📍 CanadaThe Highway of Tears
The Story
Highway 16 between Prince Rupert and Prince George, British Columbia, has been associated with at least 18 and possibly over 40 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls since 1969. Limited public transit, hitchhiking culture, and serial offenders have all been implicated. A 2012 inquiry documented systemic failures in investigation.
Images
Timeline
Early disappearances along Highway 16 are first documented.
RCMP establish Project E-PANA to investigate linked cases.
The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry publishes findings on systemic failures.
Known Evidence
How well-documented and physically verified the case evidence is.
- Official list of 18 confirmed cases along Highway 16 and adjacent routes.
- 2012 Missing Women Commission of Inquiry documenting police failures.
- Geographic clustering of disappearances along the 724-kilometer corridor.
- Some cases linked to convicted offenders; many remain unsolved.
Unresolved
What We Still Don't Know
- How many cases share a single serial offender versus multiple perpetrators.
- The full count of victims beyond confirmed cases.
- Whether additional disappearances remain unreported or unlinked.
Hypotheses
Theories
Ranked by plausibility — highest first.
Multiple Serial Offenders
Several killers exploited the isolated highway over decades.
Opportunistic Violence on Remote Route
Truckers, locals, and transient offenders attacked vulnerable hitchhikers without a single coordinated killer.
Nearby on the map