Kelowna cold cases opened

On Sept. 26, 1994 a hiker was walking near a grassy field on Knox Mountain, when they came upon the body of a young woman.

Police later learned it was the remains of Tina Parr, a 25-year-old sex trade worker who was last seen just a day earlier going to the area with a friend.

An extensive investigation followed, according to Crime Stoppers, and police interviewed hundreds of people.

"During the interviews, police believed that several people may have had further information to disclose regarding her whereabouts and activities leading up to her death but were not comfortable revealing details at that time,” the tip collecting organization said in a press release years ago.

Decades have passed and the case has grown colder, though there’s renewed hope that will change.

Darren Feist, a former Kelowna RCMP staff sergeant, has come out of a one-month retirement to re-examine longstanding unsolved cases, and Parr’s is one of four files he’s hoping to close.

Fresh eyes, new techniques and the luxury of more time may just be what’s needed, he said. Particularly in Parr's case.

“Within a year (of Parr’s death), the serious crime unit here in Kelowna had to investigate the Mindy Tran murder, Jennifer Cusworth and Tina Parr,” Feist said.

“It was a small unit … but there was a lot of good work done."

"Some of these files were pursued for quite a while before they went cold, and other work started coming in and pulling officers from those investigations."

Whether that’s the case for Parr remains to be seen from a policing perspective, but her death certainly had a lot less publicity than the Tran and Cusworth cases — two of this city’s most notorious murders have seen volumes of newsprint and hours of television footage dedicated to them.

On Aug. 17, 1994, Tran was reported missing after she rode her pink bike down her quiet street in the southern Interior city. She was never seen alive again. Six weeks later, police found a shallow grave with her remains in a Rutland park near her home. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Shannon Murrin, a man originally from Newfoundland, was charged with the killing in January 1997 and found not guilty by a jury in 2000 after a seven-month trial. The case remains open, though nothing will likely change.

“If you were to talk to people in regard to that file, they believed they had the right person charged, and it was a matter of the court and what transpired during the investigation that created the situation for him to be found not guilty,” Feist said.

Similarly to Parr’s file, Cusworth’s death sat as a cold case for years. Her beaten body was found in a ditch in Kelowna in October of 1993. She had been strangled and bludgeoned to death, a Crown prosecutor said.

For 16 years, Cusworth's family made a plea for someone to come forward and cast light on what happened to the young college student. There was little movement and no suspects until, in 2009, police pursued a lead and covertly collected DNA from a man she’d met at a party the night of her death. That sample matched one taken from her body. Two trials followed and Neil Snelson was convicted in her death.

The break in the latter case came from diligent policing and emerging science— just a couple of the techniques that Feist is intending to use, too.

'Circumstances change'

“We will do a full review of what was there from that file … like I said in some of (the files) are banker boxes full (of papers),” he said.

“The big thing, is that a lot of Mounties have handwriting like doctors, and you're just trying to see what are they saying here, and then trying to get a feel for where they were going, and determining what's still outstanding, as far as avenues that maybe were pursued but not fully pursued, or even revisiting with key people.”

When it comes to following up with old tips and revisiting old people tied to the case, Feist indicated time can make the old new again.

"People's circumstances change, they may be more willing (to speak) now, maybe that intimidation factor of where they were at that time doesn't exist anymore … sometimes it just takes a prod,” he said.

He’ll also be tapping old investigators, some of whom are long-since retired but happy to know their career file is getting prioritized.

Cases are decades old

The remaining three files are Charles Horvath, who went missing at 20 years old while on a gap year adventure in Kelowna.

He was last seen on May 26, 1989 cashing a cheque at the Orchard Park Royal Bank.

There was also Sally Winter a 70 year old housewife and mother. She was murdered inside her Bernard Avenue home on Valentine's Day in 1985.

“There was a lot of work done in regard to that file,” he said. There was investigative theories pursued, and that file still remains open. There's some avenues that I'm still pursuing in regards to that side.

Finally, there’s Ashley Petman, she was a 18 year old girl, who had become street entrenched and was last seen June of 2005. She's never surfaced anywhere.

Feist was loath to offer up any estimates on how long it would take to finish any of these investigations but said he’s glad to be able to put the attention to them they deserve, particularly for the families who keep coming back with lingering questions.

"I would meet with these family members, and it was a difficult conversation, because I knew in a lot of the cases, not a lot of work had been done in the last year or two years,” Feist said.

It’s why this cold case program is starting.

"I knew I was getting to the end of my time within the RCMP, and I worked with my Sgt at the time who was in charge of the serious crime unit, because he felt the same way,” Feist said.

“We just made a proposal saying, we have these reservists who have the skillset, who have been involved in serious crime throughout their careers, that are still wanting to be active...So we put a business case forward.”

Senior management agreed and Feist moved into action. While he’s hoping to get more information on these cases, it’s not clear whether the public will learn much more.

“It can jeopardize a prosecution. They basically say you could be trying somebody in the court of public opinion and not in the courts if you bring too much information forward to the media, and that can create a legal situation for us,” he said.

“That's why, as long as it's an open file, you won't get a lot of comments in regard to where it sits and what is happening with it."