close
close

Le-verdict

News with a Local Lens

Family shares hopes and fears one week after B.C. senior goes missing
minsta

Family shares hopes and fears one week after B.C. senior goes missing

When 82-year-old Jane Whitehouse didn’t pick up her young grandson as planned last Friday, her family knew something was wrong.

“It was very unusual for her not to show up when she said she would and to come get someone when they needed her,” said Jane’s granddaughter, Kendra Craig.

“From there, we reported him missing, called the hospitals – because we initially thought it might have been a car accident,” said his granddaughter Tessa Antosh.

Whitehouse’s family was stunned Sunday when his pickup truck was found abandoned in a creek off a remote logging road an hour’s drive north of Harrison Ho. Springs.

“It seems extremely random, out of place. Not connected at all. She drove where she knew,” Antosh said.

“That’s not like him at all,” Craig added. “It doesn’t make sense for her to drive there.”

Kent Harrison Search and Rescue searched the area for days – on the ground and from the air – but there was no sign of Langley’s grandmother.

“Of course there were discussions about survivability, especially (in) this weather, in the mountains,” Antosh said. “And she wasn’t prepared, she didn’t bring extra clothes with her.”

Langley RCMP released a still image from a surveillance camera that shows Whitehouse driving his pickup truck on this logging road shortly after 4 p.m. last Friday. They also posted an image of a Mercedes SUV going the other direction and believe it was the last vehicle that would have overtaken it. They want to speak to the driver.

Jane Whitehouse is seen driving her van on October 25, 2024, on a remote forest road where the vehicle was later found abandoned. (Handout)

“It’s just looking at the conclusion at this point,” Antosh said. “Of course, there’s a little hope that maybe she’s alive if someone did something, but we don’t have any clues anyway.”

Whitehouse’s granddaughters are pleading with the public to keep looking, hoping someone will remember seeing Whitehouse in the bright green jacket she was wearing the day she disappeared.

“We are going to the Chillwack Christmas market today to hand out our flyers and display them. We assume a lot of people will come and if they are from the Harrison Aggasiz area they will know,” Craig said.

“We would be very gracious as a family to have some form of closure and some way to even get my grandmother back in order to say goodbye to her in a more definitive way,” Antosh said. “Just to hold his hand again.” It was one of my favorite things to do, so it would be lovely.