Three months after the family of the Abbotsford woman missing in Peru issued a public plea for any information about her disappearance, they are still looking for answers about what exactly happened to their daughter.
Forty-one-year-old Kim Kasatkin was reported missing by her family to the Abbotsford Police Department on Dec. 5.
Kasatkin’s parents appealed to her many friends in Abbotsford and the Fraser Valley, who may have had contact with her, to get in touch with them.
They left for Peru in the following days to look for any answers concerning their daughter’s disappearance firsthand.
WATCH: The father and step-mother of 41-year-old Kim Kasatkin made an appeal for any information leading to her whereabouts in January.
In February, Kasatkin’s Peruvian common-law partner, Christopher Franz, was arrested in connection with her disappearance, and the case is now being investigated as a homicide.
Kasatkin’s brother, Roger Grafstrom, says Franz has been uncooperative and is “likely to try to evade justice based on his behaviour during the proceedings.”
Grafstrom says Franz’s lawyer appealed the charges and tried to get video evidence thrown out.
The family believes the appeal has been dismissed and Franz’s trial could begin as early as July.
Grafstrom says new crucial evidence has been found recently and the judge has ordered that Kim’s body be found “at all costs.”
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“As it stands, all physical, visual and forensic evidence does point toward Chris and he is the only suspect,” Grafstrom said.
Kasatkin used to split her time between a residence in Abbotsford and a home in Peru that she shared with her two children and Franz. She has been living in Lima, the capital, for 3.5 years and her youngest child was born there.
“We were aware that their relationship was extremely volatile — verbally and sometimes physically abusive,” Kasatkin’s stepmother Kathleen said.
Kathleen Kasatkin said Franz initially reported the case as abandonment and notified the family via email.
She says she spoke with him on the phone multiple times, but sensed something was wrong and decided to report Kim as missing to the Abbotsford Police.
She says her stepdaughter wanted to come back to Canada, but her partner refused to do it.
“Kim was a hundred per cent under his control — she was financially, socially and emotionally dependent on him. She did not speak Spanish. She had no access to money. So the idea that she would just disappear to go off somewhere on her own just did not make sense.”
The family will be travelling to Peru again in the following weeks to help local authorities with the case any way they can. They also want to see Kasatkin’s two young children come back to Canada from Peru.
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