Angeline Pete is a vibrant, athletic, caring young mom raised by her grandmother in a loving home.
Monday, Dec. 5, is Angeline’s 29th birthday, and instead of a celebration it will be a day when a loving circle of friends and family will focus on how or why Angeline has vanished, and why police don’t seem to be moving heaven and earth to find her.
Angeline’s mother Molly Dixon has been tirelessly searching the streets of Vancouver for any clues to her daughter’s disappearance in May, 2011. The young mother of a seven-year-old boy has her face printed on posters all over the Downtown Eastside, where she fled last spring after suffering severe domestic violence.
“I love my grandaughter and I miss her so much. She has a good heart and wherever she is, she deserves to be treated as kind as she is to everybody else,” said her grandma Eileen Nelson, apologizing for breaking into tears.
“I can’t sleep, I don’t know where she could be, because she called me every day, sometimes three times a day. She knows I love her and I worry.”
Nelson still lives on the Gusgimukw First Nation reserve near Port Hardy where Angeline grew up, a strong, fun-loving girl involved in every sport from volleyball to hockey, winning six ceremonial coppers in tournaments.
“I don’t think the police are trying hard enough to find Angeline,” confesses Nelson. “Other people, there’s a big search but when my granddaughter’s picture is on TV, it just flashes up and then it’s gone.”
Dixon, 45, came to Vancouver two months ago to look for Angeline and the stress of the search is showing. She has gone to shelters and women’s centres looking for Angeline, places she says police still haven’t looked.
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Dixon says she is angry at the Vancouver police and the RCMP in North Vancouver — where Angeline was reported missing — for not doing enough to find her daughter. Angeline was living with her fiance, Rob Calden, and Dixon is furious that police have let Calden travel from Canada to South America.
“We meet with the RCMP and all they have is information we gave them two months ago,” says Dixon. “Is my daughter just another missing First Nations woman on a poster to them? She was not a sex trade worker addicted to drugs.
“I had many women friends who went missing, police didn’t care about them and they turned out to be victims of (serial killer) Robert Pickton.
“How could this happen to my Angeline?”
Dixon says that the VPD and North Vancouver RCMP insist that every missing woman is taken seriously, but now that it has happened to her daughter, she no longer believes them.
“Nothing changes, we are just more missing First Nations women to police,” says Dixon, recalling the many missing women memorial marches she has attended.
Angeline adored her mom, says her grandmother.
“She would brush and curl my hair, and hold onto me so tight,” said Dixon, remembering the good times when she visited her daughter.
Nelson said Angeline travelled up north to visit her shortly before she disappeared, with her new boyfriend Calden, a Saulteaux native man who was a “senior youth worker” for the Squamish Nation.
“Angeline said they met on the Internet,” Nelson said.
“She put on the computer a photo of herself with a split lip and all her friends said, ‘Leave him’. The North Van RCMP even witnessed him hitting her. They charged him because Angeline was afraid, but he got off scot-free.”
North Vancouver RCMP confirm Calden was charged with assaulting Pete, but charges were stayed.
Dixon last spoke to her daughter on May 19, the same week Angeline called her grandmother.
Angeline’s cousin Cindy, with whom she spent time in the Downtown Eastside, sleeping at the First United Church shelter, said she last saw Angeline getting unwillingly into a truck driven by Calden.
North Van RCMP spokesman Cpl. Richard De Jong said police have interviewed Calden but would not comment further, saying it is “an active investigation.”
“We take this case very seriously. We have gone the extra mile putting out press releases and putting up posters,” said De Jong, denying the Mounties have been anything less than diligent in looking for Angeline Pete.
“I’ve seen the file and it’s very lengthy,” said De Jong. “We’re working very closely with the family. They’ve been in here twice.”
VPD spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said missing persons investigators met with RCMP in late October.
“We will continue to assist the North Vancouver RCMP in their investigation by sharing any information that might surface here in Vancouver in the future,” said McGuinness.
“Our investigators know firsthand that when a loved one goes missing, it is devastating for families.”
Squamish Nation councillor Krisandra Jacobs said that Calden “is no longer an employee and we are liaising with North Van RCMP in an ongoing investigation.”
Carol Martin of the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, who has been helping Dixon, says it is “disturbing that not only has another aboriginal woman gone missing, but the cross-jurisdictional nature of the case, and the police resources and action, once again, are making things even worse.
“We were witness to the system’s gross negligence as well as racism and sexism in finding missing women in the 1990s, just as we are today.”
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