VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- If a half-dozen drug-addicted prostitutes from Canada's grimmest skid row had vanished, few people might have noticed. But as the list of missing nears 30, police grope for answers while fears of a murder spree grow.
In the Downtown Eastside -- a neighborhood of pawn shops, saloons and run-down rooming houses close to Vancouver's trendy harbor front -- community activists and the remaining prostitutes are convinced at least one serial killer is at work.Police investigators, unable to find even a single body, won't quite go that far, but they agree foul play is almost certainly behind many of the disappearances.
"We have no crime scenes, we have no bodies . . . it's very frustrating." said Anne Drennan, the Vancouver police spokeswoman. "It's one of the most difficult files we've ever worked, because of the lack of clear evidence."
Drennan said police are about to add a couple more women to the official list of 27 missing prostitutes. Six vanished between 1978 and 1992; 21 since 1995.
They range in age from 19 to 46; each is described on missing-persons posters as "a known drug user and sex-trade worker" who frequented the Downtown Eastside.
Deb Mearns, who coordinates safety programs for prostitutes in the drug-infested neighborhood, has no doubt most of the missing women have been killed.
"You're talking about women on welfare who didn't pick up their last welfare check, who left their belongings in a dingy hotel room." she said. "It's not as though they could just jump on a plane and fly to Toronto."
"If you want to find the most vulnerable women, this is where you come," Mearns said. "A woman can just disappear, and no one's going to notice for a while."
Initially, the police department's cautious approach to the case infuriated local residents, who said a comparable rash of disappearances from a wealthier neighborhood would have prompted a massive investigative response.
By now, after repeated protest marches and memorial services for the missing, there is acknowledgment that police are doing their best in the face of perplexing circumstances.