Category Archives: Life & Death

IS A SERIAL KILLER LOOSE ON THE HIGHWAY OF TEARS?

There’s a lonely road stretch in remote northwestern British Columbia, Canada having a huge number of unsolved missing and murdered women cases. It spans 450 miles between the small cities of Prince George in the province’s interior and Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast. Over the past 40 years, more than 40 women mysteriously disappeared or died from foul play in that area. Most of their circumstances remain unknown. The road’s geographically known as #16 or the Yellowhead Route but—for good reason—locals call it the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears murders and the women’s suspicious disappearances began in 1969. They continue today with the last case of modus operandi (MO) similarities happening in December 2018. Although police officially remain cautious about confirming links, many in-the-know suspect there may be many more crimes with victims fitting the mold.

In 2005, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) formed a task force called E-Pana to look at the area’s unsolved missing and murdered women cases. The RCMP is Canada’s federal force having jurisdiction across the nation and in the region. The task force initially identified 18 cases but soon expanded their investigation to include similar files eastward along Route 16 to Hinton, Alberta as well as south along Highway 97 to Kamloops, BC and along Highway 5 from Merritt to Clearwater.

Two significant independent government inquiries or investigations into the Highway of Tears and related matters also happened. One was a British Columbia Provincial Symposium held in 2006. The other—a recent, national commission called the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Inquiry. It’s called that because many victims were of indigenous or First Nations ethnicity.

Despite the massive police and public effort, no one’s been caught for most of the crimes. As well, many of the victim’s bodies remain hidden and undiscovered. That leaves people wondering if there’s a serial killer loose on the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears Victims

Without exception, every victim in the Highway of Tears (HOT) sphere is female. That includes confirmed murders as well as unsolved disappearances. Another harsh fact is many victims originated from aboriginal or First Nations backgrounds. It’s a reality that can’t be overlooked.

Project E-Pana (named so after the Inuit spirit that guides souls to the afterlife) used four criteria to qualify a murder or suspicious disappearance as a Highway of Tears or HOT case. These parameters were sound and valid, as many homicide and missing persons cases in the north have other circumstances that don’t suggest a commonality the HOT files have. Out of great precaution, HOT investigators are very careful about using the “SK-word”—Serial Killer. To be on the HOT list, the E-Pana victim profiles are:

  • Female
  • High-risk lifestyle
  • Known to hitchhike
  • Found or last seen near Highways 16, 97 & 5

Females who hitchhike and practice a high-risk lifestyle around this remote road network are easy prey. Many come from physical, sexual and substance abusive backgrounds. Many are sex workers and drug users as well as having alcoholic tendencies and serious mental/emotional disorders. And, many women victims are from indigenous communities with a host of social problems.

Police investigators feel most, if not all, Highway of Tears cases are stranger-to-stranger relationships. Police don’t like the serial killer term because of public ramifications, but it’s a classic serial killer pattern to pick up strangers and have their way. Most lone-operating killers leave little evidence behind at their crime scenes, take little with them, make sure there are no independent witnesses and they rarely confess. That combination makes these predators so hard to catch.

First Nations women are particularly vulnerable. Along the main Highway of Tears stretch from Prince Rupert to Prince George there are 23 different indigenous communities or reserves. Most of these little places have few facilities like medical services, educational outlets and recreational opportunities. As well, poverty is a gigantic problem in Canada’s First Peoples settlements. They simply can’t afford private transportation.

Combined with personal issues and the need to be mobile, many at-risk women are alone on side of the road with their thumb out. They’re perfect opportunities for men with deviant desire. Here is a list of who fell victim in the deadly web called the Highway of Tears and throughout the entire region.

  • Gloria Moody — 27, Murdered near Williams Lake, October 1969
  • Micheline Pare — 18, Murdered near Hudson’s Hope, July 1970
  • Helen Claire Frost — 15, Missing from Prince George, October 1970
  • Jean Virginia Sampare — 18, Missing from Hazelton, October 1971
  • Gayle Weys — 19, Murdered near Clearwater, October 1973
  • Pamela Darlington — 19, Murdered at Kamloops, November 1973
  • Coleen MacMillan — 16, Murdered near Lac La Hache, August 1974
  • Monica Ignas — 15, Murdered near Terrace, December 1974
  • Mary Jane Hill — 31, Murdered at Prince Rupert, March 1978
  • Monica Jack — 12, Murdered near Merritt, May 1978
  • Maureen Mosie — 33, Murdered near Salmon Arm, May 1981
  • Jean May Kovacs — 36, Murdered at Prince George, October 1981
  • Roswitha Fuchsbichler — 13, Murdered at Prince George, November 1981
  • Nina Marie Joseph — 15, Murdered at Prince George, August 1982
  • Shelley-Anne Bascu — 16, Missing from Hinton, May 1983
  • Alberta Gail Williams — 24, Murdered near Prince Rupert, August  1989
  • Cecilia Anne Nikal — 15, Missing from Smithers, October 1989
  • Delphine Anne Nikal — 15, Missing from Smithers, June 1990
  • Theresa Umphrey — 38, Murdered near Prince George, February 1993
  • Marnie Blanchard — 18, Murdered near Prince George, March 1993
  • Ramona Lisa Wilson — 16, Murdered near Smithers, June 1994
  • Roxanne Thiara — 15, Murdered near Burns Lake, November 1994
  • Alishia Leah Germaine — 15, Murdered at Prince George, November 1994
  • Lana Derrick — 19, Missing from Terrace, October 1995
  • Deena Braem — 16, Murdered near Quesnel, September 1999
  • Monica McKay — 18, Murdered at Prince Rupert, December 1999
  • Nicole Hoar — 24, Missing from Prince George, June 2002
  • Mary Madeline George — 25, Missing from Prince George, July 2005
  • Tamara Lynn Chipman — 22, Missing from Prince Rupert, September 2005
  • Aielah Saric Auger — 14, Murdered at Prince George, February 2006
  • Beverly Warbick — 20, Missing from Prince George, June 2007
  • Bonnie Marie Joseph — 32, Missing from Vanderhoof, September 2007
  • Jill Stacey Stuchenko — 35, Murdered near Prince George, October 2009
  • Emmalee Rose McLean — 16, Murdered at Prince Rupert, April 2010
  • Natasha Lynn Montgomery — 23, Murdered at Prince George, August 2010
  • Cynthia Frances Maas— 35, Murdered near Prince George, September 2010
  • Loren Dawn Leslie — 15, Murdered near Prince George, November 2010
  • Madison “Maddy” Scott — 20, Missing near Vanderhoof, May 2011
  • Immaculate “Mackie” Basil — 26, Missing near Fort St. James, June 2013
  • Anita Florence Thorne — 49, Missing from Prince George, November 2014
  • Roberta Marie Sims — 55, Missing from Prince George, May 2017
  • Frances Brown — 53, Missing near Smithers, October 2017
  • Chantelle Catherine Simpson — 34, Suspicious Death at Terrace, July 2018
  • Jessica Patrick — 18, Murdered near Smithers, September 2018
  • Cynthia Martin — 50, Missing near Hazelton, December 2018

The Case for a Highway of Tears Serial Killer

These 40+ known cases all have a similarity beyond the E-Pana parameters. That’s the peculiar pattern of how they met their fate. Investigators assume most victims did not know their assailant and unsuspectingly fell into a fatal trap. And that trap may have been set by a serial offender.

Before assuming that one or more serial killers have been on the loose in the E-Pana project and the entire cases associated to the general Highway of Tears area, it’s necessary to define what a serial killer is. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a serial killer is an offender who commits “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone.” Serial murder is defined as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.”

This is a fairly tight description for a multiple killer. It fits someone on a path or destiny rather than a mass-murderer who goes on one rampage and causes numerous deaths. Most people associate serial killers with notorious Americans like Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway or Albert DeSalvo. They were particularly nasty people. But, British Columbia had its share of these vicious villains. Noteworthy BC serial killers were Clifford Olson who killed 10 or more children and Robert “Willie” Pickton who did-in 49 women and fed them to his pigs.

Most serial killers operate alone and have a distinctive pattern or modus operandi. Experienced police investigators know to look for crime patterns and identify similarities. One of the main indicators is victim profiling. In almost all of the cases brought under the Highway of Tears investigation umbrella, the victim’s background and vulnerability stand out. Other indicators are the time frame and location.

In missing persons cases, investigators naturally start with where and when the victim was last seen. They also look for abandoned items such as a vehicle, their purse and contents or their phone. Where bodies are found, investigators look for the mechanism or means of death. Most of the Highway of Tears and related victims were strangled—the exact strangulation method being held back as it’s known only to the police and the perpetrator.

In the Highway of Tears periphery—and it is a periphery because what started as an investigation along the Prince George to Prince Rupert road quickly branched off to a much bigger area where a mobile serial killer could have easily traveled within a day. What’s really notable in this overall murder and missing persons combined investigation are the time periods. There are nine distinct activity calendar groups:

  • 1969-1974
  • 1978
  • 1981-1983
  • 1989-1990
  • 1993-1995
  • 1999-2002
  • 2005-2007
  • 2009-2014
  • 2017-2018

This date grouping shows a burst of start-stop, start-stop and start-stop. There could be many reasons for this such as the perpetrator being repeatedly incarcerated, moving out of the geographical area or, in the case of Gary Ridgway—the Green River Killer from Seattle—he nearly got caught and thought he’d give it a rest for a while. But, it seems more likely there are multiple offenders in the overall Highway of Tears file. In fact, police have already caught, convicted or identified five different HOT-profile men.

The Police Catch or Identify Serial Killers in the Highway of Tears Investigation

To be fair, not all the murdered or missing women in the previous list are true Highway of Tears victims from BC Highways 16, 97 & 5. As the investigation grew, it expanded to include a wide net of confirmed or suspected murders across the mid-section of semi-rural British Columbia. That was a natural progression. It’s a logical and competent way of investigating a broad range of offense dates and locations.

Long before the E-Pana probe in 2005, which started as a look at the cases on Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, the RCMP knew there was a pattern emerging. In 1981, they held a multi-jurisdictional meeting called The Highway Murders Conference to look at commonalities of historic unsolved murders and missing persons cases. Over 40 detectives from across BC and Alberta met in Kamloops and presented their case facts. This was the original start to a massive investigation that’s still highly-active today.

In the years following the Highway Murder Conference, the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies solved some of the “HOT” killings and disappearances. They were able to profile offenders under the FBI’s serial killer definition. Here are the five serial killers known to have committed murders on the overall HOT list.

1. Cody Alan Legebokoff  — He was convicted of the 2009/2010 Jill Stuchenko, Natasha Montgomery, Loren Leslie and Cynthia Maas murders near Prince George. Legebokoff is serving life in prison.

2. Brian Peter Arp — He was convicted of the 1989 near-Prince George murders of Theresa Umphrey and Marnie Blanchard. Arp is also serving a life sentence.

3. Edward Dennis Issac — He was convicted of the 1981/1892 murders of Nina Joseph, Jean Kovacs and Roswitha Fuchsbichler in Prince George. Issac is still serving out his life sentence

4, Gary Wayne Hanlin — He was convicted of the 1978 Monica Jack murder at Merritt and faces new charges for killing another pre-teen girl. Hanlin got a life sentence, as well.

5. Bobby Jack Fowler — This known serial killer died in an Oregon prison in 1986. Post-death DNA analysis linked Fowler to causing the 1973/1974 Kamloops area murders of Coleen McMillan, Gail Weys and Pamela Darlington. Given the time frame pattern and location, Fowler may also have killed Monica Ignas in Terrace.

Known Highway of Tears Serial Killer Bobby Jack Fowler – MacMillan, Weys & Darlington murders

The Highway of Tears Public Investigations and Inquiries

Over the years, the mass of unsolved murders and missing women’s cases have been front and center in British Columbia and Canadian spectrums. Local, national and international interest spread, and took on a scope much larger than the cases committed along the original roadway called the Highway of Tears. Hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of dollar have been exhausted trying to rectify what went wrong and how future tragedies could be prevented.

In 2006, the British Columbia probe called the Highway of Tears Symposium released a report with an objective look at the entire factors causing victim vulnerability. They made rational and constructive recommendations that, if correctly implemented, could drastically reduce the potential for other women to end up on the HOT list. The symposium divided their solution into these four categories:

  • Victim Prevention
  • Emergency Planning and Team Readiness
  • Victim Family Counselling and Support
  • Community Development and Support

The Highway of Tears Symposium offered 33 separate recommendations on how to reduce victim risk and how to organize a holistic crime prevention program throughout the at-risk region. Most of the recommendations were solid, common-sense steps that could be practically implemented. One of the primary actions was to increase public transit along Highway 16 so the women wouldn’t need to hitchhike.

Other smart points in the action plan were making the police and public officials more responsible for spotting women placing themselves at risk and intervening on the side of the road. The report recommended a network of safe houses and a community watch program be integrated across the area. Many more recommendations addressed education and economic support for vulnerable women.

It’s been 13 years since the Highway of Tears Symposium did its necessary and valuable work. Sadly, very few of their well-thought-out suggestions ever materialized. An example is that it took 11 years before a simple and reliably-scheduled public transit bus service hit the Yellowhead Highway. Some of the risk prevention literature has been well written and promoted, though.

The Canadian Federal Government’s cross-country consortium called the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (IMMIWG) took public problem probing to a whole new level. What started as a Highway of Tears inquiry expanding the plight of First Nations women turned into a f-fest where three of the leading commissioners quit in frustration and disgust. It seemed everyone with a grievance to grind and an agenda to advance hijacked the focus and spun it around. By the time the $53.8 million off-track inquisition ended, the indigenous women core concern expanded to include every fringe interest lumped into a category called 2SLGBTQQIA. That’s an acronym for 2 Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex and Asexual.

On June 4, 2019, the Canadian Prime Minister championed the IMMIWG report release with this quote, “Earlier this morning, the national inquiry formally presented their report, in which they found that the tragic violence that Indigenous women and girls have experienced amounts to genocide”. The Prime Minister’s critics were quick to point out the United Nations definition of genocide:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

What started as a well-intentioned review of what happened to cause the Highway of Tears-related murders and suspicious disappearances totally missed the mark in the Canadian Federal Government’s sights. While the HOT Symposium operated with honorable intentions, the IMMIWG was a farce. It contributed little, if nothing, to the cause and likely did more harm than good. The IMMIWG failed to make positive recommendations for future harm prevention and investigation improvements. Ultimately, the IMMIWG blamed colonialism for oppressive behavior on margins of society. It seems the IMMIWG forgot many of the Highway of Tears victims were white heterosexual women born and raised in mainstream Canada.

Is a Serial Killer Loose on the Highway of Tears?

The answer is yes and no. There isn’t , and never has been, one lone serial killer continually at work on the Highway of Tears or in the surrounding geographical area. The right answer is there are many serial killers out there who’ve traveled those remote highways for years. Without a doubt, at least five separate serial killers contributed to some of the forty-year carnage. It’s highly-likely a large number of the yet-unsolved cases are the work of still-to-be-caught perpetrators. And, it’s also highly-likely some murders and abductions are one-offs.

Will all the Highway of Tears related murders eventually be solved? It’s highly-unlikely that’ll happen given the time gone by and the limited evidence available. However, there’s good reason to be optimistic some old and cold cases will be cleared. Back in the 70s, no one saw how powerful forensic DNA typing would be. We’re only now starting to tap the new familial database mines. Back in the 70s, no one saw how effective the Mister Big undercover sting would work on serial killers. And, back in the 70s, information sharing was nothing like what’s happening today.

So, no one knows what’s to come. Thanks to high-tech science combining with cool cop creative minds, we’re in for an interesting crime-solving drive down the Highway of Tears.

IS MISSING MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 370 A MASS MURDER?

What really happened to missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is aviation’s great mystery. On March 8, 2014, the doomed Boeing 777-200ER left Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, China with 239 souls on board—227 passengers and 12 crew members. They never made it. Five years later, their disappearance remains unexplained. Either it’s a tragic accident of unprecedented proportions or MAS370 is a mass murder.

Malaysia Air Flight 370 (also called MH370) routinely lifted off KUL runway 32R at 12:42 am local time. The jetliner headed north-northeast for a 5.5-hour trip crossing the South China Sea towards Vietnam and on a course for China’s capital city. Its predicted arrival was 6:10 am with Beijing being in the same time zone as Kuala Lumpur.

MAS370’s first 27 minutes appeared normal from Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control (ATC) voice and radar records. The last radio transmission between the airliner and ATC Kuala Lumpur was at 1:19 am. This was the pilot acknowledging the controller’s direction to turn over Flight 370’s supervision to Vietnamese airspace at ATC Ho Chi Minh City on the 120.9 radio frequency. The last words from the plane were, “Goodnight. Malaysian three seven zero.”

At this time, the jetliner leveled to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet with a ground speed of 510 knots. This was normal for the flight. However, at 1:22 am something completely abnormal suddenly occurred. Malaysia Air Flight 370’s transponder stopped, and the plane’s electronic image vanished from ATC Kuala Lumpur’s radar screen.

A vanishing transponder image should raise a red flag and set off alarms. This, however, was an unusual situation because the airplane was at a critical location where it was changing from one Area Control Center (ACC) to another. Coincidentally, it also happened at a moment where the responsible controller at ATC Kuala Lumpur was distracted by another matter and didn’t catch Flight 370’s transponder loss.

But, ATC in Ho Chi Minh noticed the vanishing transponder. They were expecting the flight and knew it was being handed over as it flew into their airspace. What the Vietnamese controller didn’t know was a formal protocol that they were to immediately notify Kuala Lumpur ATC of the issue. Instead, ATC Ho Chi Minh repeatedly tried to radio Flight 370 but got no response. 18 minutes passed after the transponder stopped before ATC Ho Chi Minh telephoned ATC Kuala Lumpur and alerted them to the disappearance.

Hindsight is usually 20/20, but there was considerable confusion—if not incompetence—within both control centers. Kuala Lumpur looked at the issue as being in Vietnamese airspace when it vanished and therefore their jurisdictional problem. Ho Chi Minh viewed it as a Malaysian airliner belonging to them. By 6:10 am, Flight 370 was overdue in Beijing, and it wasn’t until 6:32 am before Kuala Lumpur’s Aeronautical Rescue Coordination Center was notified to begin an emergency response. 5 hours and 10 minutes passed since Flight 370 disappeared from both ATC radar screens.

The Search Begins

The search for Malaysia Air Flight 370 is the most extensive and expensive aviation hunt in history. Officially, the Malaysian government headed the search and the subsequent investigation. Unofficially, Australia took the lead because of their resource capabilities of searching the air and the sea. Many countries joined in including the United States, France, Great Britain, China, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Between March 08 and April 28, the combined forces involved 19 naval vessels and 347 aerial sorties. They crisscrossed 1,800,000 square miles of ocean and land surface as well as examining a seafloor area with sonar and bathymetric methods. Not a trace of the plane was found during that period.

Initially, the search focused on the location where the transponder contact stopped. From there, the searchers followed a logical path along the airplane’s destined route of approximately 38° northeast over the South China Sea. It took approximately a week until an investigation into radar records showed something drastically different.

The aviation industry and national defense forces use two radar types. One is primary radar that sends a signal that “pings” or bounces off an object like a plane. When struck by a primary radar wave, the aircraft has no choice but to be seen. Primary radar is the preferred choice of all military installations. The enemy can’t hide except under stealth conditions.

Civilian air traffic controllers like the secondary radar system. This involves cooperating airplanes volunteering a data-rich signal through their on-board transponders. A transponder signal gives the controller vital details like the crafts identity, its altitude, flight plan, speed and so forth. The problem with secondary radar and transponder signals is they can be voluntarily turned off.

It was soon evident Flight 370’s transponder was intentionally disabled. Primary radar images and records obtained from the Thai, Viet and Malaysian military showed 370 stayed in the sky for a long time after its transponder stopped. Military radar proved Flight 370 made an abrupt left turn immediately after the secondary civilian radar lost the track. Flight 370 turned into an extremely sharp bank towards the southwest and flew on an approximately 230° course back over Malaysia and to Kuala Lumpur’s northwest.

Thai and Malaysian military radar records showed Flight 370 passing over the island of Penang at 1:52 heading out and over the Strait of Malacca. Just past Penang, Flight 370 again altered course to a west-northwest bearing of approximately 275°. This alteration avoided crossing Indonesia. The last primary contact was at 2:22 am when Flight 370 left the outer limits of the Malaysian military’s radar. At that time, the plane was at 29,500 feet, traveling at 491 knots and located 285 miles northwest of the Penang military installation.

This might have been the last radar contact with Malaysia Air Flight 370. But, it was far from the last time it was tracked. Two minutes after flying off primary radar, the airplane automatically connected with a communications satellite which continued to monitor the plane until 8:19 am. That’s 6 hours and 57 minutes after the transponder went silent.

The Inmarsat Satellite Information

The satellite was a British-based Inmarsat-3F1 in geostatic orbit above the Indian Ocean. The Boeing 777 was equipped with an Aeronautical Satellite Communication (SATCOM) system that allowed cockpit voice communication and critical in-flight data to be sent from anywhere in the world. Boeing designs these jets to be in constant electronic contact at all times regardless of where they are.

It’s impossible to get lost in a 777, but it’s easy to hide in one—as long as the operator knows what they’re doing. Aside from the transponder going silent at 1:22 am, the aircraft’s electronic systems were also disabled. This lasted until 2:25 am—just after leaving the last grasp of primary radar range from Penang.

The Inmarsat was minding its own business when it got an unsolicited ping from Flight 370’s Satellite Data Unit (SDU). As it’s designed to do, the satellite recognized Flight 370’s “log-on request” and responded with a protocol interrogation process known in the industry as a “handshake”. The plane’s SDU automatically replied to Inmarsat and the plane & satellite entered into an agreement of regular 30-minute interval check-ins. It continued until 8:19 am when contact was permanently broken.

Human monitors at Inmarsat’s ground monitoring station in Perth, Australia immediately recognized an unidentified airplane had unexpectedly contacted them. They made two ground-to-aircraft telephone calls to Flight 370. The plane’s SDU acknowledged both, but no one on board the mysterious jetliner answered.

Inmarsat continued 30-minute “handshake” contacts with Flight 370. At 7:13 am the Perth station tried another ground-to-air phone call. It, too, was unanswered. At 8:19 am there was a log-off interruption from Flight 370 followed by an immediate log-on request and another interruption.

It took a week after Flight 370 disappeared to analyze the full Inmarsat information and put it to use in locating the plane’s final location when it signed-off at 8:19 am. Essentially, the Inmarsat data showed the first contact with Flight 370 right after it left conventional radar range. That was at 2:25 am and the Boeing 777’s location was approximately 300 miles northwest of Penang.

However, in the 3 minutes since going off military radar and connecting with Inmarsat, Flight 370 had drastically altered course. Now the jet was bearing approximately 190° in a south-southwest direction. It had made an 85° left turn once it was off military radar.

Inmarsat technicians spent a lot of effort analyzing data transmitted by Flight 370 in the period they tracked it. This was a difficult chore because the Inmarsat spacecraft was made to communicate with ships and planes, not to track them. They worked with principles called burst time offset (BTO) and burst frequency offset (BFO).

Ultimately, Inmarsat experts calculated a series of Doppler Arcs which gave them a high-probability flight line. By working with Boeing engineers, the team extrapolated information about the plane’s speed and fuel capacity. This allowed them to zero-in on a likely location where Flight 370 exhausted its fuel, extinguished its engines and crashed into the sea.

The suspected crash site was in the Southern Indian Ocean. It was approximately 1,400 miles west of the Australian continent and about the same distance from the northern regions of Antarctica. This is one of the most remote ocean locations on Earth and an area where the seafloor was unexplored.

With this apparently credible military radar and Inmarsat information, the search for Malaysia Air Flight 370 moved from the South China Sea to the rough and hostile waters of the lower Indian Ocean. The Australian Navy did its best to search for the telltale pings from the Boeing’s black boxes, however, the batteries had a 30-day energy period that expired. A private American company conducted a second underwater search but also came up empty-handed.

Debris from Malaysian Flight 370 Washes Up

Despite the massive air and sea search done in the months after Flight 370 vanished, not one scrap of physical evidence surfaced to conclusively prove the plane had, in fact, crashed. That changed in July 2015 when an aircraft component called a “flaperon” washed up on a beach of Reunion Island. This remote volcanic landmass is a French protectorate situated 500 miles east of Madagascar and about 3,000 miles northwest from the calculated crash area.

A flaperon is a component from a jetliner’s trailing wing edge. It’s part of the air-braking system where flaps get lowered to slow the airplane down and give it more lift. French authorities who received the flaperon from Reunion’s shore made a conclusive connection to Flight 370 due to a serial number etched into the metal.

This was the first proof that Flight 370 had crashed. Engineers were able to tell that the flaps were up, or in a non-extended position, when the jet impacted the water. They also concluded from the stress fracture damage that the plane had hit the water at high speed and in a downward, nose-first angle.

Finding a smashed part from Flight 370 was a devastating blow to families of the doomed passengers and flight crew. To this point, some held hope that somehow the plane’s disappearance had some other explanation than crashing and that somehow—somewhere—their loved ones survived and waited rescuing.

Over the following months of 2015 and 2016, more than 20 more demolished parts of the shredded passenger jet were found along Indian Ocean shorelines. Oceanographers familiar with wind, wave, tide and current behavior tend to agree that the washed-up debris pattern was consistent with originating from the previously-calculated crash location.

 

To this date, no bodies or personal effects of the victims have been found. There are no more planned searches, and the official investigations by the Malaysian government, their police and their transportation safety authorities have stopped. All acknowledge that Flight 370 crashed into the Indian Ocean but none make any conclusion of why it happened. The official cause is listed as “Undetermined”.

What Caused Malaysian Air Flight 370 to Crash?

There are many theories about what caused Malaysia Air Flight 370 to crash. Some are far-out conspiracy BS like it being abducted by aliens or stolen by the Russians and parked in a secret hanger in Kamchatka. There are internet posts and podcasts concluding the plane was struck by a meteorite and vaporized. Some part-time sleuths suggest that the Malaysian government who owns the airline ordered it destroyed as part of a cover-up for reasons unknown.

Setting aside the inevitable conspiracy theories that always arise in high-profile events, there are only two reasonable explanations for Flight 370’s erratic behavior and ultimate fate. One is the airplane suddenly experienced a massive depressurization which sent the flight crew into an immediate hypoxia event rendering them oxygen-starved and unable to function. The other theory is that someone very familiar with operating a Boeing 777-200ER intentionally sabotaged the flight that caused 239 human deaths.

The first scenario about catastrophic depressurization is worth exploring. An article in the respected journal Air & Space Magazine analyzes the mechanics of a depressurization event and how they’ve caused fatal air crashes in the past. It’s an interesting exercise in flight science but the article fails to deal with facts like intentionally disabling the transponder precisely when it happened and the erratic flight path which was certainly done by someone manually flying and aggressively handling a large commercial aircraft like a Boeing 777.

That leads to the other theory that a crew member went rogue. Before dismissing this as an impossibility, there are four previously-recorded episodes of a flight crew member intentionally downing their plane and killing their passengers. They are:

  • 1997 — Singapore Silkair Boeing 737
  • 1999 — EgyptAir Flight 990
  • 2013 — LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470
  • 2015 — Germanwings Airbus in the French Alps

In these four cases, there was no pre-warning about the perpetrator’s awful intent. In hindsight of the investigation, though, there were signs of a troubled individual and considerable pre-planning. That seems to be the case with Malaysia Air Flight 370.

First Officer Fariq (l) Captain Zaharie (r)

A Boeing 777 on short-haul flights only requires a two-person flight control crew. That’s the pilot-in-command, or captain, and the second-in-command known as the first officer. On fateful Flight 370, the first officer was Fariq Abdul Hamid and the captain was Zaharie Ahmad Shah. In Malaysian custom, they were known as First Officer Fariq and Captain Zaharie.

First Officer Fariq is a highly-unlikely suspect to do anything as horrifying as intentionally crashing his plane and killing his people. Fariq was 27 years old and about to be married. He had flying experience on Boeing 737s and the AirbusA330 but only had 39 hours so far on the big 777. Fariq was a pilot-in-training on the triple-seven and under Captain Zaharie’s direct supervision.

The “Captain-Did-It” Theory

53-year-old Captain Zaharie, on the other hand, was highly experienced. He’d been with Malaysian Airlines for 33 years and had over 18,000 flight hours. A good deal of that time was as pilot-in-command on Boeing 777s. However, in his personal life, Zaharie showed signs of clinical depression and moving toward mental instability. His wife had left him and he was living alone. Much of his off-hours were spent on his home-based computerized flight simulator.

At the request of Malaysian Air and Zaharie’s family, the FBI analyzed the history in Zaharie’s simulator hard drive. They found many plotted flights. One had the exact route fatal Flight 370 took. Zaharie simulated leaving Kuala Lumpur, then reached the radio hand-off position between Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace. Here, he made a hard left-hand turn and followed weigh-points that kept him on an international edge between Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. That simulated flight plan effectively kept him from being intercepted by each country’s military fighter planes although he would have known they’d be monitoring him on primary radar.

The simulator also recorded the hard left-hand bank once past Penang and the long, steady line towards Antarctica. There was one distinct difference, though, between this simulated flight and many others Zaharie had in his computer. The others had him landing at a destination and safely debarking. This simulation did not.

Malaysian Airlines Captain Zaharie with his Home Flight Simulator

There’s a reasonable case to be made that Captain Zaharie deliberately planned and carried out his own death and that of 238 innocent people. One big question is how he was able to quickly incapacitate First Officer Fariq, his cabin crew and all the passengers who had access to mobile communication devices. The easy answer is Zaharie sent Fariq out of the cockpit, locked it, then put on his oxygen mask and instantly depressurized the plane.

The theory carries that Zaharie cut the electrical runs and accelerated the aircraft, immediately climbing to 40,000 feet where his panicky occupants would be overcome by a lack of air. In the mass confusion and commotion, it’s unlikely anyone would have thought to make an outside call. At 40,000 feet, the emergency oxygen masks—the yellow cups hanging from the ceiling—would have been useless. Everyone on board that plane would be dead within minutes. Except for Captain Zaharie.

He would be perfectly fine breathing his cockpit reserve air until he was able to descend the plane back to 30,000 feet and re-pressurize the system. He made precise turns to avoid detection and, once off primary radar, he likely re-energized the plane’s electrical runs which set off the SDU’s automatic reboot. Zaharie might not have even known that Inmarsat was following him.

At what time Captain Zaharie’s life was over, we’ll likely never know. Perhaps he stayed awake and enjoyed the long and steady ride toward his doom in the Indian Ocean. It’s almost unfathomable to envision a lone pilot commanding a plane full of death but, then, it’s almost unfathomable to believe this really happened. As for motive—why Zaharie would’ve done this—it’s truly incomprehensible.

It the “Captain-Did-It” theory is wrong, then this is a tragic accident of unprecedented proportions. If the theory is right, undoubtedly the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is a mass murder.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PERSONAL DNA TESTING

Personal DNA testing is a huge business. Genetic profiling on an individual or home-based level is a multi-million dollar industry that’s tripling each year. As the biological identification process becomes faster, easier and cheaper, more and more people are submitting their spit. What they’re finding can be fascinating—or terrifying—which makes some folks reluctant to try. But, if you’re curious about checking out your molecular makeup, here’s what you need to know about personal DNA testing.

DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s the basic building block of organic life—the blueprint prescribing every bit of non-local as well as tangible information required to make a bee a bee, a bird a bird, and a beluga a beluga. DNA is also what makes you… you.

About 99 percent of your DNA is universal to the living world. You share most of the same biological codes with other carbon-based life forms. As you move closer to your mammalian cousins like the apes or the now-extinct Neanderthals, that 1 percent of your human coding narrows. By the time you reach your individual family level, DNA gets very unique.

Your personal DNA profile is as individual to you as your fingerprints. That’s unless you have an identical or monozygotic twin, in which case you’d have the same genetic blueprint. Or, you might be an exceptionally rare occurrence known as a chimera. In that event, you’d have two different DNA profiles within your cells.

How DNA Operates in Human Cells

Cells allow you to be a living human. Every part of you, from your blood to your bones to your brain, is made of individual cells. There’s no way to count the number of cells in your body as they’re constantly changing. You have more cells as you grow from a toddler to a teen and less cell material when you succeed on your diet.

It’s estimated the human body, like yours, completely recreates itself every month or so. New cells replace your old cells and life goes on until you die. Then your cells stop reproducing, and you begin decomposing which is an entire science of its own.

The amazing thing about your cell regeneration is that, for the most part, they perfectly reproduce. That’s thanks to the specific information encoded in your DNA. Without DNA direction, you’d be like trying to repeatedly rebuild the space station without the plans.

What makes you unique as a human being, rather than an ape, is your chromosomes. These are particular chapters in your DNA playbook and appear as lengths of information in your genome sequence. As humans, we have 22 pairs of chromosomes that direct everything from skin color to disease resistance. It’s problems with information breakdown in chromosomes that are leading causes of birth defects and inherited disorders.

There’s a distinct difference in boys and girls and women and men. That’s because of the 23rd pair of chromosomes that complete our human makeup. All females have two X-chromosomes in their last pair while males have one X chromosome complimented with a single Y-chromosome. Genetically, female chromosome equations get expressed as 22+XX while males are 22+XY.

The numbers associated with the human genome project, and where DNA fits in, are truly staggering. It’s a wonder we function at all. There are four biological building blocks in your DNA which are nucleotide chemical bases—adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) and guanine (G). You have approximately 3.2 billion pairs of A, T, C and G in your cellular makeup. That’s a total of 6.4 billion letters describing your DNA genome code which contains 6,500 segments known as centimorgans (cM). Multiply this by the trillions of cells in your body…

You actually have two DNA types active in your cells. One is “regular” deoxyribonucleic acid that supplies codes for building physical cell structure. The other is mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid (mtDNA). The mitochondrion is a human cell component that creates energy. Each cell contains 16,569 base pairs of mtDNA.

Mitochondrial DNA is Maternal

You get mitochondrial DNA from your mother who got your genetic recipe from your grandmother. It’s a unique biological occurrence that happens on your maternal side and geneticists believe it’s because the pre-fertilized egg that you started from needed an energy source and coding to initially program it. From the point of conception, when your father’s sperm joined your mother’s egg and created you as a zygote before you were an embryo (Google it – zygote is a freshly fertilized egg), your cell nucleus information remained maternally bound.

Mitochondrial DNA has nothing to do with determining chromosomes and whether you turned out male or female. Having two XXs or a Y and an X was a biological crapshoot. It’s a flip of the coin, according to theory, and it’s amazing that after the billions and billions of babies born, they average about 51 percent female and 49 percent male. Go figure who figured the odds.

But your chromosomes, directed by your regular DNA and powered by your mtDNA have everything to do with how you turned out. Some speculate DNA contributes to how you act and feel, as well. Although there’s no scientific proof of DNA contributing to emotions, let alone consciousness, it’s because of DNA that we’re alive and curious. One of the biggest curiosities today is what our DNA profile tells us about who we are and where we came from. Perhaps it’s that knowledge that helps us understand where we’re going.

How Personal DNA Testing Happens

An internet search finds over twenty outlets offering personal DNA profiling services. Some are credible. Some are not. It’s caveat emptor in the profiling business and we’ll cover that in a bit. First, let’s look at how a typical DNA profile happens. It goes like this:

Research the Service and Provider Best Suited to Your Goal

That might be tracing your ancestry, determining parentage, finding relatives, planning a family, identifying genetic risk through inherited deficiencies, determining pharmacological compatibility, developing a lifestyle or any one of a number of motives for why you’d want to see your profile. Be cautious, though, of relying on dubious predictions on optimal diets and such. Experts warn that using DNA tests to extrapolate this type of information is probably pseudoscience.

Order Your Collection Kit Online

Most companies now use sterile swabs for collecting saliva. Good old spit is by far the best-suited substance for DNA typing. Sure, the forensic scientists can isolate DNA from blood, bone marrow, hair follicles, semen samples, vaginal fluid and mucus. But, for obvious reasons, these aren’t best managed for a personal collection.

Collect Your Saliva Sample

Your mouth is full of genetic material. By far the best area of your mouth to swab is your inner cheek or under your tongue where you store the largest amount of buccal swabs. Some companies supply tubes to simply spit into, but the most efficient and accurate collection method is swabbing. At any rate, you can’t go wrong by following the manufacturer’s instructions.

Package Your Sample

Your kit provider will include a vial to seal your swab and prevent contamination. Cross-contamination can ruin a personal DNA test, so make sure you have limited handling and that you keep others some distance from your swabbing. The return envelope or container should be pre-addressed and suitable for regular mail. You might have to buck-up for postage, depending on who’s doing your test.

Register Your Sample

This is extremely important. All DNA testing companies require online registering before they receive your swab. Otherwise, they can’t process it. Again, follow the directions and select your options. Some testing agencies require completed questionnaires. If you have privacy concerns, it’s best to read the fine print or call their customer service line.

Wait for Your Results

You’ll have to wait anywhere from four to eight weeks to receive your DNA profiling results. This depends on the particular company, their backlog and how detailed an analysis you requested. You’ll be digitally notified, likely by email, or you may have to log on to your private portal.

Decipher Your Personal DNA Test

This might be the most difficult part of your whole DNA profile procedure. If you’re simply looking for ancestry information, it might be straightforward. But, if you’ve ordered an in-depth search into your maternal or paternal lineage, there’ll be more to it. That’s certainly so if you’ve requested genetic information pertaining to your health.

Available DNA Testing Services for Individuals

There are three main DNA testing services available for personal profiling. Keep in mind that you’re dealing with a civilian process that’s an interesting information exercise rather than a forensic examination bound by the rules of evidence. Civilian genetic testing agencies will offer one or all of these services:

Autosomal Testing — This is the most basic and popular means of genetic testing. It’s commonly called the family finder. The autosomal method looks at your 22 standard chromosome pairs, not including the ones that determine your sex. The first 22 chromosome pairs are called autosomes. Through autosomal typing, the service aligns you with other profiles already stored in their database and matches you with similar people. As regular DNA changes with generations, autosomal testing only goes back 5-8 generations, unlike the other two services that can profile you between 20 and 100 generations.

mtDNA Testing — Mitochondrial services focus on the X chromosome in your DNA profile. Every human has an X chromosome signature regardless if they’re female or male. mtDNA profiling is precise and this is where geneticists zero-in on abnormalities in your traits and indicate issues that you’d otherwise have no idea about.

Y-DNA Testing — This one’s for boys only. As women don’t have a Y chromosome, they can’t play this game. Y-DNA testing follows the paternal line that’s passed from fathers to sons. However, don’t write-off the girls too quick. They have a way around determining their paternal line. If you’re female, you can simply ask your biological brother for a Y-DNA test and you’ll find all about your dad’s side of the family.

How the Science of Personal DNA Testing Works

There’s nothing simple about DNA testing science. This is a highly-trained, exacting discipline done in expensive laboratory environments. As with other science arenas, DNA testing methods have rapidly improved with technology. Today, scientists can extract the smallest DNA fragment and multiply it as many times as necessary to develop an accurate profile. It’s like cloning.

Once your saliva sample hits the lab, technicians extract your DNA content from the liquid through a centrifuge and plating procedure. What they’re looking for is an area of your genome sequence that displays certain variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs). Within the identified VNTR points are smaller sections called short tandem repeats (STRs) which are microsatellites that really tell the story of who you are, who made you and where you came from.

You’ll find a lot of DNA lingo if you surf the net. Some terms are PCR, RFLP and ALFP but the only notable acronym that applies to personal testing is STR. From STR information, technicians apply a quantitative analysis that provides a statistical interpretation of approximately 20 “loci” core markers. This is as technical as you need to get in order to understand what’s happening with your spit at the shop.

It’s the power of statistical discrimination that’s amazing in STR DNA analysis. You’ll hear DNA technicians speak of statistical probabilities when quantifying the reliability and accuracy of your DNA test. It’s common to hear results like 99.999 percent or one-in-a-billion. No matter how they present your results, you still have to do some interpretation.

Commercial Services for Personal DNA Testing

No doubt you were waiting for this part. Now that you have some idea of what personal DNA testing entails and are taking the plunge into the biological soup-pot that supports you, the question is what services are suitable for you. In other words, what’s the best bang for your biological buck?

Well, this website isn’t associated with commercial DNA testing and receives no referral fee, so there’s every reason to be independently objective. There are plenty of providers and gobs of internet information available, so you’ll have to do a bit of homework. To help you speed the process, here are the highest rated commercial services for personal DNA testing:

Cellular Research Institute (CRI) — This seems to be the Cadillac of DNA testing services, according to Genetics Digest. It also seems to be the only one employing a world-renown, Harvard-educated genetic scientist who trained under Dr. Watson (who is one of the co-discoverers of the DNA double-helix molecule). CRI has an amazing depth of analysis and a widely expanding database. They’re not expensive, though, considering what you get. You can pay $99 for a quick ancestry test and $199 for a basic ancestry & heath profile. The price quickly rises for specialized work.

AncestryDNA — These DNA testers are probably the best known providers. That’s because they’ve been around the longest after starting Ancestry.com. Originally, Ancestry was an online family tree service. They got into the DNA business as a value-added service and are highly reputable. Ancestry is also relatively affordable. Prices start at $129 and go to $299, depending on what service you want.

23and Me — If you’re looking for thorough ancestor reports and some decent health observations, 23andMe is a good choice. They’re fairly new and their marketing really appeals to millennials. So does their price point. 23andMe has an a la carte menu starting at $99.

tellmeGen — If you’re a hypochondriac, you’ll want to pick up a tellmeGen personal DNA testing kit. They do basic autosomal tests, but really shine when drilling down into what’s behind your health concerns (real and imaginary). You’ll pay for it, though, as their entry level test is $169 and it climbs from there.

MyHeritage — For basic, bottom-line DNA testing on a budget watch, get yourself a kit from MyHeritage. You’ll shell out $109 and they’ll be back to you in 3-4 weeks with a really cool pie-chart of what’s going on in your body.

Remember Caveat Emptor

In personal DNA testing—like most things in life—you get what you pay for. Good services cost money and, if you want credible results, you’ll have to buck-up. That’s not to say that many other commercial DNA services aren’t honorable, credible and valuable. A quick internet scan finds agencies like LivingDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, AfricanAncestry and even National Geographic Geno 2.0. They’re probably fine, too.

But you will find some scammers. One online investigator submitted saliva from his golden retriever, Bailey. He got back a computer generated profile that missed Bailey’s species but got her hair color right. The report also profiled Bailey as not suitable for contact sports and suggested she take up golf.