Lisa Kopf - Unsolved Murder - Edmonton (August 1998)

[Lisa Kopf]

The name is very rare infact it derives from germany and is not our family's original name , it is shortened and no one in america has it but those I'am directly related to .I have my birth name and have never been married..The individual who did this to me was caught and sentenced to 75 years ...There are a few things that bother me though ,He was young 18 and yes he was the one who did it , however I can't help but to think there is something eles here ...I have never been to Canda nor do I know any one there .There are just so many things that are simular ..I was taken to a cemetary ,I was stabbed repeatedly ,and left for dead , I managed to survive ....But I have alway's felt like he had done this to others .And truly I can't shake that errie feeling ,Although he was in prison at the time of Lisa's murder, I do know he used to travel with a truck driver ,I don't know the truck drivers name.I don't know if any of this will ever amount to anything but I do know it is a very strange thing to have happen , I mean really we are talking 10 years to the month and 8 day's apart the age being 17 and the name well that is unmistakable . Lisa wanted 6 children and I had 5 .My heart goes out to her family and I hope they catch this monster who ever he may be .....

[SAP]

Lisa this must be tragic for you, accidently finding this page and bringing back horrible memories. I'm sorry you are reliving those horrible moments of your attack.
You said you've never been to Canada, so you are from USA? The first question that popped in my head was maybe both the perp and the truck driver did these atrocities. Perhaps the same MO.
I truly like the 75 years sentence. We have nothing like that. This may be something our Lisa's parents would like to know even if it doesn't turn out an answer for them.
This is strange. If the truck driver had the same MO, or not the same MO but did the same type of sadistic things, possibly when/if  he heard the name the same as his partner was incarcerated for he went haywire...

I'm happy to know you had a guardian angel over you, Lisa. Thank you for sharing. Perhaps if you have more info, the trucking companies name and the general areas they drove, you can Private message the Admin here, Chris, and he can give the info to the family of Lisa just in the case it might bring them some new leads.
Thank you.

eta:

On the 1998 August 05 , at approximately 10:30 a.m. the body of Lisa Kopf was discovered in a slough in a farmers field, approximately one kilometer west of 184th Street and 118 Avenue. Lisa was 17 years of age.

Near many trucking companies holdings.

[Lisa Kopf]

I never saw the truck ,And I only saw the truck driver once for a brief moment 21 years ago .There were alot of rapes and attempted rapes going on at this time and for the most part they were kept close to where this man lived .I believe they were all his doing and There were times these girls got away so I figuar he spent months perfecting his attack's ,Before he got to me .I was a victim of chance that night .However he had told people he was going to get me ,I guess They didn't take him seriously .who knows .We were all teenagers .

[SAP]

I never saw the truck ,And I only saw the truck driver once for a brief moment 21 years ago .There were alot of rapes and attempted rapes going on at this time and for the most part they were kept close to where this man lived .I believe they were all his doing and There were times these girls got away so I figuar he spent months perfecting his attack's ,Before he got to me .I was a victim of chance that night .However he had told people he was going to get me ,I guess They didn't take him seriously .who knows .We were all teenagers .

Thanks Lisa. At least he's away for 75 years. I would imagine that Police followed his routes etc.
I truly am sorry if this brought back horrible reminders.

[Lisa Kopf]

There are many things that could connect the cases Besides our name.However that is a very big connection .The month being August and the year being exactly 10 years apart to the month .I have thought about things that could be possible like The truck driver but also there are people who befriend Prison inmates and they tell them thier story . It is possible that that could have occured ....I know some people just start doing these things on there own but there are those who get the ideas or begin there criminal activities from being taught .Our age was so close as well . I went to the library today to start some research of my own and maybe come accross something .I wonder though why there are so many coverage points for other victims of unsolved murders there pictures and the familys speaking out but I have yet to find any of that for Lisa ..no news video's no coverage at all ....no photos of her nothing ...I think the more people see her face the more tips you may get .The Faceless alway's seem to be forgotten .It has been along time but if you stay persistent keep putting her picture up everywhere ,Some one who could have been scarred back then to talk may break thier silence ....Like I said My situation may not be related however god works in ways we could never imagin .And I can't help but to feel like there is a connection some where in all of this craziness...... Put her face out there and if her family doesn't want to go in front of camaras then find them a spokes person to talk for them....Speak out !!!!!!she deserves justice

[SAP]

There must have been a picture at one time, however I can't even find the list  of coldcases that Edmonton Police usually have, just the current. I found one mention to the Lisa Kopf at a blog, scroll down or do a "control/f" and print in the name...just says she was beautiful and there's mention of drugs and that's all I could find at the moment.

  http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=133215614&blogId=229850002

eta: On this site I found another mention but searching the Police historical homicides doesn't bring any info either, such as a picture. She also had a middle name or else a double last name...

1998/08/04   Edmonton   17   F   Kopf   Lisa   Taodora   Murdered   http://www.unsolvedcanada.ca/index.php/topic,628.0.html

eta: I did a search across Canada for Barb Kopf and found no listing. Only one in California for a Barbra Kopf. She could have remarried by now and have another name; how tragic if she is not alive and Lisa has no one searching for justice for her!

eta: Edmonton Sun archives had 10 hits and will need to register; first have to activate my cc to join and will take a look there for a picture.

[Lisa Kopf]

I found a Carla Kopf in B.C on facebook but nothing eles no pictures nothing I just think it is very odd that all these other cases have so much recognition but Lisa's has none ....You can't find something you have never seen....And pictures should be at the top of the list...

[SAP]

Apparently there was a picture in the beginning, in the newspapers. Also, I found Lisa's name in a list of STW's which may explain the lack of recent coverage since her mother last tried. Police work on missing and murdered STW's seems to have fizzled out.

Lisa if you are a member of Facebook, why not try contacting Carla?

I still need to find my letter with my cc so I can activate and get past copies from the Sun newpaper here. Unfortunately there will be many that suffered an undignified ending to their life and probably remain unsolved.

[Desespere]

In my database I have a link to EPS site, probably from three years ago but it no longer works it is changed.
I can't find a link now from that site that shows a reward still for Lisa Kopf.

http://www.police.edmonton.ab.ca/Pages/Rewards/kopf.asp

I'm pretty sure the link showed text as posted on the first post here but am not positive.

What I'm not sure about at this point is why I have in my database that Lisa's murder is being investigated by Kare when there is no information to that effect anywhere in my info or online. Is anyone able to verify that Lisa's murder is not being investigated by Kare? The fact she is not listed on EPS rewards site by new searches there (and the old link doesn't work) might mean investigation has been taken over by Kare but more likely I may have made a mistake. There is nothing mentioning Kare in the newspaper article.

[Concerned]

There is a picture of Lisa on this site.

After 12 years Lisa's mother is still looking for her daughter's killer. There is a picture on this site of Lisa. She has been missing since August 5, 1998.

Daughter's killer not caught after 12 years
By QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: August 4, 2010 8:08pm
EDMONTON - Barb Kopf remembers every second of the night her 17-year-old daughter was killed.

"It's so vivid," she says quietly. "I don't remember any of the six months after that, but I remember everything about that night."

On Aug. 5, 1998, Lisa Kopf's body was found in a farmer's slough. Someone had held her face down in the mud until she suffocated.

Twelve years after the unimaginable crime, her mother is still waiting for justice.

"Whoever did this," Kopf says, "I want them caught. I want to see them for myself. It's been so long - is this the only murder they've gotten away with?"

Slowly, she adds: "I still have grief, but these days there's more anger."

Barb and her two daughters, Lisa and Carla, 14, moved to Edmonton in 1997 from Victoria, B.C., in search of a fresh start after the girls' father was killed by a drunk driver.

Adjusting to a new city was difficult for the girls, Kopf says, but they were doing OK.

"I knew Lisa's four closest friends and they were all really nice friends," she says. "I didn't know her other friends, though."

On Aug. 4, 1998, the sisters left their west end home for a party on the north side. They told their mom that they'd take the LRT and city buses to get back home.

"I always told them if you're going to get home later than you planned, call me and let me know." A little before midnight Lisa called Barb to say they wouldn't make to the LRT before it shut down for the night, so Barb told her to take a cab home with her sister.

A couple hours later, Carla arrived home alone. She told Barb that she couldn't find Lisa and had assumed she'd already left the party.

"Right away, I felt that something was terribly, terribly wrong," Barb recalls.

She got out the phone book and phoned every hospital and police station in the city, but got nowhere.

At 10 a.m. a farmer checking his livestock found her body.

"When the police came to my door, I knew right away," Kopf says, her voice trailing off.

While police won't discuss any specifics of the case, the head of the homicide unit says it's still an open file.

"We don't give up," says staff Sgt. Lorne Pubantz, who was one of the initial investigators. "During the passage of time, people might have a change of lifestyle. Someone who knows something about this might decide, 'this is the time for me to come forward.'"

Earlier this year, cops closed the books on a 29-year-old homicide when they arrested Robert James Fletcher, 50, for the 1981 killing of cabbie Gerdine Kruidbos.

Often, Pubantz says, investigators can "fill in the blanks" in old cases when people come forward after years of silence.

Kopf clings to the hope that cops will get a break like that in Lisa's case.

"It's been 12 years, how could somebody do that and not step forward in all this time?"

Sometimes, Kopf says, she feels trapped in time.

"Every single day I think about her. I can still smell her. Every now and then I swear I can feel her behind me."

Carla, now 26, moved back to B.C. a few years ago.

Kopf divides her time between Edmonton and Surrey, where she owns a second house.

Daughter's killer not caught after 12 years[/b]
By QMI AGENCY
Last Updated: August 4, 2010 8:08pm

"I don't have many close friends here," she says. "And I often think, if we'd never moved here, that wouldn't have happened to Lisa. I carry that guilt with me."

Despite the lingering pain, she refuses to leave Edmonton until Lisa's killing is solved.

"I just don't feel right about leaving. I feel like I'd be leaving her."

andrew.hanon@sunmedia.ca

Follow me on Twitter at:

www.twitter.com/andrewhanon[/quote]
http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2010/08/04/14925396.html

[debbiec]

I have posted Lisa's picture here from the site that Concerned provided the link for in her post above.

[SAP]

Lisa is such a beautiful girl. My heart goes to the family.

Thank you Concerned for the recent article. I just picked up a paper tonight and was hoping there were some new leads...
According to Carla, Lisa must have disappeared straight from the party before it was even over. Someone who had been there has to know something; has to have seen something worth mentioning to Police, imo.