Homicide detectives with the Edmonton Police Service have reviewed 11 files specific to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls commission that will be making its way to our city in November.
Using new techniques on old DNA has already paid off in one solved case.
Det. Ryan Tebb, from the historical homicide unit said 11 files involving a dozen victims have undergone a complete review in the last few months.
“Working with the RCMP lab on these 11 investigations specifically, nearly everything we brought forward and requested that they review and reconsider, they’ve been willing to accept,” he told reporters after a presentation to the Edmonton Police Commission on Thursday.
“They’ve done the testing. We don’t always get the results that we sometimes hope for.”
There was one pay off. A file that dates back to February of 2011 involving Janet Cardinal, said Staff Sgt Bill Clark.
“DNA testing has advanced quite a bit on some of the older files,” Clark said. “So (Tebb) identified something that we could send for DNA testing and that ultimately helped in us being able to present a case to the Crown that they felt yeah we could go ahead with charges.”
Cardinal was killed in an apartment off 82 Street at 119 Avenue. The DNA evidence led to the arrest of Dana Fash, who’s known as the Millwoods Rapist.
“Our job now is to review these files. If there’s DNA send it to the lab. If there’s interviews that we need to do and re-do, we’re going to do them, and various other police techniques we’ll use on these files,” Clark said.
“We’ll be seeing some solves. It’s just going to take time.”
Clark said they’ll also do a better job of keeping family members who have lost loved ones in the loop. He said they’ll meet with them to review the files. They’ll do it annually, even if it just means telling them there’s no new evidence.
“In many of them we do know who did it. We just don’t have the evidence to charge.”
Tebb said evidence they’ve had for years has already been re-examined at the RCMP lab.
“The most recent testing available to us has already been conducted so there’s always hope that technology will advance and we’ll have new techniques that we’ll be able to try in the future,” he explained. “Largely we’ve exhausted that as part of the review process.”
Clark is expecting to testify before the MMIWG hearing, to go over what they’ve done in the past months to review not only the 11 cold case murder files, but another 10 missing person investigations.