The mother of a woman whose remains were found at a vacant Vancouver home, says she won’t give up her quest for answers.
“Somebody knows something still, what happened to her,” Sheila Poorman told Global News. “How did she die like that?”
Crews working on a vacant $7.1-million Shaughnessy home found Chelsea Poorman’s body on April 22.
Poorman was 24 when she went missing on Sept. 6, 2020, during a night out. Her mother said she had recently moved to the city to try and work on mental health and addiction issues.
Her cause of death remains undetermined and because her remains were skeletal police say toxicology is not possible.
However, Vancouver police said Friday there was no evidence of foul play.
“We likely will never know what caused the death,” Sgt. Steve Addison said.
“The area where she was found was quite unkempt and was overgrown. It’s quite likely and quite plausible that she did die there shortly after she disappeared and remained there undiscovered until two weeks ago when a contractor came to work on the house.”
Those answers aren’t enough for Poorman’s mother, who said she only has more questions.
“I don’t know how she ended up in that place and alone without her phone,” she said, adding her daughter couldn’t walk far because of a leg injury.
“Why did it take so long? Why couldn’t they find her? Where did they search exactly? They had more jurisdiction to be looking in abandoned buildings than I could or anyone else.”
On Friday, members of the group Butterflies in Spirit, which had supported the search for Poorman, gathered outside the home where she was found to begin laying a memorial.
Group member Lorelei Williams said she had a hard time accepting that there was nothing suspicious about Poorman’s death.
“I don’t believe that. That’s my automatic thought, my automatic feeling. This case needs to be looked at carefully. It breaks my heart,” she said. “I can’t imagine what her mom is going through right now.”
Butterflies in Spirit has scheduled a memorial for Poorman at the site for noon on Sunday.
In the meantime, her mother is pleading for anyone with any information to come forward.
“She wanted to better herself, I know that. She had many dreams, she wanted to do many things for her life,” she said.
“Contact the Vancouver police, let them know, even if it’s a small detail it could help us, because we still need answers. I don’t believe that my daughter just died, ended up there alone and just died. I don’t think that’s the way that it went.”
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