Reward for missing woman raised
Missing woman's father puts house up as equity
By CARY CASTAGNA, SUN MEDIA
The Edmonton Sun
It's not nearly as heartwarming as having her missing daughter home for the holidays, but Glendene Grant calls it a "wonderful Christmas present."
The reward for information leading to Jessie Foster's whereabouts has been raised from $10,000 to $50,000, Grant told Sun Media yesterday.
The extra $40,000 is being put up by Foster's father, Dwight Foster, and will be offered through Crime Stoppers.
"This is such a wonderful Christmas present to Jessie from her daddy," Grant said from her Kamloops, B.C., home, explaining her former common-law husband's plan to shore up the funds through equity on his Calgary home and other assets.
"It's quite a jump. If need be, it'll go up even higher."
Foster, an Alberta woman missing since March 2006, is believed to be the victim of a human-trafficking ring that landed her in Las Vegas's seedy underbelly.
Once a straight-A student, Foster travelled twice to the U.S. in the spring of 2005 with a man she met at a reggae party who promised to pay the way.
She wound up meeting another man a short time later and by June was already working as a prostitute in Sin City.
Foster, who has several relatives in Edmonton, returned north of the border later that fall to visit her parents.
But on the morning of Dec. 25, 2005, Foster - then 21 years old - said she needed a ride to the airport because she had to go back to Vegas immediately, Grant recalled.
That Christmas was the last time she saw her daughter.
"This time of year is especially tough," she added.
Grant, who believes her 23-year-old daughter is still alive, has no doubt that she'll eventually find her.
The heartbroken mom is hopeful that the $50,000 reward will help loosen someone's lips.
"I sure hope so. Money talks," she said. "The more we offer, the more likely someone's going to come forward.
"It's really hard. I don't know what to think anymore. I don't know where else to turn."
Dwight Foster couldn't be reached for comment yesterday on the beefed-up reward.
Meanwhile, as Sun Media reported yesterday, Grant is trying to contact Yvonne Hubrechtsen, a friend of Foster's who was in Vancouver prior to being arrested and deported back to the U.S. on Wednesday.
Hubrechtsen, 22, was taken into custody on a Canada Border Services warrant for not revealing her criminal record when she entered Canada, according to media reports.
Grant believes Hubrechtsen was part of the group of acquaintances that lured Foster to Vegas with promises of a lavish lifestyle and may have information on her disappearance.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2007/12/24/4739165-sun.htmlhttp://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=152079874http://www.myspace.com/jessiesmomglendenehttp://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/.../566637933.html Foster's parents learned she was missing in April but only found out about their daughter's escort agency employment after they hired private investigator Mike Kirkman. The parents, who live in Canada, say their daughter was swept off her feet and out of the country by a man who wooed her, then paid her way to New York City, Key West and finally Las Vegas. For a 21-year-old woman of modest means, the vacationing, the posh restaurants, the yachts and the clothes were hypnotic - a lavish facade against which Foster's father, Dwight, said she had no defense: "I think she was recruited. No girl grows up thinking, 'I am going to be a ho.' They get served up as queens. They put her in expensive hotels, showed her the world, dancing and swimming in the Caribbean Sea - this is the life they are shown. It's a recruitment, then they get shown the true lifestyle." Jessie Foster broke off from her traveling companion in Las Vegas in May 2005 and started dating Peter Todd, living with him in his North Las Vegas home. Todd is the last person known to have seen Foster alive. He told police he left home early on April 3, returning in a few hours only to find that Foster had packed up and left; everything she had at the house was gone. The police interviewed Todd twice. With no signs of foul play, it remains an open missing-persons case but is on the back burner, said North Las Vegas police spokesman Sean Walker. "(Detectives) will follow up on any leads that they get, but are they out walking the streets? No. That would not be productive," Walker said. "We have to work with different rules than private investigators. We have to deal in probable cause, and until we have that, this is going to be a missing-adult case." Dwight Foster and Kirkman don't buy that, and said that Peter Todd knows more than he has said. Todd told Kirkman and Foster's parents that he knows nothing of the girl's disappearance. In questioning, Todd told police he knew his girlfriend worked as an escort, but wouldn't confirm that to her parents. In April, two weeks after Foster's mother filled out a missing person's report, Todd told the Sun that he had made the mistake of falling in with the wrong girl. "It's spooky as hell, and it makes me kind of nervous," Todd said. "With all the friggin' women in Las Vegas that I've hooked up with, I never ran into no kind of (stuff) like this before." Todd did not return a reporter's phone calls last week, and his home is for sale. Before she disappeared, Foster told her family she was going to marry Todd. Last Christmas she visited them in Canada and, while she was there, Todd called 15 or 20 times a day, her father said. On occasion, Dwight Foster said, he would intercept 3 a.m. phone calls and beg Todd not to call so late during the work week. "I would pick up the phone, and he would sit there in total silence. He wouldn't even speak to me," Foster said. "That's when I started to get the feeling that this guy is creepy. He said nothing. Nothing. He sat there and listened to me." Jessie Foster assured her concerned parents they just didn't understand her relationship with Todd. That relationship has been the subject of some speculation. Private eye Kirkman said Todd had no discernible source of income and was much more than Foster's boyfriend. Todd's estranged wife is also a convicted prostitute and it is believed that, like Jessie Foster, she is Canadian. In April, Todd said that he fixes junk cars to race and sell. "I have no idea where she is," he told the Sun, "and I told police that." Kirkman said he believes Foster was planning to leave Todd. Her co-workers at the escort service told the investigator they had seen Foster bruised and beaten. Privately, Kirkman discovered, Foster had opened a savings account in Canada and filled it with more than $10,000. The money sits untouched. Jessie Foster is dead, Kirkman warned the family. "You have to start making some mental adjustments," he said this week. "It's a big desert."
Topic: Jessie Foster (Read 1806 times)
