The Family That Vanished: the Jack Family Disappearance

The Jack family as they appeared in their earliest media coverage. From left to right: Ronnie, Doreen, Ryan and Russell.

Note: the first article effectively operates as an addendum for (and the citations to) the original documentary over on my YouTube channel. If you’re looking for the TL;DR, then that’s the best place.

2nd August, 1989.

The phone rang in Mabel Jack’s home at around 1:15am. On the other end was her 26 year old son, Ronnie. He excitedly explained how he and his common law partner Doreen had finally been offered a job at a local logging camp. As luck would have it, Ronnie had run into a man at his local pub, who had offered jobs and daycare as well as a lift to the camp. Since the Jacks didn’t own a car and had fallen into a difficult financial situation, the offer seemed ideal.

Ronnie sounded excited, and Mabel knew how badly her son wanted to work, so she didn’t discourage him.

But then, he would finish the conversation by saying something that would haunt her for the rest of her life:

“Mom, if I don’t come back, come looking for me.”

Upon reflection, this job offer seemed too good to be true.

And that’s because it was.

And, on that fateful late summer night, these would be the last words she would ever hear from her son. The Jack family — Ronnie, Doreen, and their two sons — would never return home.

In the years that have passed, the details surrounding their disappearance would leave more questions than answers. Who was the unknown man? Why did Ronnie ask his Mom to ‘come looking’ for him? Why did the media not report more heavily on the disappearance on an entire family? Could things have been different if police had taken the Jack family’s disappearance more seriously?

And perhaps more importantly: why didn’t they?

Background and overview: who were the Jack family?

Doreen and Ronnie, circa late 1980s.

Ronald Paul Jack (born 29th March 1963) and Doreen Ann Jack (born 24th April 1963) both grew up in one of the most beautiful places in the world.

British Columbia — especially its North Central interior — is breathtaking. Mountains, sandy beaches, lakes, rainforest, and the Pacific Ocean: this part of the world feels and looks ethereal.

But behind the glossy portrayal of the northwesterly province from British Columbia’s tourist boards, there lies a dark underbelly, and it is filled with isolated rural roads, lonely, disconnected towns and extreme poverty. And running right through the heart of it all is highway 16, an isolated stretch of road running 719km between Prince Rupert and Prince George. Dense, dark forests line the side of highway 16 and there’s hardly any phone service for large stretches, let alone public transport. It is, in a word, isolated.

Both Ronnie and Doreen grew up in the Cheslatta Reserve, just outside of Burns Lake [1], a rural village situated at the midpoint of highway 16. This was a small town (population 1,779 as of the 2016 census [8]) which Maria Jack (Doreen’s younger sister) has described as a place where ‘everybody knew everybody’ [5].

This area, similar to the rest of the North Central interior of British Columbia, is the ancestral land to a large population of First Nations communities — including the Jack family — that is, Indigenous peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit or Metis [9].

Maria describes what it was like to grow up here:

“It was a community where, to travel, we used horse and wagon. Our grandparents had four Clydesdale horses. They were beautiful horses. When we needed to get water we had to go from Grassy Planes all the way down to Southbank, fill up our canisters with water and then bring it back up. Our grandfather used to take us out to show us our trapping and our medicines [and] plants.” [5].

Being from such a small and intimate community, Ronnie and Doreen would have at the very least known of each other’s existence from a young age [5].

Little is known about Ronnie’s upbringing, but it is known that he had a large family and was one of six brothers who were all familiar with the outdoors [5]. They would regularly go out trapping and his father was a keen hunter [5]. Ronnie was also fond of music and dancing [5]. The general picture one gets from reading about Ronnie is that he was outwardly friendly and extroverted, but also a somewhat intense and complicated person. Ronnie’s cousin has described him as a “nice guy” and the “best outta the whole family” [4]. He was extremely close with his mother, and they called each other regularly once he had moved out [28]. Whilst living with his mom in Burns Lake, Ronnie would regularly be waiting for his cousin at his front door with a hot cup of coffee as she walked past with her newborn [4]. Doreen’s sister, Maria, has stated that when she was going through tough times, Ronnie was there to help her by supporting her financially as well as both encouraging (and paying for) her to take educational courses and driving lessons so she could have her independence [2]. He would say to her “you should do something, now you have your driving licence you can do a lot more.” [3]. Ronnie, according to a number of sources, had a lot of ‘get up and go’. He was a hard worker, wanted to work and he encouraged others to do so. It seems that Ronnie could be accurately described as a passionate guy with a strong sense of pride. Sometimes that passion could swing too far in the wrong direction. Maria, Doreen’s sister, has stated that she witnessed him hitting Doreen on more than one occasion [3]. Doreen was seen laughing during one of these attacks, most likely out of embarrassment [3], or perhaps, because she just didn’t see it as a big deal — to her, violence was just part of life, and something that she was intimately familiar with from a young age.

Researching Doreen’s background is hard going, because hers was an incredibly difficult and tumultuous upbringing marked by violence, poverty and sexual abuse at the hands of her fathers’ friends [3]. This was something she endured alongside her two sisters, of which she was the oldest, Marlene (Maria) and Lorene. We don’t know much about Ronnie, but thanks to her sister Maria’s many open and candid interviews, we are able to build up a clear picture of Doreen. Doreen’s mother abandoned her and her sisters at a young age, leaving the three to grow up with their father, who was haunted by his partner’s absence and struggled with alcoholism [3]. He was often resentful of his role as a single parent, and often lashed out at the girls [2]. Lashed out is perhaps a someone conservative way of putting it — at his worst, he drunkenly shot at the girls as a way of telling them off, before passing out and locking them outside to sleep in the cold [3].

Doreen (left), her sister Lorene and their father (right). Circa late ‘70s.

According to Marlene, there were moments of happiness in between, as the girls ended up spending a lot of their time with aunt and uncle or grandparents [3]. Because of this (or perhaps in spite of it), Doreen turned out to be a surprisingly robust person. According to both of her sisters, she had strong instincts to protect and nurture, taking on an almost mother-like role in the absence of her own. She once told her two younger sisters off for taking a baby chick out of its nest, for example. And she took great care to teach Lorene to ride a bike. She was, at least according to Marlene, both easy to be around but also surprisingly stoic when it was required of her [3]. She did have a rebellious streak, especially when she drank, but she had a way of just “getting on with things” and, whilst Marlene later struggled with the trauma from her childhood, she noted that Doreen seemed to hide it well [3]. It’s not that it didn’t impact her — it almost certainly did — as her occasional (and sometimes more than occasional) use of alcohol and other substances would attest to, as well as the frequent dreams she would have about her mother [2, 3]. It’s just that she did what she needed to make things work. Unlike Ronnie, accounts of whom can seemingly contradict each other, I am unable to find a single source that refers to Doreen badly. Even Mabel (Ronnie’s mom), would later state that she was hard working, quiet, polite and didn’t cause any trouble [2].

Due to this difficult upbringing, Doreen and her sisters would move around, living with family members until eventually the three girls were ‘apprehended’ from their family, and were enrolled in LeJac residential school in nearby Fraser Lake [5], which they attended in around 1970 [3].

The human rights abuses that took place in the residential schools of Canada are well-documented [10], and the three sisters’ time in LeJac residential school was marked by yet more abuse at the hands of those who worked there. In various sources, all sisters have described how the nuns would physically and verbally abuse them through, for example, refusing to allow them to acknowledge each other as family, and repeatedly telling them that they were worthless, and physically assaulting them [3]. For these reasons, both Lorene and Maria admit, the three were never able to become truly close as sisters [3, 5].

LeJac residential school closed in 1976, by then Marlene was 10, Lorene was 9, and Doreen was 13 [4]. The state, presumably deeming the girls’ home to be unsuitable, placed the three into various federally funded institutions in Prince George, where they would maintain contact and home visitation with their father [3]. Maria and Lorene were placed in a home, whilst Doreen, being the oldest, attended a live-in Catholic-run high school, where students lived on site [3].

Not much is known about this period in Doreen’s life, but it’s at some point during her stay at this school that she would meet Ronnie, and they would become “boyfriend and girlfriend.” This was something that, at least according to Maria, she was excited about [3, 5].

However, this period of happiness would not last for long, since towards the end of her stay at the college, she would be raped by a fellow student — and at 17 years old, she fell pregnant [3]. Doreen never went to the police about this because, to quote her sister, Maria: “in a racist town, how can you?” [3] And thus, on 28th February, 1980, Russel Jack was born. It seemed that the birth of her son was a turning point for Doreen, according to Maria, in spite of everything she’d been through, she loved him with ‘all her heart’ [3].

After she gave birth, Doreen went to live with her father, who by this time had re-married. It would quickly become apparent that Doreen and his new wife did not see eye-to-eye [3]. The precise reasons for this are unknown. Nonetheless, unfortunately, it would not be long before her father would pass away from cancer in 1982 [3]. It was at this point — driven by desperation and loss — that Doreen and her two sisters decided to locate their mother, hoping to reconnect with her, as well as giving their mother an opportunity to meet her grandson, baby Russel [3]. They would eventually track her down — she was living in a motel — but in doing so, they would find a woman not only unreceptive to their existence, but actively enraged by it. To quote Maria, the words the girls would hear from their mother, after years of no contact were: “I got rid of you bitches a long time ago. What makes you think I want something to do with you now?” [3]. Doreen’s stoicism crumbled that day. According to Maria she was, understandably, devastated.

At some point, the details of which are unclear, it would seem that Doreen reconnected with Ronnie, and in 1982, she would rekindle her relationship with him, and would ultimately end up living with him and his parents (Mabel and Casimel) in Southbank, where she grew up. Generally speaking, this arrangement worked well. Mabel was extremely close to her son Ronnie, and got on well with Doreen, who would drive her places and generally help out around the house [2]. In her 2019 statement for the MMIWG Public Inquiry, Mabel very much describes a picture of happiness and contentment — Doreen and Ronnie would “dance all night” and had a particular soft spot for driving big trucks along the remote highways and back roads of highway 16 [2]. Eventually, Doreen would fall pregnant with baby Ryan, who was born on the 26th July, 1985 [3]. Ronnie’s cousin has elsewhere stated that the couple were happy, and that Ronnie treated Russell as his own, and wanted to work and make a living for his children [4].

Ronnie and baby Ryan. Circa 1986.

It’s not clear when exactly, but at some point, the cracks would begin to show, at least according to Doreen’s sister Maria. Ronnie had become explosive and Maria had both seen him attack Doreen on more than one occasion, and was also on at least one occasion on the receiving end of his outbursts [3]. Maria has also stated that Doreen’s past had begun to creep up on her, and that Doreen was sometimes drinking heavily [3].

Doreen stayed home full time with the children, and Ronnie up until their move, he was working full time, doing “odd jobs for the band on contract” [11] before moving onto a sawmill, where he worked up until he had hurt his back [12]. Eventually, the work would run dry, and the family would eventually make the decision to move to Prince George in either 1988 or 1989 [2].

Located on the Eastern-most end of highway 16, with a population of around 66,000 in 2016 [13], Prince George is perhaps best described as a small to mid-sized city, and has also earned the title of one of British Columbia’s most dangerous [14]. But, having attended school here for a few years, it was an area that both Ronnie and Doreen were familiar with, and there would inevitably be a greater opportunity for work.

The two would end up renting a small home at 2116 Strathcona Avenue, a modest three bedroom townhouse located in the centre of Prince George [33]. This house was so close to highway 16, that it could be both seen and heard from their window.

The Jack family had been living in their home for approximately a year [2] before their disappearance. In spite of Ronnie being “desperate to work” [2, 5], for the time that the family lived in Prince George, it doesn’t seem as though their dreams of finding stable employment would come to fruition.

Due to being unable to find suitable employment in this time, it does seem as though things took a turn for the worse, with various family members noting that the couple were having financial issues, and one cousin stating that she saw Doreen stealing cough medicine for the boys [3] and about three to four months before their disappearance, Ronnie told his mother that “he owed someone some money” [11]. How much money, to whom it was owed, and the reasons for which it was borrowed are not clear. But it’s worth noting that the family would have been receiving just over $15,140CAD per annum, the equivalent of just over $30,000CAD in 2023 [15], in state support so it would not be unreasonable to surmise that money was simply borrowed to make ends meet.

For whatever reason the money was borrowed, sources seem to indicate that it was not an excessively large amount, since Mabel (Ronnie’s mother) has stated that she had given him a “small amount” [11] to help pay it back, and Doreen had begun to play bingo, the hopes of winning enough to clear the debt [11]. For clarity, the precise details of the amount are not known (at least publicly).

Poverty, desperation, a desire to provide for his family, and not to continue borrowing money from his mother: there were a number of factors that would lead up to the decisions that would be made on that fateful night in August 1989. Perhaps most would have said no to the offer that was about to be presented to the Jack family, but given the situation that they found themselves in, the offer would prove to be irresistible.

The Night of the Disappearance

It was Tuesday, 1st August, 1989, in Prince George, British Columbia. It was an unseasonably warm day, but later on into the evening and early morning of the 2nd August, the weather would break and the skies would open.

Ronnie Jack still found himself without employment, and it seemed that on that particular night, he decided to take himself for a few drinks at his local pub, known as the “First Litre”. The pub was equidistant between the Jack family home, and a turning onto highway 16 — approximately 300 metres from each, a distance that could be walked in five minutes and driven in even less.

It’s important to note that by all accounts, the now-closed First Litre was a very local dive bar: a seedy bar in a seedy part of town. To quote one review, this pub was located “in a quaint little building in a region of town in which “dilapidated” would be considered high praise, like calling New Orleans-post Katrina a little rundown” [16]. This basically summarises the comments made elsewhere online about this pub, with one Redditor who remembers the place summarising it succinctly (if not a little harshly): “the First Litre was the sketchiest and nobody respectable would go there.”

Respectability aside, Ronnie and Doreen’s world would have been a small one — neither owned a car, and this was their closest pub and liquor store (back then it functioned as both). So, when Ronnie wanted a drink, that’s where he went. It was no doubt somewhat of a routine for Ronnie. But that night — things would be different. Because at some point in the evening (it’s not known when exactly) an unknown man would enter the bar. And it’s here that everything would change.

It’s unknown how exactly the conversation started, or who approached who, but Ronnie and the unknown man would begin chatting and at some point, the man would offer Ronnie and Doreen high paying jobs for between ten days and two weeks, possibly longer, at “a logging camp or ranch thought to be near Clucluz Lake, approximately 40 kilometres west of Prince George or about half way to Vanderhoof on Highway 16”. [17]

To quote the RCMP’s official press release on the case, the unknown male has been described as follows by a key witness (see below notes) [17]:

• Caucasian male
• 35 to 40 years old
• 183 cm to 198 cm (6` to 6`6`) tall
• 91 to 125 kg (200 to 275 lbs)
• Reddish-brown hair with a full beard
• Wearing a ball cap, red checkered work shirt, faded blue jeans, blue nylon jacket, and work boots with leather fringes over the toes.

The ‘unknown man’.

At around 11pm [11], witnesses would report seeing Ronnie and the unknown man leaving the pub and, according to RCMP investigators, “the man accompanied Ronnie back to his residence, about four blocks from the pub and waited while the family packed” [11, 17]. At 11.16pm, phone records show Ronnie had called his brother [17] ] in Burns Lake to make arrangements for their two children to stay with him in his home, but for one reason or another, this arrangement “wasn’t possible” [18].

It’s worth noting here that Ronnie’s brothers’ house in Burns Lake was a two hour drive west beyond the location of the supposed work camp (in the Cluculz Lake area).

Then, between 1:15am — 1:21am (official sources vary) on Wednesday 2nd August, phone records show that Ronnie then called his parents in Burns Lake. Mabel Jack, Ronnie’s mother, would answer the phone. Ronnie would repeat the same information he told his brother — he and Doreen had been offered well-paying jobs at a logging camp near Cluculz Lake. Unlike in the call to his brother, in this call, Ronnie would tell his mother that the camp had “daycare” and that they would therefore be taking the kids. The call’s purpose seems to have been “FYI” in nature, as he informed her that they would be back in 10 days, possibly up to two weeks, and definitely before Russell was due to start school in September [31].

Then, as Mabel has stated on multiple occasions, he ended the call with words to the effect of, “if I don’t come back, come looking for me”.

Probably ue to the time that had passed between the Jack family’s disappearance and the time in which Mabel began to give public interviews, some information varies slightly. In the case of Ronnie’s last words, It’s worth noting Mabel has been quoted on video and in court documents as giving slightly different versions, which are detailed as follows:

“We’ll be back in eight days, Mum, don’t worry about us. But if I don’t come back, look for me.” [19]

“Mum, if I don’t come back, come looking for me at the house” [2, p2]

“If I don’t come back, you look for me between Vanderhoof and Lucas Lake.” [5]

The vast majority of press articles have quoted Ronnie as having said: “if I don’t come back, come looking for me”. This seems to be the quote that has made it into “official” investigative documents via the force’s PR team.

Whatever Ronnie’s last words to his mother, Mabel has stated that he didn’t sound nervous and that the conversation was actually quite brief [2]. She has also stated that, when taking the call, she was aware that Ronnie was “desperate to work” [2]. So she didn’t protest, she hung up and assumed that they’d be back before Russell was due to start school.

A note on the key witnesses

Unsolved missing persons cases are filled with complexity by their very nature, and the disappearance of the Jack family is no different. To that end, there are two important points to be made about two other key witnesses, and their effects on the timeline of that evening:

1. Doreen’s sister

More than one source has Doreen’s sister as a next door neighbour, which implies that Lorene saw the entire event unfold from her window. This is not the case. The reality, according Maria, is that Lorene had swung by Doreen’s house with the intention of asking her whether or not she would be able to babysit at some point later in the week, and when she saw that Doreen was busy, she decided it would be best not to interrupt. Doreen’s sister, in her own words, saw “Doreen running in and out of the house the night they went missing, and I wish I had known that that was what was happening to them, when I saw that white pick up truck. Something told me I better stay away.” [5].

Note: Doreen’s sister Lorene did not see the family leave with the man, she only saw them packing.

2. Doreen’s cousin

One particular point on which there is a lack of clarity is around Doreen’s cousin. Doreen’s cousin, according to multiple sources, including the RCMP’s Constable Judy Thomas (once a lead investigator on the case), claims to have been at the property from midnight [20, 11]. Two essential facts about the case come from him, and only him. First of all, the description of the unknown man (as above) [20]. He was the only person that saw the ‘unknown man’, Ronnie’s brother and Mabel did not. Second of all, the fact that the family left with the man just after Ronnie had called his mother at 1.15am. This places the cousin at the Jack family’s house with the unknown man for over an hour. Yet, in a later article from February 2000, a lead investigator would claim that “the previous description of the unknown man turned out to be unreliable” because it was “based on the sketchy information of a cousin” [20]. There are two reasons why Thomas would make such a claim:

• She deemed him unreliable as a witness because he was unable to provide an alibi or provide anymore information beyond the physical description of the man (despite having been at the house in his presence for over an hour)
• She deemed the information unreliable due to the description parameters being so wide or the information being taken too far after the fact

It’s unclear whether this lead investigator means the former, but she must almost definitely mean the latter, because, according to records, the RCMP would not pursue a proper investigation until several months after the Jack family’s disappearance due to a “miscommunication”, meaning that the cousin’s description (and the subsequent police sketches) was most likely not taken until some point in December 1989. Worse still, Thomas would later admit that she did not actually know where the sketches had come from, telling one family member that they were just “in the case file” [0]. Thus, a major reason that the information surrounding the Jack case is so unreliable (or, sketchy, as Constable Judy Thomas puts it) is, bizarrely, due to the investigative practices of the Prince George RCMP themselves.

In this article from February 2000, Constable Judy Thomas was careful in her phrasing, leaving enough ambiguity to cover for the almost inexplicable series of events that would come to play out in the months and years after the Jack family’s disappearance. However, the source material that I have been able to piece together is much less ambiguous.

It tells a clearer story than the one the RCMP have otherwise put forward. And this story is not quite so forgiving.

An investigation begins… sort of

After growing concerned about the whereabouts of her family and particularly Ronnie’s lack of contact, Mabel reported the family missing on either Thursday 25th [25] or Friday 26th August (sources vary), 23 or 24 days after the Jack family had left their home [23].

Within the next few days, according to Mabel’s own statement at the MMIWG Public Inquiry, the police attended the Jack family’s residence to greet Mabel, where they searched the property and took pictures [2]. Here, it would have been clear that the family most likely intended to return to the property, since they left the majority of their furniture and clothes behind [18]. There may have been additional clues, such as documents pertaining to either Ryan or Russel’s school attendance. At this time, Mabel states that police spoke with her [2], so they would have become aware of the basic facts of the story early on: that is, that Ronnie said he was taking the family to work [25]. It is unclear as to whether they were aware of the “unknown man” at this point, but if they interviewed Mabel then they most likely would have been.

Sources indicate that police were not aware of “how the family was travelling” [25], because Doreen’s cousin had not yet been made aware of the fact that the family were missing and interviewed.

On Tuesday 29th August, 1989 an alert was issued (most likely by police since Mabel’s name is spelled incorrectly) and reads as follows: “Ron and Doreen Jack, Burns Lake, B.C., call Mable (sic) Jack”. The only paper that prints this alert is the Nanaimo Daily Free Press, which serves Nanaimo and Vancouver Island, a good ten hours’ drive from the area where the Jack family lived or were suspected to have gone missing.

The Prince George RCMP then issued details to the local press on Tuesday 29th August. Only one paper picked up the story, the Prince George Citizen on Wednesday 30th August.

From this article, it is clear that the details that the police gave to the media were incorrect — the headline read: “Burns Lake family missing” (the Jack family had been residents of Prince George for a year). It stated that Ronnie had spoken to his father, not his mother, on the night of his disappearance [25]. The only statement that was given about this case was about Ronnie and reads as follows: “it was possible he found further employment and hasn’t bothered to phone home.”[24]

No national papers cover the story (possibly because they did not receive the details or possibly because they did not deem it to be of interest).

On September 7th the family was“reported found” in the Prince George Citizen by, according to the RCMP, Ronnie’s dad, Casimel [26]. A later investigation would put this mistake down to a “miscommunication”, and no clarification has been provided beyond this [3]. Whatever the reason, this “miscommunication” appears to make very little sense, since Ronnie’s parents continued to behave in a manner which would indicate that they believe the family to be missing. For example, it was at around this time that Mabel moved into the Jack family’s home [2], which she states she used as a kind of base to camp to make further searches out in the bush alongside her husband and their sons [2]. They did this until the first snow came [2], which in 1989 was around mid-late October [27].

A “few months later”, the family contacted the RCMP for an update [0], and they discovered that the case had been closed because the Prince George RCMP were under the impression that the family had been found [0]. The exact date at which this call took place is unclear, but it would have been somewhere between mid October and mid November [0]. It is at this point the investigation was re-opened.

A short article published in the Prince George Citizen, dated Saturday 25th November 1989 (page 3) retracted the earlier article published on September 7th, stating that the “previously reported sighting turned out to be a false alarm” [28] and here, for the first time, Mabel is interviewed directly by the media. She makes it clear that this behaviour is unusual and she was close with her son.

Following the case being re-opened, further investigations and searches began and the police are now aware of the unknown man, and most other key details outlined by family members (including, for example, the offer of daycare) and they have therefore become aware of the cousin’s presence at the property by mid December, 1989, as evidenced by the signed date on the first of two police sketches of the “unknown man” [29, 30] as well as the below article.

The Crimestoppers Poster of February 1990.

In February 1990, the Prince George RCMP teamed up with CrimeStoppers to create a missing persons poster and a $2,000 reward was offered for any information leading to the whereabouts of the Jack family [29]. The poster was published in the local Lake District News on 14th February 1990. At this point, Mabel is now giving interviews directly to the media, and her distress is evident from the following quote:

“I can’t stay at home anymore,” said Jack sadly. “I can’t stand it here, not knowing what has happened to my boy and his family.”

She also states that she is going to Prince George and Burns Lake and putting up posters and is “hoping they will continue the search on television”, perhaps referencing the forthcoming CrimeStoppers TV campaign.

From here, media coverage dips until some point in the fall of 1990 (and again in the spring of 1991) where Crimestoppers creates a re-enactment video which runs for three weeks on CKPGTV from the aforementioned dates respectively [11]. Ultimately, nothing comes from the coverage.

It’s at this point that media coverage of the case takes a nosedive In fact, there is absolutely zero coverage between 1992 and 1995, as confirmed manually by the author and a student researcher from the University of Northern British Columbia [11].

In 1995, said student, who asked to be kept anonymous, seemed to gain access to information not hitherto publicly available (such as the branding on the unknown man’s jacket) and subsequently wrote a paper on the Jack family’s disappearance [11]. In that article, he highlighted that the case had an unusually low profile. Regarding the CrimeStoppers coverage, he also highlights a somewhat glaringly obvious mistake: the re-enactment video was not shown in the region where the Jack family were suspected to have gone missing, because the Chesletta reserve does not receive CKPG.

Media coverage dips again. Which is to say, only the aforementioned article is published in the time period between 1992 and March 1996.

On Sunday January 28th, 1996, at approximately 8:33am, an anonymous tipster called the Vanderhoof RCMP regarding the whereabouts of the Jack family (Vanderhoof is a small highway 16 town about 61 miles west from Prince George) [31]. The RCMP investigated this lead and in early March, investigators made a province-wide appeal for the caller to phone again [32]. This is not just the first piece of substantial coverage in four years, but it’s also the first time that the Jack family’s disappearance received anything beyond localised media coverage.

At first, the investigators held back the contents of the phone call from the public, threatening to release it if the caller did not come forward [32], and then less than a week later, they released the call, with Constable Paul Stader playing a tape of the call to the media [31]. At this time, it is also revealed publicly that:

• The call was made from a house in Stoney Creek, a small and extremely rural town less than 10 miles south of Vanderhoof and highway 16.
• The male caller stated that “the Jack family are buried at the south end of (…)’s ranch” in a tone that “indicated good faith” and then hung up.
• A subsequent investigation revealed that there had been a party at the home on the night of Jan 27th, and that the party carried on to the early hours of Jan 28th, and police were dispatched to this location, but at the time, the constables did not know about the phone call, and were therefore unable to act upon this information
• There were between six and nine people at the party, and investigators were subsequently unable to locate all partygoers

On 3rd April 1996 a newspaper article is published in the Omineca Express stating that RCMP investigators are scheduled to be in Vanderhoof to seek information on the Jack family, and also that experts had not yet been able to decipher the location of the ranch from the tape provided [34]. Another small snippet, this time in the Province, declares that the tape is still “under study” [35]. Media coverage, once again, drops off and it would not be until the early 2000s that a number of other articles about the case would appear in papers, regional or otherwise [20,36, 37], possibly as a result of a number of the efforts of a number of major crimes investigators that were brought in from Vanvoucer to lend fresh eyes to the case, and to comb through more than seven-hundred tips. Posters were released in British Columbia and parts of Alberta in an attempt to get new leads.

Interestingly, one of these articles states that the investigators are “reluctant to speculate about the family’s case” but that they are not ruling out “foul play” [36]. The article then goes on to say that they do not believe it was a car accident [36]. Two other articles [20, 36] further state that investigators have utilised psychics and hypnosis as well as (in only article) stating that “they had done excavations” [36]. Note that it would take the Vancouver Sun, one of British Columbia’s two biggest newspapers over a decade to even mention the Jack family’s disappearance, something that was then later commented on by a person who wrote in to ask why the Jack family’s story has “been ignored for so long” [38].

In the years since, and particularly in recent years, there has been a renewed interest in the Jack family’s case, but nothing that would even be considered remotely proportionate for an entire family vanishing.

A number of digs have been carried out, most recently at the end of August 2019, but after searching the area with ground -penetrating radar and heavy equipment, no signs of the family have ever been found. Members of the Jack family have questions as to how thorough and accurate these digs have been [3].

The Jack family’s disappearance: a discussion

Up until this point, I have stuck to outlining the facts of the case as concisely as possible so that there would be a suitable and easy-to-read section for those looking simply to report on those facts. My hope is that people will utilise them to create further content around the Jack family’s disappearance since, as yet, there has not been a single fully cited source surrounding the Jack family’s disappearance. Most ‘true crime content’ created around the family’s disappearance has demonstrable errors regarding key facts about the case, and none have worked to create any kind of timeline nor provide any extensive context as to some obvious questions one may have should they familiarise themselves with said timeline.

That said, this case clearly warrants further discussion for the following reasons:

• In comparison to other, similar missing persons cases, the Jack family has received significantly less media coverage, and that coverage has been more detached in tone, scant in detail when compared to other similar missing persons cases in the area.
• There are very serious questions to be asked about the investigator’s actions at the beginning of the case, namely pertaining to the aforementioned “misunderstanding” that caused the case to be closed for two months, as well as the blatant assumptions that were made (and publicly verbalised) in the months after their disappearance.
• In the early 2000s, when it was recognised that there was a problem with people going missing along the portion of highway 16 known as “the highway of tears” (encompassing the area in which the Jack family disappeared), the Jack family seem to have been left out of the investigation led by a specialist RCMP task force known as “E-Pana”, because they did not meet the “criteria” (specifically, of being a lone female), in spite of evidence which indicates that a equally concerning number of boys and men have gone missing on highway 16.
• There is a discussion to be had about whether or not, legally at least, this may or may not constitute a violation of human rights under Canada’s own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as outlined in section 15.

These areas are (briefly) discussed in turn below.

Media: newsworthy victims?

In the year following the Jack family’s disappearance, the story did not receive a single piece of coverage in the region’s two largest newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and The Province. Of course, a lack of coverage constitutes an ‘evidence of absence’ and there is always the possibility of error in the search results. Nonetheless, over 50 search terms pertaining to the Jack family’s story were entered into the two newspapers’ archives (as hosted by newspapers.com), including incorrect spellings and variations of dates. It was confirmed that all copies of papers in the target date range were available to view. It was confirmed that the search was functioning correctly as it was possible to pull up a number of other missing persons cases in that time frame. The search did not pull up a single result.

Over a period of two days, each paper was manually checked, and I was able to confirm that the Jack family did not feature on the cover, or on the insides of either The Province or the Vancouver Sun between the date of their reported disappearance to the year after (25th August 1989–25th August 1990).

So the Jack family didn’t receive any national, or even regional coverage in the year after their disappearance: so what?

The problem here is that others did receive coverage. You see, both papers had no problem reporting on crime, missing persons cases, murders and suicides with one important caveat: as long as they were not indigenous. In searching the front covers of both papers manually between the aforementioned dates, I was not able to find a cover story highlighting a missing or murdered indigenous person (and there were numerous cases that the papers could have reported on, as listed here), but I was able to find a number of articles regarding various crimes committed against non-indigenous (including both missing and murdered persons cases).

And it’s not just that the Jack family’s case didn’t receive coverage in national papers in the year after their disappearance — they received an unusually small amount of coverage compared to other similar cases full stop.

The Jack family’s case is unique in the sense that it involves an entire family having gone missing. The only vaguely comparable case is that of the vanishing of little 3 year old Casey Bohun on August 4th, 1989, in North Delta, Vancouver. In the year after her disappearance, she received some 39 mentions in the region’s two largest aforementioned papers.

One make the argument that, having taken place in Vancouver (the largest city in British Columbia) perhaps Casey’s case was naturally of more interest to the two largest papers of that region.

Yet, looking closer to where the Jack family went missing (the area around highway 16), it becomes obvious that the same pattern holds true. For example, the disappearance of Nicole Hoar on June 21st, 2002, along highway 16, sparked national outrage. Her name is mentioned in either the Sun or The Province 27 times in the year after her disappearance. Her story, as it rightly should, had no issues making the front page.

I should emphasize here that I have not checked every possible comparable missing persons cases, but that the observations given here are far from unique to this writing. To quote a 2010 study by Gilchrist [39]:

“More than 500 Aboriginal women have gone missing or been murdered in Canada since the 1980s yet press attention to this violence is relatively minimal.The Aboriginal women received three and a half times less coverage; their articles were shorter and less likely to appear on the front page. Depictions of the Aboriginal women were also more detached in tone and scant in detail in contrast to the more intimate portraits of the White women.”

This disparity between the media coverage in the Jack case is particularly noticeable when one considers the nature of the crime and its relative rarity — an entire family vanishing is extremely rare, and the Jack family is the only case of its kind in Canada. If any story is newsworthy, it’s a story like this.

The RCMP: did they do their due diligence?

It is not clear what kind of policing standards were ‘ratified’ within the RCMP in 1989 but by current provincial policing standards regarding missing persons investigations, this way in which this case was handled seems to indicate a number of fairly large mistakes.

One of the more fundamental issues at play in this case is investigators seeming unwillingness to accept foul play from the minute the family were reported missing, which is highlighted in the statement police chose to put out to press in the month after their disappearance: “it was possible he found further employment and hasn’t bothered to phone home.”[24]

To be clear, by not assigning “foul play suspected” to a case, this means that the case will not be assigned to a serious or major crime section. Whether or not this is what actually happened in the case of the Jack family is unclear, but given that the RCMP did not announce any major searches, use of bloodhounds, firefighters, helicopters and the like in the wake of the Jacks’ disappearance, it would be fair to assume this did not happen. This did, however, happen (and was widely announced) in the case of the disappearance of 3 year old Casey Bohun.

Another huge issue is the fact that investigators closed the case less than two weeks after it was opened, meaning no further investigative work took place for two months, possibly three (again, the lack of coverage makes it difficult to discern).

The RCMP, and later “E-Pana” (more below) would later deem this to be down to a miscommunication, namely that Casimel Jack told the RCMP that the family had been sighted in early September. No one in the family can understand how it happened, and since the call was between an RCMP investigator and Ronnie’s father, Casimel Jack, and since Casimel Jack has since passed, no one can say for sure exactly what was said on that call. Nonetheless, the Jack family were still missing, and there is significant evidence to indicate that the family were never under any impression that they had been found. Their behaviours, as outlined in the above sections, indicate precisely the opposite.

Even if Casimel Jack somehow did get his words mixed up, the RCMP should have communicated to the entire family that the case was now being closed. They should have asked to speak directly to either Ronnie and Doreen.

Did that happen? It’s impossible to know. But the RCMP has, according to one investigator, “60 boxes of investigative product” filled with archival material for the Jack family case [4], so if records were kept to standard, then in theory, the answer should be in there. The problem is, however, at least according to the account of Maria Jack, appropriate records and appropriate family contact, was most certainly not kept. Maria has confirmed that the RCMP have repeatedly lost her phone number, and at one point, Constable Judy Thomas allegedly and quietly confided to Maria that they had no idea where the sketches of the ‘unknown man’ had actually come from [0].

When it comes to the RCMP’s investigation of the Jack family case, small mistakes and obvious examples of apathy abound. There is no one obvious, terrible thing that happened that would cause outcry — no one was beaten or violently mistreated by the police, for example. But it is rather a much quieter, smaller collection of mistakes that, when stitched together as a whole, amount to something greater than the sum of their parts.

It’s also clear that the problem lies equally within what investigators did not do, as well as what they did do, and that is what has made any firm conclusions here exceptionally difficult. Consider how the search for Casey Bohun was described by reporters in August 1989:

“…one of the most intensive hunts in Delta’s history. The search used hundreds of volunteers, police dogs, a team of bloodhounds, 10 firefights, a helicopter and 15 police officers.” [41]

“…[it’s] one of the most intensive searches [we’ve] conducted for a missing child. We’ve done everything humanly possible […] You name it, we’ve searched it.” [42]

“Police Detective Gordon Adams was co-ordinating search efforts yesterday from a command post in the Bohun dining room. He was getting plenty of help.” [43]

Here, there is panic and concern. The little girl and her mother are given, almost immediately, the full attention of investigators. But notice that they are also given something perhaps even more important: the benefit of the doubt. No one is blamed, no group is accused of “not coming forward with information” — the police do everything they can and they want everybody to know.

It certainly seems like in the Jack family’s case, that the opposite holds true. Is this due diligence? We will never know for sure, but based on the information available, it certainly doesn’t seem like it.

E-Pana: a task force not quite based on the facts

If the investigations behind the Jack family’s case did fall short of what would normally be expected, then surely it should have been picked up in any reconciliation-driven movements designed to investigate a higher-than-normal incidence of missing and murdered people along highway 16.

Or so one would think.

Alas, the reality is not quite so clear cut.

A little context: in recent years there has been a large push within the Canadian government to begin the process of “reconciliation” with Indigenous peoples. This is a multi-faceted movement, designed to “renew the relationship with Indigenous peoples, based on recognition of rights, respect, cooperation and partnership” [44]

As part of this new movement for reconciliation, the RCMP received support from the government to create a task force named “E-Pana” in 2005. The purpose of this task force was to investigate a number of cases of missing and murdered persons along a section of Highway 16, all female, between Prince Rupert, British Columbia and Prince George, British Columbia, dubbed the Highway of Tears. Though it started with the scope of investigating victims of Highway 16, within a year of formation, it morphed to include victims along Highways 5, 24 and 97. It is no longer specifically dedicated to Highway of Tears cases, but it is specifically dedicated to those who meet the following criteria [45]:

• The victim was female;
• The victim was engaged in one or more ‘high risk’ behaviours, i.e., behaviours which would tend to place them in the control of strangers in isolated environments without witnesses (e.g. outside the sight and earshot of the bystanders), easy avenues of escape or sources of assistance — primary examples of this would be hitchhiking alone or sex work;
• The victim went missing from, or her body was found near, Highway 16 from Prince Rupert to Hinton, Highway 97 from Merritt to Fort Nelson, or Highways 5 and 24 connecting Valemount and 100 Mile House; and,
• The evidence indicated a stranger attack, i.e., no suspect was seen or identifiable and there was no grounds to believe that death was the result of suicide, misadventure or domestic violence.

This movement is no doubt a step in the right direction, but of course, it necessarily excludes the Jack family’s case. And furthermore, the thinking behind it seems to be flawed.

Official numbers state that a minimum of 18 females have gone missing or been murdered along the ‘highway of tears’ since 1970 [46, 47]. While it is true that females from indigenous communities are more likely to suffer violence, and are more likely to go missing or be murdered than their white equivalents, according to Canada’s own internal data (analysed in a recent report by APTN) an equally alarming number of men and boys have been murdered or missing along Canada’s highway of tears since the 1970s [46].

For total clarity, multiple advocates have stated that the RCMP’s record-keeping is extremely poor for a number of varied reasons, and that the real numbers of missing and murdered along highway 16 is likely to be significantly more, with some stating that the number of MMIW along highway 16 more like 40 than 19 [47]. So the proportion of women and girls going missing along the ‘highway of tears’ is still most likely higher, but not according to official statistics.

Maria Jack has attempted, and been unable to, get her family’s case into the remit of the official “E-Pana” task force because they do not fit the criteria [0].

And, once again, the “safety net” that was E-Pana — a task force designed to go back over old cases to try and move them forward — has failed to pick up the Jack family. It was never designed to. And once again, the Jack family’s case has fallen through the cracks.

Conclusions: a human rights violation?

Beyond what has been outlined above, a question that should be asked is whether or not the way in which the Jack family case has been handled constitutes a violation of their human rights. I am not able to answer that question. Without access to the case files, nobody is. And that is the problem.

Instead, in light of hopefully having read the publicly known facts around this case, I will supply the reader with a brief overview of the applicable human rights under Canadian Law, and will leave it for you to decide for yourself.

Signed in 1982, Canada has its own Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects its citizens basic human rights. This charter forms part of the Canadian Constitution — the highest law in all of Canada. The Constitution is the supreme law of Canada; all other laws must be consistent with the rules set out in it. It is considered one of the country’s “greatest accomplishments” [21]. When applied fairly, that assertion is not incorrect. In fact, the very idea that the law must be applied fairly and without discrimination, is in the Charter itself:

Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law.

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. [22]

And it further goes onto to clarify that:

“The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that the purpose of section 15 is to protect those groups who suffer social, political, and legal disadvantage in society. Discrimination occurs when a person, because of a personal characteristic, suffers disadvantages or is denied opportunities available to other members of society.”

Sometimes, in order to enact the law in a way that is not discriminatory, one must take extra steps. If someone is not able to speak the language, they must provide an interpreter, for example. In this specific context, to not speak the language is a disadvantage, and it is one that must be levelled in order to carry out the law fairly. The same can also be said also for those who suffer social and political disadvantages because of a personal characteristic, i.e. a person from a First Nations community who has suffered a lifetime of abuse at the hands of a set of socio-political institutions that were at best indifferent and at worst actively harmful. Leveling the playing field here means being conscious of that.

In the case of the Jack family, the evidence suggests that a culture of racism and apathy prevalent among Canada’s institutions coalesced to create a playing field that was, it would seem, not even.

If you have any questions about this research, feel free to get in touch: reallyhorrifying@gmail.com.

Note: The first five sections of the article are designed to act as a fully cited ‘repository’ for anyone who wishes to understand the basic facts of the case (to the extent that they are publically available). The sections thereafter discuss various social and governmental institutions’ roles which, I argue, amount to blatant institutional racism at best, and (possibly) a violation of human rights at worst.

I give full permission for anyone to use this article (in whole or in part) for any purpose, so long as they cite the references provided.

Sources

[0] Refers to the testament that the author has obtained from Maria Jack.

[1] The Prince George Citizen, Tuesday 18 April, 1995, page one. Available here.

[2] National Inquiry Into MMIWG: Truth Gathering Process, Statements — Volume 9, Mabel Jack in relation to the Jack family, Tuesday 26 September, 2017. Available here.

[3] National Enquiry into MMIWG, Smithers Hearings, APTN, 5th April 2019. Available here.

[4] Cold Case BC: The Stories Behind the Province’s Most Sensational Murder and Missing Persons Cases, Eve Lazarus, 9th May 2023. Podcast version available here.

[5] Taken: The Jack Family Mystery, S401, True Crime Central, 8th October 2022. Available to watch here.

[6] Prince George Citizen, Monday 14th February, 2000, page 5. Available here.

[7] The Vancouver Sun, Tuesday Dec 5 1995, page 11. Available here.

[8] Census Profile, Burns Lake, Statistics Canada. Now archived. Available here.

[9] First Nations in Canada, Government of Canada, 2nd May 2017. Available here.

[10] Childhood Denied: Indian Residential Schools and Their Legacy, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 20th September, 2018. Available here.

[11] The Prince George Citizen, Tuesday 18 April, 1995, page one. Available here

[12] The Province, Friday March 8th, 1996, page two. Available here.

[13] Population and dwelling counts: Canada and Population Centres, Statistics Canada, 2nd September 2022. Available here.

[14] Prince George Citizen, Prince George is BC’s Crime Capital, Stat Can Data Shows, 11th January, 2023. Available here.

[15] Welfare Incomes: a Report by the National Council of Welfare, Autumn 1991. Available here.

[16] The First Litre on Yelp, review by Chris D, 2nd September 2013. Available here.

[17] The Jack Family missing persons investigation continues, RCMP, 9th October 2019. Available here.

[18] Prince George Citizen, 29th August 1999, page 5. Available here.

[19] ‘Tragic and haunting memory’: B.C. family has been missing for 30 years, CTV News, 10th September 2019. Available here.

[20] The Province, 13th February, 2000, page 34. Available here.

[21] The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Government of Canada, 5th April 2022. Available here.

[22] A Guide to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Government of Canada, 13th December, 2022. Available here.

[23] Prince George Citizen, 29th August 1999, page 5. Available here.

[24] Prince George Citizen, 30th August 1989, page 1. Available here.

[25] Nanaimo Daily News, Tuesday 29th 1989. Not available online.

[26] The Prince George Citizen, Thursday September 7th, 1989, page 1. Available here.

[27] Prince George weather stats: SNOW COVER. Available here.

[28] The Prince George Citizen, Saturday 25th November, page 3. Available here.

[29] The Lake District News, February 14th, 1990, page 1. Available here.

[30] Police sketches. Available here.

[31] Prince George Citizen, March 12 1996, page 1. Available here.

[32]The Province, Friday 8th March 1996, page 2. Available here.

[33] CrimeStoppers poster. A copy inset in article. From Vanderhoof Omineca Express. Available here.

[34] Omineca Express, Vanderhoof, British Columbia, April 3rd 1996, page 2. Not available online.

[35] The Province, May 30, 1996, page 8. Available here.

[36] The Vancouver Sun, 28 Dec 2000, page 4. Available here.

[37] The Ottawa Citizen, 14th February 200. Page. 5. Available here.

[38] The Vancouver Sun, 3rd January, 2001, page 11. Available here.

[39] Gilchrist, K. “Newsworthy” Victims?, Feminist Media Studies. Volume 10, issue 4. 2010. Available here.

[40] The Province, 3rd August 199, page 2. Available here.

[41] The Vancouver Sun, August 8th 1989, page 1. Available here.

[42] The Vancouver Sun, August 8th 1989, page 1. Available here.

[43] The Province, 6th August, 1989, page 6. Available here.

[44] Reconciliation, Government of Canada, 4th July 2023. Available here.

[45] Project E-Pana, RCMP, 13th December 2016. Available here.

[46] What is happening to Indigenous men and boys along B.C.’s Highway of Tears?, APTN National, 28th January 2022. Available here.

[47] Those Who Take us Away, Human Rights Watch, 2013. Available here.