The Murder of Micheline Pare

Micheline Pare was five-foot-four with brown hair, a dimple on her chin, and wearing blue flare cords when she went missing. She was 18 years old and originally from Quebec but was in the Hudson’s Hope area in British Columbia at the time of her disappearance.

Micheline was seen hitchhiking through the area, which was a common method of transportation during that time. According to police reports, two women had picked her up and dropped her off at the gates of Tompkins Ranch on Highway 20 which is between Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope.

On August 8, 1970, Micheline’s body was found approximately 21 km away. A group of people who were picking berries along the highway discovered her body. Police determined that she had been beaten with a blunt weapon and although her body was too badly decomposed to confirm, they also believed she had been sexually assaulted.

Police circulated a photo of Micheline throughout the area in order to generate leads or information but no arrests were ever made. Since Micheline’s death, an RCMP Task Force called E-PANA was created to investigate the series of unsolved murders along this highway, including Micheline’s. The purpose of the task force was “to determine if a serial killer, or killers, is responsible for murdering young women traveling along major highways in BC” (E-PANA website). To date, however, this case still remains unsolved, as do all the cases along the highway included in E-PANA.

View more cases from the Highway of Tears.