Families hope for a miracle

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/12/2008 (6354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE — It’s when she talks about buying Christmas gifts in sets of three that Lori McFarland dissolves into tears.

Since her daughter’s disappearance Oct. 19 she has faced sleepless nights, while her days are filled by searching the countryside for clues.

McFarland cries, though, when she talks about how she automatically walked up to a cash register recently with three presents.

Then it hit her at the till: this Christmas, three matching presents for her three daughters was one too many.

McFarland’s daughter, Amber McFarland, is one of two young Portage la Prairie women to go missing this year.

Both Amber, 24, and Jennifer Catcheway, 18, have been missing for months, with their families searching far and wide while RCMP officers investigate the disappearances.

Police have made no arrests and have not suggested there is any connection between the two cases.

Both families believe something terrible has likely happened to their daughters.

Both families are desperate to find them, dead or alive.

Both believe someone, somewhere, has information that could lead them to Jen Catcheway or Amber Lynn McFarland.

Those people, they’ve stressed as weeks pass and desperation mounts, could share that information anonymously.

In Bernice Catcheway’s home — painstakingly decorated with twinkly holiday statuettes — her children huddle around a tree heavy with ornaments watching their mother yet again pleading for information. Sometimes, tips emerge.

Like one about a house party at Dakota Tipi First Nation where Jennifer might have been seen around June 19, a tip later recanted that led searchers there for weeks this summer. There was another tip leading the family to excavate a dump in Grand Rapids.

“All I want is to deal with this. It’s been such an emotional roller coaster ride all these months since June… . Thank God for prayer, because that’s what upheld me all these months. Because one day you hear a tip and you’re running with that. And just again, at the the end of the day, she’s nowhere to be found…. It’s almost you’re ready to grab her and you almost got her.”

Bernice Catcheway said someone can end what she calls “her nightmare.”

“I need to know,” she said.

“If Jennifer is no longer with us, then let me have her. Let me know where she is. Let somebody know where she is. Have some decency. Just let me have her.”

Mary Starr, Catcheway’s oldest daughter, pulls down the shoulder of her sweater to show off her decorative tribute to her sister — a scrawling cursive tattoo on her shoulder bearing her sister’s name and birthday.

Not that you’d have to look long to see reminders of Jen Catcheway in Portage’s North End, with blown-up portraits of the teen plastered on homes.

One of Bernice Catcheway’s kids talks about their mother driving past their homes at night to make sure they’re at home, safe.

Willie Starr, Jen’s brother, sits less than five metres from where his sister sat a year ago, chuckling in a family Christmas day video.

While his sister and mother weep, the 23-year-old hugs them with an angry expression.

That anger also emerges in Amber McFarland’s twin sister, Ashley Hewins.

“I just don’t know how somebody thinks that they have the right to take Amber from us, from her family. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

The new mother says she’s “very lonely” without her sister.

Part of what the McFarland family hasn’t figured out yet is what they’ll do with Christmas gifts they found under Amber’s bed after she went missing. The clothing store worker bought them months before December came.

For the McFarlands and Catcheways, the only thing that gets them through each day is hope for a miracle that will somehow bring their daughters back from an oblivion between alive or dead, lost or found.

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca

Jennifer Leigh Catcheway

Missing since: June 19, when she called her family to say she was heading home for her 18th birthday party in Portage la Prairie.

Last seen: In Grand Rapids, where she’d travelled with two male relatives. Photos of Catcheway have surfaced at a party there, and reports of her in other locations remain unconfirmed.

Police say: Little. A search was conducted by RCMP officers in the Gypsumville area in early July, about two weeks after Catcheway was last seen. At that point, the search involved members of the RCMP major crime and serious crime units.

She looks like: Jennifer has medium length brown hair, hazel eyes, is about 5-7 and weighs about 165 pounds.

Amber Lynn McFarland

Missing since: October 18

Last seen: In Portage la Prairie at the Cat and Fiddle Nite Club. She reportedly left with a former boyfriend. Her car, a Toyota Tercel, was later found in the Canad Inns hotel in Portage, where she had met up with friends earlier to go out.

Family says: “Without Amber, I feel like part of me is gone. Amber is such a huge part of my life, and not having her around I feel very lonely and almost lost… . I miss her with every part of me. The worst part of it all is not knowing where she is. My greatest fear is that I will never see my sister again and that terrifies me.” — Ashley Hewins, Amber’s identical twin

Police say: Little. An alert went out days after McFarland’s disappearance and her family say they stay in close contact with RCMP.

She looks like: Amber has blonde hair, green eyes, is about 5-6 and weighs about 135 pounds. She was wearing a black sweater and blue jeans.

If you have information about the disappearance of Jen Catcheway or Amber Lynn McFarland, Manitoba Crime Stoppers accepts anonymous tips at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), or www.manitobacrimestoppers.com