Friends and family of missing Okanagan woman call for justice

Friends and family of a young mother who disappeared from the Okanagan seven years ago gathered on Thursday to call on police to advance the investigation that’s seemingly grown cold.

“We call for justice. We call for answers now, we call for RCMP action now, we want Caitlin back,” the group that gathered at Shuswap River Bridge said Thursday night, at a rally aimed at refocusing attention on Caitlin Potts.

Potts, 27, lived in Enderby, B.C., in 2016, at the time of her disappearance, though she’d only moved from Alberta a few months prior.

Her last known sighting was Feb. 21, 2016 at the Bay, in Kelowna’s Orchard Park Mall.

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In the immediate aftermath of her disappearance, her name and her face had become commonplace on missing person posters and in news stories, but time has marched on and so has the public attention once focused on Potts.

That’s not the case, however, for those who loved her.

“We still grieve. We still wonder. We still ask these questions (and) have these thoughts. And anybody would when you still … don’t know where your sibling, your child, your daughter is.  It’s very devastating,” Potts’s little brother, Jerimiah Potts said.

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Potts’s family wants answers and Jody Leon, organizer of the rally, wants to help make that happen.

“The family wants closure. You know, the family wants answers. Caitlin deserves justice,” Leon said.

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“So we’re calling out for people to take action and help to keep her name alive, help to keep the story alive. And (to) call on the RCMP for justice, we want justice now we want to answers and the family wants closure.”

Leon said that the RCMP is known to not offer updates to families of Indigenous women who have gone missing, as demonstrated in examples through the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Women.

“The families in the process don’t feel respected, they feel traumatized,” she said.

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“The numbers of  (missing and murdered Indigenous) women continue to rise, to the point where the RCMP don’t even know the statistics on how many are actually missing. That is unacceptable.  … By raising Caitlin’s profile, we help to assist with her case and to continue to call for that justice, and the awareness of what the murdered or missing and just how devastating and important this issue is.”

Leon wants people to learn about Potts, and maybe even reach out to her family and see what they can do to help in the effort to drum up information.”

RCMP said after the rally they have no new information.

“(The investigation)  remains open and still under investigation, with an SED MCU team assigned since April 2016,” Cpl. James Grandy said in an emailed statement.

“While the VNOD RCMP conducted some initial inquiries upon receipt of the initial missing person report in March 2016, SED MCU assumed conduct of the investigation thereafter.”

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He said “an extensive search utilizing all available police resources has been undertaken,” based on evidence gathered during the course of the investigation

“We are always optimistic that families will receive closure after the death of a loved one, and we certainly hope the same for the Potts family,” he said.

“We will continue to follow up on tips or information as it is received and would encourage anyone who has information and has not already spoken with investigators to call the SED MCU tipline (877-987-8477).”