DNA could prove fate of Jessie Foster
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From: The Province
March 28, 2008
By: Suzanne Fornier
Grant made increasingly frantic calls to Las Vegas, including to Todd, who claimed Foster had moved out.
Hoyt said more than one man, including Todd, has been questioned in connection with Foster's disappearance, but he couldn't reveal any details about the "ongoing investigation."
Grant said Foster will turn 24 on May 27 and that she "desperately hopes" to have positive news about her daughter's fate by then.
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Jessie Foster reward upped to $50,000
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From: Kamloops Daily News
December 27, 2007
By: Jason Hewlett
The family upped the reward after learning that a woman who may have information on Jessie’s disappearance seems to have slipped through the fingers of Canadian authorities.
Grant has been trying to speak to American Yvonne Hubrechtsen – an alleged sex-trade worker – since Jessie went missing.
Jessie gave her mom Hubrechtsen’s number as a contact number after moving to Vegas, but Grant never needed to use it until she lost contact with her daughter.
When Grant eventually tried the number, the woman who answered refused to co-operate.
“I have never been able to talk to her,” Grant said.
Then she learned through the media that Hubrechtsen had been living in Vancouver until authorities arrested and deported her back to the states on Dec. 19.
Vancouver police arrested Hubrechtsen on a Canada Border Services warrant for having illegally entered the country by not revealing her criminal record.
Grant is convinced Hubrechtsen, 22, is part of a group of acquaintances that brought her daughter to Vegas with promises of a lavish lifestyle, then forced her into a prostitution ring.
Jessie was 21 when she went missing in March 2006. Once a straight-A student, she traveled to the U.S. in the spring of 2005 with a man she met at a party who promised to pay the way.
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Social networking sites used for human trafficking
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From: Edmonton Sun
November 11, 2007
By: Andrew Hanin
He said that while human-trafficking ‘criminal enterprises’ have operated in Western Canada for at least 20 years—and for decades longer in central Canada—they’re more sophisticated than ever before.
They do most of their recruiting on social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace, choosing naïve or vulnerable victims for “grooming” who are right around 18 years old in order to avoid detection by authorities looking for predators after underage kids.
Asked how many young Albertans are caught up in this web each year, Galvin replied simply, “hundreds.” Most are women, he said, but young men are also targets.
Galvin said that typically, a man will develop an online relationship with the victim, selling himself as a glamourous high roller.
Once he begun to reel in the victim, he makes a date to meet her. A whirlwind romance follows.
“She gets the red carpet treatment,” Galvin explained, “limos, expensive restaurants, VIP rooms at night clubs. Everything mirrors the pop culture ideal of good times. These guys can read the girls really well. She thinks he’s her boyfriend.”
After four or five dizzyingly spectacular dates, the predator will invite her to a private party.
When she arrives, however, she might be the only woman there. There are never more than one or two other women who are also victims.
She will be gang-raped and subjected to unspeakable humiliation. She might be drugged.
“Her ‘boyfriend’ will tell her what’s expected of her,“ Galvin said. “She’s told the event will occur anyways. She can either fight or submit to it, but it’s going to happen.”
She will be threatened with death if she goes to police. Her family might also be threatened.
Victims are typically taken to another city, where they’re further groomed by a group of women already in the sex trade. They’re taught how to dress, act and how to avoid police. At the same time they’re further broken down by beatings and threats.
Once they’re deemed ready and compliant, the victims are taken to the U.S. and pimped as high-priced call girls.
Galvin said Canadian women often end up in Las Vegas, and can be pimped to rich johns for up to $10,000 per weekend.
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Former Lillooet resident continues her search for missing daughter
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From: Lillooet News
May 9, 2007
By: Wendy Fraser
Jessie left Canada in 2005 after a male friend from Calgary persuaded her to take a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They also visited New York City and Atlantic City before winding up in May 2005 in Las Vegas, the glamourous and glitzy gambling mecca.
Glendene Grant later learned that those four cities are known as hubs for human trafficking. She and her family now suspect the male friend was a recruiter for the sex trade.
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