Missing teen's mom renews calls for national DNA database for missing persons
VANCOUVER — Judy Peterson marked her daughter's 30th birthday Friday with a public plea for information in her disappearance and another appeal for a national DNA databank for missing persons.
Lindsey Nicholls, 14, was on her way to visit friends near her foster home in Comox, B.C., on the eastern side of Vancouver Island, on Aug. 2, 1993 when she disappeared. She was never seen again.
"Instead of shopping and going out for lunch, we're left to look at her age enhancement (photo) and wonder what she would have been like today," Peterson said Friday at an emotional news conference in Vancouver.
In the 15 years since, police have found nothing that would help them solve the disappearance.
"We don't have anything to go on," said RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields. "No witness, no suspect, no body, no crime scene."
Five years after that day, Peterson reluctantly contacted police to offer a DNA sample, in case Nicholls's remains turned up.
"It felt almost a bit like giving up," she told reporters. "But when I discovered I couldn't do it, I was horrified."
Instead of giving up, Peterson came up with Lindsey's Law, legislation that would set up a national DNA missing persons index to compare DNA from unidentified human remains with that of missing persons.
Currently, there's no system to link DNA from missing persons to unidentified human remains found in other parts of Canada.
A patchwork of approaches to DNA analysis exists between the RCMP, municipal police forces and the Quebec Provincial Police.
RCMP routinely ask for a sample of the missing person's DNA, yet the samples are stored locally and not analyzed unless they're required for comparison with unknown DNA at a crime scene.
A National DNA databank exists at RCMP headquarters in Ottawa, yet its purpose is to compare the DNA profiles of convicted offenders with those derived from unidentified DNA found at crime scenes.
"I thought, well, what if her remains are sitting somewhere I don't know, and her remains are unidentified in a coroner's office?" Peterson said.
She's lobbied government to make amendments to the DNA Identification Act.
Lindsey's Law has twice been introduced in Parliament as a private member's bill. The last time it was sent to the standing committee on Public Safety and National Security in April 2007 for study, but no final report has been released.
With politicians in the midst of a federal election, Lindsey's Law will have to be resurrected yet again by the next government.
Spokespersons for the Department of Justice's DNA file and the RCMP's National Missing Children Services were not available for comment Friday.
Peterson and her daughter, Kim, are among thousands of Canadian families anxiously waiting for word - tragic or otherwise - on the whereabouts of their loved ones.
A recent report by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada on the proposed Missing Persons Index says about 100,000 people are reported missing each year. While most return or are found quickly, RCMP say about 4,800 people are still missing a year later.
On average, there are 270 new, long-term missing persons each year, the report said.
Among the high-profile cases in recent years, Cedrika Provencher vanished July 31, 2007, after she didn't come home from a bike ride in her Trois-Rivieres, Que., neighbourhood. She was last seen telling witnesses she was helping a man look for a lost dog.
And it has been four years since the family of five-year-old Tamra Keepness noticed her gone from her Regina home.
Police in both cases continue with public appeals and have offered rewards to spur clues to their disappearances.
The families of both girls say they continue to hope they will one day come home.
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