Snap Two women have mysteriously died here within a very short time period. Photos by David P. A string of unexplained sex worker deaths in the same New Westminster, B. The deaths of Jill Lyons, 45, and Karen Nabors, 48, come only a year after another escort was murdered in her home only six blocks away.
Now, as the quaint, Gold Rush-era town pop. Coalition of Experiential Communities. Many indoor workers don't associate ourselves with violence against women on the streets; we feel immune, because it doesn't happen to us often. But this rocks the cradle. People are feeling more vulnerable. In the absence of information from authorities, some are now speculating that deadly drugs or even a serial killer may be to blame.
The suspicious deaths, only one storey apart in the historic, one-time provincial capital's Elmwood Apartments last month, has brought back memories of murderer Robert Pickton whose notorious pig farm was less than half-an-hour away. After his arrest, Pickton confessed to killing 49 sex workers over more than a decade. Last year, B. Imagine such a warning, she muses, if several cops or nurses died in the same building. Advocates are blaming the police for once again, as with the Pickton murders, withholding essential safety information from an already marginalized population.
The women in this building could have known. For the New Westminster resident, the delay releasing toxicology results is in stark contrast with the unusually swift reaction to the Vancouver overdose death of Glee star Cory Monteith on July It took only two days for his autopsy, three for toxicology results, and four for two area police forces to issue bad heroin warnings.
Gill chalks such delays up to a lack of public pressure. They're invisible, they're stigmatized, they're judged. People are living in silence, working indoors in secrecy, and people are getting hurt We have to have a society overhaul to eliminate stigma and judgment. But Lyons and Nabors are not the only recent sex worker deaths in a small city known for its heritage charm, the world's tallest Tin Soldier , and seedy underbelly. Gill remembers the murder of a childhood friend last year.
