Sisters Lisa Peters, Bernadette Dennis and Sally Peters.

Image Credit: Roisin Cullen, Local Journalism Initiative

In the early hours of Nov. 8, 1987, Stanley Morris Peters Jr. went missing.

Then 34 years old, Peters was believed to be hitchhiking back to D’Arcy at the time near the railroad tracks.

It wasn’t until 1992 that Peters’ loved ones found out what happened him, when Pemberton RCMP launched a full-scale investigation into the case after receiving a tip. His parents were told by RCMP officers he was hit by a car in Mount Currie, hurled 15 metres through the air, and buried in a shallow grave.

Where, they couldn’t say.

His three daughters have spent their entire adult lives looking for their late father’s remains.

In May of this year, the sisters received an anonymous tip related to their dad’s case.

They reported it, and on July 17, the Sea to Sky RCMP’s General Investigation Section executed a search warrant at a property in Mount Currie with the Stl’atl’imx Tribal Police Service, and with the assistance of the RCMP Integrated Forensic Investigation Services and RCMP Tac Troop.

According to a release, Pemberton RCMP received information related to the cold case on May 17. Since that time, the investigation has remained open and active, "with the goal of bringing Mr. Peters Jr. home to his family," the release said.

Police would not say what the warrant covered, or if anything was recovered during the search on July 17 and 18.

Each time there is a spark of interest in the case, Peters’ daughters try to manage their expectations. 

“There is always that hope. We have been doing it for so long,” said Bernadette Dennis. “We knew that it could have been dad there, or it might not been. We get our hopes up. We wish and pray that this would be the one tip that helps. We started to think about the next steps.”

The wait continues.

The resilient sisters are reminding people it is never too late to come forward with new information, and that tips will be handled with complete discretion. 

“We are letting people know that it’s OK to talk,” said Bernadette.

A long-buried secret

Robert Dennis Williams was charged with hit and run in the case of Peters’ death. Lawrence Alvin Pascal was charged with obstruction of justice. In November 1994, Williams was sentenced to 18 months in jail, while Pascal was found not guilty. However, five other people were reported to be in the vehicle that struck the young man dead.

The Peters sisters live in a web of secrets, constantly meeting people they believe know their father’s final resting place.

Bernadette explains they have no way of knowing how many people are connected in the coverup.

“It’s not only the ones who were in the car, it’s their families,” she says. “If you think about all the people who were in the full truck, then the bystanders, all of those people told at least one person. People talk. It ends up being at least a quarter of the members in Mount Currie that know or have heard something. They are just not talking.”

The sisters, Bernadette, Lisa Peters and Sally Peters, say threats from those involved stop others from coming forward.

“The people that make threats are making empty threats,” said Bernadette. “Over the years, they have proven empty. They haven’t done anything. We know who are making the threats.  The threats aren’t to us, they are to the people who are involved, the ones with information. The higher one that has taken charge is threatening the ones that hit dad. That’s why they are not speaking up.”

Lisa echoed her sister’s statement. “Over the years, we protect anyone who brings forward tips and information,” she said.

Decades of wild goose chases

Bernadette tries to remember her dad as he was.

“He was named after his dad,” she says. “He was a logger. He was a kind and easy-to-get-along-with person.”

Their grandparents were constantly sent on wild goose chases in the years following Peters’ disappearance, the sisters say. 

“We didn’t know what happened. Our grandparents didn’t find out until 1992,” says Bernadette. “There were rumours going around about what happened. People would say that they saw him here or they saw him there. They were sending our grandparents on a wild goose chase because they wanted to steer the search from Mount Currie or N’Quatqua. They wanted to divert the search to the states, Quesnel and the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. They led our grandparents anywhere away from home, which was where it happened.”

The loving parents would drop what they were doing and jump in the car every time they received a tip their son could be alive. His mom, Rose, spent most of her life searching for her baby. Until the day Rose died, she hoped she could bring him back home.

“Sometimes, it was just my grandmother going to Kelowna by herself and meeting someone to go look. She also searched around the Downtown Eastside by herself,” says Bernadette. “She put notices in the newspaper asking for him to call home. He had never gone a day without calling his parents to tell them where he was or when he was going to be home.”

Looking to the stars

Sally now has a family of her own. She attends soccer games, graduation, and tries to give her children the best future she can provide. However, at heart she is still the 10-year-old little girl sitting on her dad’s shoulders. She was completely in awe of her father.

“We used to go to Lillooet every summer.” remembers Sally. “We would spend weeks or months there with our family. He would net the fish and pull it out. I would club them. We caught 115 fish one day. I don’t know why I remember the exact number of the fish we caught.”

Sometimes it’s the little things that stick with you.

Whenever Sally was scared, her dad would scoop her into his arms.

“I went mushroom picking with him. I remember there were thousands of little frogs on the road,” she says. “I just stood there crying. He came back and put me on his back.”

There was no caring dad to scoop the girls up when childhood became adulthood, and when scary frogs became far more pressing concerns.  

“I was 14 when dad went missing,” says Sally. “We missed out on lots, just like comforting. Daily, I think about what life would be like if dad was here. I wonder if he would like our partners and his grandkids.”

Reports at the time of Peters were dismissive and jarring. News outlets left out the fact that behind the headlines was a missing dad and a son who never came home. Peters taught his daughters about the stars and the everyday wonders in the world around them. 

“I remember just lying on the beach and looking up at the Milky Way,” says Sally. “He was teaching me about it all. He was always talking about the stars.”

Sally still remembers the day their dad was ripped from their lives forever. 

“I remember that we got word that he was gone,” she says. “I remember coming home to mom and Bernadette. That’s when they told me. I remember sitting in the bathroom and crying.”

Like most people, Lisa Peters remembers getting into so much trouble as a kid she thought running away to start a new life was the only viable solution. She recalls trying to help her grandmother bake. 

“I spun the bowl and it went everywhere,” says Lisa. “I knew I was going to get in trouble, so I climbed out of the bathroom window. Dad was coming home from work. He just saw two legs dangling from the window. He told me to let go because he was there to catch me. I was crying and telling him I was going to run away. Him and grandma were laughing so hard.”

Decades later, Lisa misses having that safety net—someone you can fall back on no matter how messy the situation is.

A winter’s night that changed everything

Bernadette clearly remembers the last time they saw their dad.  “I remember the whole night. We were at our aunty and uncle’s down the road from our place,” she says. “We were just about ready to go home. It was getting dark. Dad told us to go home and that he would be home soon.”

Back at home, the girls’ friends showed up and invited them to come back out.

 “We didn’t want to stay home,” says Bernadette. “We went next door to a vacant house and hung out there. Dad knocked on the door of our house calling for us, and we weren’t there. We were teenagers so we didn’t want to shout at him that we were next door. We didn’t want to get into trouble, so we hid. I remember a car pulling up to our house and dad getting into the vehicle. I remember hiding and watching the car driving by.”

To this day, Bernadette feels guilty for sneaking out. 

“If we were home to open that door, would he have stayed home that night?” she says.

The girls took the reins from their grandparents when they were old enough, and the cycle of searching reached its second generation. They take photos and make maps of every area they search. The sisters do not want anyone else to feel the pain they do, and see it as their cross to carry through this life. 

“We used to bring our family members, but then we just started doing it on our own,” says Bernadette. “We feel like it’s ours to carry now and not anybody else’s.”

They say the Lil’wat Nation and N’Quatqua did not support the Peters family when one of their own went missing. 

“I recall us wanting a justice healing circle from Chief and Council. My grandmother kept telling us to forgive,” says Bernadette. “We wanted to heal as two communities. We were shut down. We asked for a reward fund, and that didn’t happen either.”  Chief and councils from both first nations were contacted for comment by Pique. Neither replied.

Ending the cycle

The sisters now want everyone in the communities to heal from the divisive crime. They have learned to forgive in order to move forward and not pollute the next generation with hate.

“I want healing for everybody. If I hold hate and anger towards them, it’s just going to make me sick,” says Bernadette. “It will make me a person that I don’t want to be. There are also days where you don’t want to forgive. I’ve been through all the anger. I still want a healing ceremony, but I doubt it is ever going to happen.”

She believes everyone lost something that winter’s night.

“We know more than people think we know. The only thing we don’t know is our dad’s final resting place,” says Bernadette. “Everyone involved lost something.  We never got closure. Our grandparents were not supported by both bands at the beginning. Mount Currie was never 100-per-cent behind us. That support wasn’t there. We had to pull tooth and nail to get any little bit of support. We want to respect and honour our dad.”

The sisters have seen the detrimental effect a lifetime of fruitless searching can have on a person.

“It took a big toll on my grandmother,” says Bernadette. “She went through sleepless nights. She couldn’t sleep. She would say her rosaries over and over again. She took pills to try to sleep.”

They want to be the last generation to search for Stanley Morris Peters Jr., and to break the cycle of hurt. 

“We hope that we find him before our kids carry on,” says Bernadette. “Every time we put something out there. We learn more and more.”

Bernadette explains how devastating it is to not be able to grieve in the traditional  way. “There is still that empty, that cry. There is that lifelong grief that we carry and hang on,” she says. “We are not able to let it go with the proper steps of ceremony because there are no remains. There is still the hate, hurt and anger. When our mom passed away it hurt. It still hurts. The difference is that we were able to grieve for our mom and start healing. We knew she was sick. We were able to bury her and have the four days for ceremony. We were able to put her to rest. We are not able to do that with our dad.”

Culture of silence

Bernadette admitted the family now feels like they are back to square one following the July 17 search—but they hope it assures locals they mean business.

“We are still looking. We won’t stop,” said Bernadette. “We will take any tip seriously. We always get our hopes up. Showing that we were digging and still searching put the word out there that we will not stop.”

The response from the community was largely positive, with a few exceptions. 

“There is a still a group that were negative. They are still angry,” said Bernadette. “I don’t let it get to me. I mentally take note of the people who act that way and wonder how deeply they might be involved.”

The sisters explained they will never stop looking for their dad, no matter how hopeless things feel. “People wonder why we can’t just let it go, even some of our own family members,” said Bernadette. “They say that we will never find him. If we let it go, we let them win. We are not going to let it go. We are going to keep looking.”

The girls’ paternal grandfather (Stanley Peters Sr.)  is now in his 90s. They try to keep him informed on the case, without upsetting him.

“We explained to him at a recent visit that him and grandma had searched for all those years and now it’s up to us to continue,” said Bernadette. “It’s our job to do it now. Anything that happens, we make sure that he knows about it. We tell him the really big things.”

The ladies are grateful to the person who made the anonymous tip, and hope more will follow their lead.

“I am grateful that people are able to come forward,” said Bernadette. “We tell everyone that comes forward that we probably already know what they have to say. We explain that it’s more for them to be able to talk about it, release it and let it go. They don’t have to bury it anymore.”

The sisters try in their own way to grieve for their dad. They wear his print. They listen to his favourite records, including Tina Turner. The family had a ceremony to walk Peters’ spirit home to N’Quatqua in November 2023. They did the entire journey by foot. Sally purchased three urn necklaces for the trio ahead of the ceremony. They put smudge inside of them as they do not have their father’s ashes. They pray for closure every day.

“I wear mine every day since the walk,” says Lisa.

The sisters close bond has stood the test of nearly four trying decades.

“I think that is what makes us stronger,” says Sally.

They hope they will be the last generation that will have to learn to be strong.

“We want to bring our dad’s remains home,” says Bernadette. “Thirty-seven years is long enough.”

Anyone with any information regarding this investigation is asked to contact the Sea to Sky RCMP General Investigation Section at 604-932-3044, or contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or go to the website www.solvecrime.ca.

— This story was originally published by Pique Newsmagazine.

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