Background
The "Highway of Tears" is the name given to Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada, a route of about 720 kilometres between Prince George and Prince Rupert. The corridor is sparsely populated and rural, with long stretches that lack cell-phone coverage. For many Indigenous communities along it, owning a vehicle and travelling between towns is difficult, and many people have relied on hitchhiking or walking.
Women and girls have been reported missing or found dead along the route since at least 1969, and Indigenous women make up a disproportionate share of those affected.
What happened
There is no single agreed figure. The RCMP's Project E-PANA, launched in 2005, eventually examined about 18 cases. Indigenous organisations and families say more than 40 women have gone missing or been killed along the highway and nearby routes. The gap reflects different criteria: E-PANA used markers such as a high-risk lifestyle, hitchhiking and last-seen location, while community lists are broader.
The cases span decades and cannot be tied to a single offender. Investigators set out to determine whether one serial killer or several people were responsible.
Investigation and trials
E-PANA produced some results. The 1974 murder of Colleen MacMillen was linked to Bobby Jack Fowler, an American offender who died in prison and was never charged in any death along the highway. Garry Taylor Handlen was charged in 2014 over the 1978 killing of Monica Jack and was sentenced to life in 2019. Cody Legebokoff was convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 in the deaths of four young women, and his convictions were upheld on appeal in 2016. These outcomes do not mean the wider set of cases has been solved; some profilers doubt Fowler was responsible for the cases between 1989 and 2006.
Resources for the project fell over time, and staffing dropped sharply after 2010.
Legacy
A 2006 symposium produced a report with 33 recommendations, including a shuttle service along Highway 16, and a 2012 provincial inquiry also called for urgent transport improvements. Subsidised bus service began between Prince George and Burns Lake in 2017, and in December 2024 new towers closed part of the cell-service gap.
Every woman in these cases was a member of a family and a community, and the issue is part of the wider national discussion about missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Families continue to hold memorial events so that the missing are not forgotten.