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Episode 238: In Abbotsford, B.C., on the evening of September 24, 1975,\xa0Kathryn-Mary Herbert, age 11, was abducted while on her way home from a friend\u2019s home. Last seen\xa0The girl\u2019s body was discovered almost two months later on the Matsqui Indian Reserve north of Abbotsford.\xa0Investigators determined that she was likely murdered on the day she\u2019d disappeared.\nIn May 1976, Theresa Hildebrandt, 15, vanished without a trace from her Aldergrove, B.C. home. F Police believed she might be a runaway, but her family felt otherwise. or nearly four years no one knew what had become of Theresa.\xa0In March of 1980, her skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave off Downes and Mt. Lehman roads.\xa0\nAlmost exactly two years after Theresa\u2019s disappearance, in early May 1976, 12-year-old Monica Jack was riding her bicycle near Merritt, B.C. when she disappeared. As Monica was of indigenous heritage, her disappearance fell under Project E-PANA, the RCMP\u2019s initiative to solve the multitude of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls along B.C.\u2019s infamous Highway of Tears. In June of 1995, Monica\u2019s remains were discovered off a logging road on Swakum Mountain, to the west of Nicola Lake and several kilometres from where she was last seen.\nFamilies of the victims had their suspicions about suspects and worked hard to hold police on task, to solve the murders of their girls.\xa0\nDue to similarities in the cases, police believed them all, potentially, linked.\xa0After years of running down tip after tip, a man with a history of sexual assault convictions and had been living in B.C. during all three killings fell under suspicion of investigators. After a long operation which involved the employment pf their infamous Mr. Big technique to get their suspect to talk, RCMP arrested 67-year-old Garry Taylor Handlen, and charged him with the murders of Kathryn-Mary Herbert and Monica Jack in 2014,\xa0more than 36 years after the murder of Monica Jack. He was later convicted of first-degree murder.\nSadly, in regards to Theresa Hildebrant\u2019s murder, no one has yet been charged in her killing, and 46 years later, her family has yet to receive any official answers about Theresa\u2019s death.\nSources:\n2015 BCSC 1023 (CanLII) | R. v Handlen | CanLII\n2018 BCSC 1330 (CanLII) | R. v Handlen | CanLII\nA Garden of Tears: The murder of Kathryn-Mary Herbert | CBC.ca\nCBC: Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women \u2014 Monica Jack\nKathryn-Mary Herbert | Theyaremissing Blog\nA garden of tears (2009) | ridgenfilm\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices