Some answers emerge year after disappearance of Tara-Lyn Poorman
By Barb Pacholik, Leader-PostDecember 19, 2009
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On April, children came upon Poorman's body in a backyard in the 300 block of Osler Street. It was less than a block from where she was last seen at the party.
On April, children came upon Poorman's body in a backyard in the 300 block of Osler Street. It was less than a block from where she was last seen at the party.
Photograph by: RCMP handout
REGINA A year ago at this time, hope was still evident in the voices of Tara-Lyn Poorman's family.
"Tara-Lyn, if you're out there, please call home. We all love you and miss you very much," her mother told a news conference back on Dec. 19, 2008.
At that point, her 17-year-old daughter, a good student and youth volunteer with a promising future, hadn't been seen for a week.
Tragically, the weeks grew to months, and hope turned to heartache. "Not knowing do you know how hard that is," her mom Shellyn Kay said at the time.
When Poorman's body was found, despair gave way to questions. Just as baffling as the young woman's disappearance was her discovery. How could she lay dead for four months only a half block away from where she was last seen without anyone noticing?
With the receipt of the coroner's report and completion of the Regina police investigation into Poorman's death, some answers have emerged a year later, while others remain elusive.
The simple explanation: "Covered by snow and obscured by a structure in a private yard, she wasn't found because she wasn't seen," Regina police spokeswoman Elizabeth Popowich said. "It's very tragic and very unfortunate, but there wasn't a suggestion that was ever turned aside."
Poorman left home like so many other people will during the Christmas season she was off to a house party in the 400 block of Halifax Street to celebrate a friend's birthday on Dec. 12, 2008. She left the party around 3 a.m., walking off alone into the frigid night, seemingly to head home. When her family still hadn't heard from her after a couple days, Poorman was reported missing to police.
In the days and weeks afterwards, her family held several news conferences; volunteers with Search and Rescue Regina joined police in an organized search; and friends and family members combed the area as they put posters on sign posts and dropped them into area mailboxes.
With the passage of time and still no trace of her, fears of the potential for foul play grew. Poorman's photo was added to a long-term missing persons website, even before the usual six months had passed. In February this year, the Regina Board of Police Commissioners offered a $25,000 reward; the family, using fundraisers, were also able to offer $5,000.
The reward from police was subsequently paid in full but the key to finally unlocking the mystery was more chance than design.
While chasing after some cats around 7 p.m. on April 17 this year, children stumbled upon Poorman's body in a backyard in the 300 block of Osler Street. It was less than a block from where she was last seen at the party.
Poorman died where she was found, with temperatures falling as a cold snap that would last for several weeks took hold.
"The cause of death is hypothermia with acute alcohol intoxication as a contributing factor," the province's Chief Coroner Kent Stewart said an interview this week. "When you have alcohol on board in hypothermia at the levels that she had, certainly that's going to impair your ability to extricate yourself from a difficult situation. Certainly your cognition would be impaired as well as your ability to move." It's uncertain if Poorman was overcome first by the effects of the alcohol or the cold.
Nor can Stewart pinpoint the time of death, but he added that the young woman would have died within hours.
"We may never know exactly why she went into that yard ... Between the extreme cold and intoxication, it may be that she became disoriented and simply tried to shelter there," Popowich said.
She also looks to the weather in trying to make sense of why Poorman, who disappeared before Christmas, would escape anyone's notice until after Easter.
"Covered by snow, she was beside a small building, between small buildings in a somewhat cluttered backyard. The ground sort of slopes a little bit in or down towards the side of the building, so there's even a little bit of a depression," she said.
"The investigators even said that taking into account snow and everything else that it would have been almost impossible to see her had you been standing a foot or two away, just the way that she was located."
Popowich said one of the factors that would have gone into searches was information from others at the party that suggested Poorman had headed south. "There wasn't any reason or any indication that she would have walked in the opposite direction."
The case hasn't prompted any changes in the way things are done. "But it is fair to say that this investigation, like every other, undergoes scrutiny during and after," said Popowich.
Members of Poorman's family couldn't be reached for comment this week. But they recently remembered the young woman in a newspaper memoriam marking a year since her disappearance: "Sad are the hearts that love you/Silent are the tears that fall./Living our lives without you/is the hardest part of all."
bpacholik@leaderpost.canwest.comhttp://www.leaderpost.com/news/Some+answers+emerge+year+after+disappearance+Tara+Poorman/2360553/story.html
Topic: Tara- Lyn Poorman , 17, MISSING December 12, 2008 Regina, Saskatchewan (Read 846 times)
