The BC Coroners Service has released new details and an interactive map charting nearly 200 cases of unidentified human remains found in the province, including 19 cases on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.
The service’s goal is to collect any and all new information that could help solve the cases, some of which date back to the 1950s.
“A lot of these are cold cases but we’re hoping that any tip that may seem relatively insignificant to the person providing it, maybe it will open the door,” said BC Coroners Service spokesperson Andy Watson.
The vast majority of the unidentified remains across the province, including those found on Vancouver Island, were male and discovered near busy transportation routes.
“We’ve got almost 200 open investigations,” Watson said. “A lot of the times when remains are found, they’re found in higher traffic, higher profile areas, naturally because you have more population accessing those areas.”
The lone case of unidentified remains in Victoria is those of a man between 30 and 65 years old, found in Beacon Hill Park in the summer of 1988. The man is believed to have been dead for between two weeks and three months before his body was found.
The most recent case of unidentified remains found on the island dates from February 2016, when a man’s foot washed ashore in a black New Balance sneaker near Port Renfrew.
