, and fired him from the police force “on false pretenses,” according to Bridgen.
Later, Bridgen met a man who conducted a two-year investigation into sex abuse by pedophile and deceased Prime Minister Edward Heath. The police concluded that, were Heath alive, “he would have been arrested and charged with pedophilia.”
“If a former MP could have been a pedophile and it was covered up, then anything is possible,” Bridgen remarked.
He then told how last year a source approached him with “information about child trafficking into the UK,” including “detailed names of people involved on the ground; where the children were being brought in; where they were being taken; where their photographs were being taken; and the name of the company that was instrumental in laundering the money” used to buy these children.
The source had brought this information to the police, to the counter-intelligence agency MI5, and to the National Crime Agency, and “nothing was done” by any of these groups. Not only did they fail to act on the information, but “mysteriously, within two days of dropping the file with the National Crime Agency,” the source’s LinkedIn profile was “visited and investigated by someone who worked at the company who was named in the file.”
“Meaning they were tipped off,” Jones noted.
Bridgen told how the source had recorded all of his phone calls with MI5, the police force, and the National Crime Agency, and when they failed to act, Bridgen “sent a file with all the information to senior politicians.”
“Eventually, all I got back was, ‘Take it to the police.’ I pointed out this had already been to the police, and it had been to MI5. There actually was an MI5 officer who had been very sympathetic and realized how important this evidence was. And he tried to push it. He was removed from the service. That’s how deep the corruption runs.”
In a June 2024 interview on the Resistance Podcast, Bridgen elaborated, “And then when you see the names, you see why. They are known names.”
He shared further horrifying details about the final end of the children who are trafficked and abused.
“They use them in the sex trade for about three years and then when they’re worn out they organ harvest them,” Bridgen shared.
“No one’s interested. No one wants to talk about it. No one wants to talk about a lot of things.”
Bridgen believes this demand for child trafficking is an explanation for the drive to continue wars around the world, including the war in Ukraine, because the conflicts present “a huge opportunity for child trafficking.”
Jones pointed out it was publicly admitted that decades ago, sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein entered war zones in Kosovo and Serbia and bought “nine- and 10-year-old girls” in order to sell them into sex slavery in the U.S. The father of Epstein’s girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was one of the main directors of the “blackmail pedophile operations” of “MI6 and Mossad,” according to Jones.
“Ultimately, I think it’s the glue that holds the self-proclaimed elites around the world together, because once they’re involved in pedophilia or profiting from child trafficking, it’s the ultimate blackmail,” Bridgen said. “There’s no way out of the club for them. They all have to go down together.”
Safe needle disposal box at Deverill Square Gyro 2 Park in Nanaimo, B.C., Sept. 5, 2024. [Photo credit: Alexandra Keeler]
By Alexandra Keeler
Some politicians, police and community groups argue involuntary care is key to addressing severe addiction and mental health issues
The brutal stabbing last month of a 58-year-old city employee in Nanaimo, B.C., made national headlines. The man was stabbed multiple times with a syringe after he asked two men who were using drugs in a public park washroom to leave.
The worker sustained multiple injuries to his face and abdomen and was hospitalized. As of Jan. 7, the RCMP were still investigating the suspects.
The incident comes on the heels of other violent attacks in the province that have been linked to mental health and substance use disorders.
On Dec. 4, Vancouver police fatally shot a man armed with a knife inside a 7-Eleven after he attacked two staff members while attempting to steal cigarettes. Earlier that day, the man had allegedly stolen alcohol from a nearby restaurant.
Three months earlier, on Sept. 4, a 34-year-old man with a history of assault and mental health problems randomly attacked two men in downtown Vancouver, leaving one dead and another with a severed hand.
These incidents have sparked growing calls from politicians, police and residents for governments to expand involuntary care and strengthen health-care interventions and law enforcement strategies.
“What is Premier Eby, the provincial and federal government going to do?” the volunteer community group Nanaimo Area Public Safety Association said in a Dec. 11 public statement.
“British Columbians are well past being fed-up with lip-service.”
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‘Extremely complex needs’
On Jan. 5, B.C.’s newly reelected premier, David Eby, announced the province will open two involuntary care sites this spring. One will be located at the Surrey Pretrial Centre in Surrey, and the other at the Alouette Correctional Facility in Maple Ridge, a city northeast of Vancouver.
Eby said his aim is to address the cases of severe addiction, brain injury and mental illness that have contributed to violent incidents and public safety concerns.
Involuntary care allows authorities to mandate treatment for individuals with severe mental health or substance use disorders without their consent.
Amy Rosa, a BC Ministry of Health public affairs officer, confirmed to Canadian Affairs that the NDP government remains committed to expanding both voluntary and involuntary care as a solution to the rise in violent attacks.
“We’re grappling with a growing group of people with extremely complex needs — people with severe mental health and addictions issues, coupled with brain injuries from repeated overdoses,” Rosa said.
As part of its commitment to expanding involuntary care, the province plans to establish more secure facilities and mental health units within correctional centres and create 400 new mental health beds.
In response to follow-up questions, Rosa told Canadian Affairs that the province plans to introduce legal changes in the next legislative session “to provide clarity and ensure that people can receive care when they are unable to seek it themselves.” She noted these changes will be made in consultation with First Nations to ensure culturally safe treatment programs.
“The care provided at these facilities will be dignified, safe and respectful,” she said.
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Maffeo Sutton Park, where on Dec. 10, 2024, a Nanaimo city worker was stabbed multiple times with a syringe; Sept. 1, 2024. [Photo credit: Alexandra Keeler]
‘Health-led approach’
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog says involuntary care is necessary to prevent violent incidents such as the syringe stabbing in the city’s park.
“Without secure involuntary care, supportive housing, and a full continuum of care from detox to housing, treatment and follow-up, little will change,” he said.
Elenore Sturko, BC Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, agrees that early intervention for mental health and substance use disorders is important. She supports laws that facilitate interventions outside of the criminal justice system.
“Psychosis and brain damage are things that need to be diagnosed by medical professionals,” said Sturko, who served as an officer in the RCMP for 13 years.
Sturko says although these diagnoses need to be given by medical professionals, first responders are trained to recognize signs.
“Police can be trained, and first responders are trained, to recognize the signs of those conditions. But whether or not these are regular parts of the assessment that are given to people who are arrested, I actually do not know that,” she said.
Staff Sergeant Kris Clark, a RCMP media relations officer, told Canadian Affairs in an emailed statement that officers receive crisis intervention and de-escalation training but are not mental health professionals.
“All police officers in BC are mandated to undergo crisis intervention and de-escalation training and must recertify every three years,” he said. Additional online courses help officers recognize signs of “mental, emotional or psychological crisis, as well as other altered states of consciousness,” he said.
“It’s important to understand however that police officers are not medical/mental health professionals.”
Clark also referred Canadian Affairs to the BC Association of Chiefs of Police’s Nov. 28 statement. The statement says the association has changed its stance on decriminalization, which refers to policies that remove criminal penalties for illicit drug use.
“Based on evidence and ongoing evaluation, we no longer view decriminalization as a primary mechanism for addressing the systemic challenges associated with substance use,” says the statement. The association represents senior police leaders across the province.
Instead, the association is calling for greater investment in health services, enhanced programs to redirect individuals from the justice system to treatment services, and collaboration with government and community partners.
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Vancouver Coastal Health’s Pender Community Health Centre in East Hastings, Vancouver, B.C., Aug. 31, 2024. [Photo credit: Alexandra Keeler]
‘Life or limb’
Police services are not the only agencies grappling with mental health and substance use disorders.
The City of Vancouver told Canadian Affairs it has expanded programs like the Indigenous Crisis Response Team, which offers non-police crisis services for Indigenous adults, and Car 87/88, which pairs a police officer with a psychiatric nurse to respond to mental health crises.
Vancouver Coastal Health, the city’s health authority, adjusted its hiring plan in 2023 to recruit 55 mental health workers, up from 35. And the city has funded 175 new officers in the Vancouver Police Department, a seven per cent increase in the force’s size.
The city has also indicated it supports involuntary care.
In September, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim was one of 11 B.C. mayors who issued a statement calling on the federal government to provide legal and financial support for provinces to implement involuntary care.
On Oct. 10, Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said a Conservative government would support mandatory involuntary treatment for minors and prisoners deemed incapable of making decisions.
The following day, Federal Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks said in a news conference that provinces must first ensure they have adequate addiction and mental health services in place before discussions about involuntary care can proceed.
“Before we contemplate voluntary or involuntary treatment, I would like to see provinces and territories ensuring that they actually have treatment access scaled to need,” she said.
Some health-care providers have also expressed reservations about involuntary care.
In September, the Canadian Mental Health Association, a national organization that advocates for mental health awareness, issued a news release expressing concerns about involuntary care.
The association highlighted gaps in the current involuntary care system, including challenges in accessing voluntary care, reports of inadequate treatment for those undergoing involuntary care and an increased risk of death from drug poisoning upon release.
“Involuntary care must be a last resort, not a sweeping solution,” its release says.
“We must focus on prevention and early intervention, addressing the root causes of mental health and addiction crises before they escalate into violent incidents.”
Sturko agrees with focusing on early intervention, but emphasized the need for such interventions to be timely.
“We should not have to wait for someone to commit a criminal act in order for them to have court-imposed interventions … We need to be able to act before somebody loses their life or limb.”
This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.
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