The Legacy Letters

by Janice Landry

  The program started seven years before Andrea King went missing, according to the dates listed on the federal government website. “In 1985, the Canadian Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada announced a multi-faceted program to help police investigate missing children cases in Canada. One component of the program was the establishment of the Missing Children’s Registry which was officially opened by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in August of 1986. In 1986, at the same time that the RCMP established the Missing Children’s Registry, now known as National Missing Children Operations (NMCO), Canada Customs (now known as Canada Border Services Agency) was developing a missing children program. A training course on techniques to identify and intercept missing children was then developed and implemented. Collectively, the partnership that forms ‘Our Missing Children’ provides a unique and powerful force in locating and recovering missing children,” the website explained.

  My story about the conference, filed October 16, 1997, opened with this grim statement: “Ann King arrived in Halifax early this morning at the same airport where her daughter disappeared in January of 1992 … 52,000 children go missing in Canada each year. Most are runaways, but several thousand are stranger abductions. The goal of this conference is to cut that alarming statistic.”

  Andrea was a missing child for almost one year before she was found in the woods. I often think of Ann, Wayne, Debra, and Andrea, and the day I spent in the woods with her parents, when I drive down Highway 102 near the Halifax Stanfield International Airport.

  It is also unnerving to travel on Glendale Avenue in Lower Sackville and remember the gruesome scene which played over and over again in my stories. In that video, a group of police investigators carefully maneuvered Andrea’s remains down the rock face and through the woods. They carried Andrea’s body out of the woods on a large, thin, square, wooden frame covered with a tarp. Dental records were what led to her identification.

  Twelve years after its inception, Ann King became a strong voice for Our Missing Children and was speaking nationally to help warn families and protect other children from falling victim to predators. Ann travelled across the East Coast during that visit, speaking to school children and anyone else who would listen.

  The Kings did exactly what Wayne so poignantly had alluded to at the media conference. As time progressed, they worked through their pain to help others, in the face of monumental adversity and trauma. In this way, they also honoured Andrea and kept her memory alive.

  That 1997 visit by her mother to Nova Scotia was my last story and interview with Ann King, a silence that lasted nearly twenty years.

  Our next conversation occurred on April 19, 2016.

  3

  Ann King: A Long-Distance Admission

  On April 18, 2016, I finally worked up the nerve to call Ann King in British Columbia.

  I had worried for weeks about this call. I was not sure Ann would remember me. My predominant fear was what her reaction would be after nineteen years since we had last spoken for the 1997 story. I worried about dredging up the past for a mother and family who had already suffered more than anyone should have to in a lifetime.

  I knew I had to reconnect with the King family and explain my work-in-progress and this book’s purpose. I did not want them to hear about it or read anything without a warning from me. I also wanted to give them a chance to talk about the years that had passed.

  I called twice. There was no answer either time. I did not leave a message. Trying to explain my book and multifaceted rationale for writing it and for including Andrea would take some time. It could not be done in a one- or two-minute recorded phone message. That would be callous and unprofessional.

  As soon as the answering machine kicked in, I knew I had the right home and person as I recognized her distinct accent. Ann’s voice actually made my pulse quicken. I was nervous and anxious to proceed, since I had finally worked up the courage to follow through. I decided to try again the following day.

  Prior to the calls, I had lucked out by finding an old file folder about Andrea at my home. Among other notations, on the file was the Kings’ home phone number, written in ink on the upper left-hand portion of the folder. The file had old photocopies of various stories I had written between 1992 and 1997. The television scripts matched the videos I had viewed from the archives at CTV. Unbelievably, the same home phone number still worked, nineteen years later. That is how I found Ann King in 2016, from files I had kept since the 1990s.

  I am not sure why I kept Andrea’s folder. I had dozens of them ongoing over the course of my twelve years as a television reporter. There were other story files, about fifteen of them, in a blue plastic storage container that had been stuffed away on an upper shelf in my garage. I had not looked in the box for many years. I had no idea what was inside it. It had a thick layer of dust coating its top.

  While I had no clue about the contents, I did remember having the actual container itself, and as I had been writing about Andrea, thought there might be something of value inside. I had asked my husband to root around for the storage box. It had been nagging at me while I was researching this part of the book. Of all the murder cases I have covered, I discovered, after searching through the contents of the storage container, I have only kept files for three of them.

  This was one. Two of the other fifteen file folders contained material about Kimberly McAndrew, the young woman who went missing in Halifax in 1989. It was surprising to me that one-fifth of the remaining few files I had decided to keep at my own home would cover the King and McAndrew cases, the exact two investigations about which I decided to discuss in this long-form examination of the impact of trauma across professions.

  Why had I kept those files in particular? They had sat unused and unread for years. The answer is: despite the long passage of time, the people involved in them have never been far from my mind.

  The following day, April 19, 2016, I called Ann King for a third time. It was 12:30 p.m. Halifax time. I did not take the time zone difference into consideration when I called. I just felt a strong urge to try again, so I followed my hunch through without looking at the clock. It was 8:30 a.m. in Surrey, British Columbia. If I had thought of that, I would have waited to call and I may have missed her again.

  This time Ann answered.

  I now had to move forward, regardless of what unfolded.

  She later explained I had caught her while she was getting up in the morning. She was in her bedroom, seated on the bed. She said she did not mind the early hour. Despite the time, and being completely taken off guard, she was pleasant and gracious. I reintroduced myself.

  Ann immediately remembered me.

  I was relieved and a bit surprised. I explained that I had left television after my daughter was born and I was now working as a freelancer and author among others jobs.

  The first thing she asked me was, “How can I help you?”

  Here was the Ann I remembered: open and caring. It helped me relax a little further.

  I asked her if she had a few minutes so I could properly explain myself. In that explanation, I told her about my ongoing work writing about first responders and people affected by trauma. I briefly discussed my other books. I explained this book would expand on the concept of trauma across backgrounds, ages, and professions, including some jobs, like my own, readers may not have immediately considered as having an impact on people.

  I told Ann I had never forgotten about Andrea, or her and her family. I wanted to tell her, personally, despite the passage of time since Andrea died, people still cared.

  It is far easier to type a synopsis of what I said in those first few minutes than it was for me to actually say it to Ann King, a woman who has endured years of pain and heartache. The floodgate had opened. I broke down and struggled through tears trying to tell her. I apologized and tried to regain my composure. I had never broken down in the process of asking someone for an interview, or trying to explain my approach and rationale.

  M
y reaction took me off guard. I composed myself in about one to two minutes. She told me not to worry or feel bad; my reaction was totally fine. She did not interrupt me as I spoke. She listened.

  After I calmed down, I continued our conversation. I asked if I could include what we had discussed in the book to let people know how the King family has been doing since we last spoke. She agreed.

  Ann was seventy-three years old when I interviewed her in April 2016. That made her forty-nine when I initially met her. I was fifty-one when we spoke in 2016.

  That similarity in age, me now and her then, made her hardship hit home even more. I am very near the same age Ann was when Andrea went missing. I have a teenage daughter who is now only a year younger than Andrea was when she was murdered.

  Ann could not initially remember the last time she was in Halifax. I reminded her about the date of the story I filed in October 1997, when she had come to the Our Missing Children conference and to tour the Maritimes speaking in schools.

  That was the last time, as far as she can remember, that she has stepped foot in Halifax. “I’d like to come [back] but there is no reason for me to,” Ann said. “They [police] believe the main suspect in Andrea’s murder is incarcerated.”

  As a mother, reflecting over the quarter-century since Andrea died, my heart ached for Ann and her husband Wayne, their other children, and the thousands of people who must endure this level of trauma inflicted upon them. They are all victims.

  The violent death of a child or loved one is among the worst pain a human being can endure – perhaps the worst. What about the disappearance of a child or loved one? Add to that the frustration of not knowing the answers surrounding what has happened to your beloved, or in other criminal cases, not having the person’s physical remains to grieve over, or never ever knowing where he or she is.

  It is unfathomable anguish.

  Ann King told me the trauma over Andrea’s disappearance, murder, and the fact the case remains open after twenty-five years, has taken a significant and heartbreaking toll on her family. It has literally taken another life. Not far into our conversation Ann asked me, “You didn’t know I lost another daughter, did you?”

  Ann started talking about her eldest daughter, Maria. I had no clue, whatsoever, there are actually four other King daughters: Maria, Debra, and two foster children, daughters Erica and Nicole. Andrea King had four sisters.

  The Kings’ first child, born December 14, 1962, Maria Ann Wilkinson, died by suicide November 15, 2007, at the age of forty-four. The pain of trying to endure fifteen years of coping with Andrea’s murder became too much for Maria, according to Ann. Coincidentally, Andrea’s birthday in 1973 was just one day after Maria’s. Maria was eleven years and one day older than Andrea. She adored her little sister, and when Andrea went missing, the two had been living together in New Westminster.

  Ann said Maria started drinking heavily in the years after Andrea was killed. Her use of alcohol became progressively worse as the years passed. Her obituary mentions her “long fight with depression.”

  Because Andrea and Maria had lived together at the time of her disappearance, I wondered if Maria was the person Andrea had called from the Halifax airport the day she arrived. Media reports, including mine, had repeatedly stated Andrea called one of the King family members from the airport to confirm she had arrived safely. That phone call was the last time anyone had heard from her. However, according to Ann, it was not one of the immediate family that Andrea called, but a friend of the family. The Kings were attending a New Year’s celebration when Andrea called. The sad reality is no one in the King family ever spoke to Andrea again after she left British Columbia.

  Before Maria’s passing, at some point during the police investigation, Ann said authorities in Halifax sent photographs of “a bunch of stuff,” primarily jewellery and cosmetics, to the family to study. The police wanted to know if the Kings could confirm anything as having belonged to Andrea. Ann said Maria did recognize a pair of earrings in a photo as Andrea’s. They were unusual because they were made of leather, shaped like butterflies, and were colourful.

  The police never told the family where the items were discovered. Whether the earrings were found with Andrea in the woods, or in a suspect’s home, vehicle, or workplace has not been confirmed. They obviously have significance because otherwise the family would not be subjected to this kind of request.

  Another personal item of Andrea’s has been returned by police to her family: a gold necklace. Ann explained it was a simple gold chain and its links had been damaged. Still, she appreciates having this personal reminder of her daughter.

  Since we had started down this path during our interview, I asked Ann about the two unusual bags police had shown the public through media reports: the purse from Mexico and the aluminum-framed hiking backpack. Ann has no idea if either has ever been found. She did say the unusual green backpack with the frame had been Andrea’s father’s bag, borrowed by the daughter for her trip across Canada to Nova Scotia.

  Ann confirmed Andrea’s mustard-coloured jacket, which she was wearing at the time of her disappearance, had been found with her daughter in woods in Lower Sackville. That fact had initially been reported by ATV back in December of 1992, not long after Andrea was found.

  Ann asked police to send her a photo of Andrea’s jacket. She had requested the photo, but upon reflection, she said seeing it bothered her because “it [the jacket] didn’t look good.”

  The jacket is part of the evidence.

  I did not ask Ann King about the nature of Andrea’s murder or any probing questions about her death because that was not the purpose of my call and primarily, I do not want to jeopardize the ongoing police investigation.

  When the public watched the heart-wrenching story with Ann King tossing the white roses into the woods where her daughter was found, viewers would have assumed incorrectly, as I did, that the King family or Ann herself had bought the flowers for that purpose. She did not.

  A woman, a stranger, had given her the flowers. Ann does not know the woman’s identity, but she said it was one of many examples of caring shown to her and her family by the people of Nova Scotia since 1992.

  “We would go to a restaurant and the bill would be paid for us,” Ann offered, as another example of the generosity of complete strangers.

  A Nova Scotia artist did an oil painting of Andrea, which was about two feet wide and three feet in length, as a gift for the King family. Ann met the painter at the church where Andrea’s memorial was held. It was not during the memorial but another time when Ann had been praying. The woman approached Ann and offered her sympathy and the gift. The artist had the painting shipped from Halifax to British Columbia. In the painting, Andrea is seen at her father’s birthday party, a family gathering held at the house about eight weeks before she went missing. The artist worked up a sketch from a photo of the birthday party and then painted the portrait. The birthday party was the last time the family was together as a group.

  In another show of solidarity and support, a couple from Truro, Nova Scotia, gave Ann and Wayne the use of their car while the Kings were in Nova Scotia on one occasion. Ann explained she had sat next to the woman on a plane ride from British Columbia to Halifax. The woman told Ann she was returning from seeing her son in university. Ann told her about Andrea and the fact her then missing daughter had come to Nova Scotia to scout universities. Once they landed, the couple immediately gave the Kings their own car for the duration of their stay. “The people of Nova Scotia were wonderful,” Ann concluded.

  There has been some lightness in the bleakness. But the blackness has been excruciating. “In my mind, I want to meet that man incarcerated [who is a suspect] to see what kind of person would do this, if he did it,” Ann said.

  As one method of continued support, the entire family goes for counselling: Ann, Wayne, Erica, and Nicole, the youngest of the four girls, who still live at home with their parents. “I am a caregiver at heart. I still like
to look after things,” Ann explained.

  Nicole was born in 1987 and Erica in 1990, which means Ann and Wayne had to cope with a missing daughter and then eleven months later learn Andrea had been murdered – all while caring for the two youngest girls, who were then only five and two years old respectively. They were also trying to assist the two older daughters, Maria and Debra.

  “It affected [Erica and Nicole] in various ways, because it affected us,” Ann said. I did not ask how it has affected the two young women, or any of the other family members, in any detail, and Ann did not offer. Ann did explain daughter Debra has coped well over the past twenty-five years.

  In our interview, Ann expressed a desire to communicate her gratitude to the general public. Without any preplanning, an idea immediately popped into my head as we spoke on the phone. As mentioned, I suggested she write an open letter which I would include, verbatim, in this book. That way she could have control over exactly what she wanted to say, in the face of so much lack of control over many years. Ann immediately agreed to write one.

  She responded via email the following day. Her words about hearing from me again gave me great relief. I had worried I may have caused her or her family upset by opening the lines of communication.

  “Thank you for contacting me, Janice. It is that kind of call that strengthens my faith in humanity. I will write the letter this week. Blessings, Ann,” she responded.

  When Ann eventually sent her letter, which arrived via email within one week, I reread it multiple times; her frankness about her own struggles is moving.