Marlene Yvonne Abigosis
Aliases: Clara Ross; Darlene Richards; Marlene Yvonne Abigosis; Darlene Campbell
Case reference: 2014001708
Missing Since: January 1, 1984
Missing from: Vancouver, BC
Date Of Birth: November 23, 1957
Gender: Female
Age At Disappearance: 26 years
Ethnicity: Indigenous
Eye Color: Brown
Hair : Black, wavy, shoulder length
Height: 5’6″; 168cm / 66 inches
Weight: 119 lbs.; 54kg
A Little About Marlene’s Case: Marlene was last seen in January of 1984 in Vancouver’s downtown east side and allegedly worked as a sex worker and had substance and alcohol addiction issues. Marlene was known to work near the docks, clients that owned boats would take Marlene with them on trips to Washington State and Vancouver Island on occasion. Yvonne was last seen on January 1st, 1984 and reported missing on May 22nd, 2002. Marlene’s sister Valerie tried repeatedly to file a formal missing persons report for Marlene. The first time she tried to report Marlene as missing the police seemed interested until they found out she had lived in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. “People go missing all the time”. Marlene’s missing persons report wasn’t officially filed until 2002 after law enforcement officers showed up at her home regarding a man suspected of murdering women and hiding their bodies on his pig farm.
A Little About Marlene (written by her sister Valerie): Marlene was the eighth born of 14 children by Frank and Vitaline Abigosis (Campbell) of Pine Creek Reserve in Manitoba. Had she still been here, she would have been in the process of applying for the Common Experience Payment, and the Independent Assessment Process as a result of the residential school experience. Unfortunately, she was not a survivor so she vanished before she had a chance to resolve that part of her past. My last memory of and contact with my sister was in March of 1983, when she telephoned me in the middle of the night. She was sick and tired of being sick and tired, so she was planning to leave Vancouver and try to make some changes in her life. I thought she would arrive in Revelstoke in the next few days. Sadly, she never arrived, and I never heard from her again. Half my brothers and sisters have passed away, and all have died from alcohol and/or drug addiction, without ever resolving the pain, anger, hate, shame and loss of a childhood that they were put through while going to school. If it wasn’t the school, it was from parents who were themselves former students of the residential school system. My father, Marlene’s father, suffered traumatic experiences in the residential school system, then passed on the violence and abuse of every sort to his children, including to our mother. Therefore the residential school system, the Catholic Church and our father, who was a former student, took something from us children that severely compromised our adulthood, causing the deaths of half my brothers and sisters. And that something was our childhood.
I think of Marlene all the time. She was a beautiful person who made an effort to phone all the time to make sure someone knew where she was. I still wonder, and want to know, what happened to her. I have this fantasy that she left with a boyfriend in a ship and is abroad somewhere in Norway. She fell in love once. I met him, and he was a handsome Norwegian who came to Vancouver in a Norwegian ship. She would wait for his ship to come in so she could see him. It was at this time that I saw a change in her. A change in appearance and attitude. All she wanted was to be happy.
*Marlene is not considered as a victim of Robert Pickton. Her DNA was not found on the Pickton Farm.*
If you have information on Marlene’s case, please contact any of the following:
Vancouver Police Department:
Telephone: 604-717-2530
Email: vpd.missing@vpd.ca
Reference Case#: MIS 02-112467
Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-TIPS(8477)
Online at: https://www.canadiancrimestoppers.org/tips
Crime Stoppers provides anonymous tipping
Send email to the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at: canadasmissing-disparuscanada@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
Sources:
Doe Network
Canada’s Missing
CBC – Missing & Murdered: The Unsolved Cases of Indigenous Women and Girls
Someone Saw Something 