The mother of a young Quesnel woman believed to have drowned in the Fraser River more than two months ago is continuing to hang onto the slim possibility she is still alive and is asking for the public's help in getting the answers she is seeking.
"Alive or not, we need to find her," Carmen Carr said this week. "We need to know what happened and we need to know why."
According to Quesnel RCMP, Caitlyn Avril Murray-Carr, 21 was last seen on Sept. 30 when a video camera recorded her parking her car near the Fraser Bridge Hotel in West Quesnel at about 12:45 a.m.
It's suspected she jumped into the Fraser from a footbridge, apparently upset following a breakup with a longtime boyfriend.
But it doesn't completely add up, according to the family.
Caitlyn did leave her credit cards, bank cards, identification, drivers licence at home and texted two people to say she was thinking of jumping.
But after about 45 minutes at the bridge, she texted that she was tired and going home to sleep.
What's more, Caitlyn had just graduated a month earlier from College of New Caledonia as a health care aide and was looking forward to her career.
But when her roommate later woke up, she noticed Caitlyn had not returned home and found her car at the Inn at about 6 a.m.
That her daughter may have committed suicide came as a surprise to Carmen.
"Police are frustrated with me," she said. "They think a certain scenario happened but there is no proof of that. They're only going to that conclusion because they feel there is no just cause for any other scenario."
Carmen said her daughter was also seen on a camera at one end of the bridge and not on the one on the other end. But she said the one installed at the middle was not operating and there is a possibility she may have been pushed off.
"She was a very pretty young woman and she was distraught, allegedly, something set her off to make her get out of bed and go there," Carmen said. "I mean, it's that part of town, all the drug addicts and things hang out there are night, so that opportunity is there for something to really have gone wrong."
The family is asking anyone who may have information on what happened to contact Quesnel RCMP or Crime Stoppers. They're asking people to keep an eye out for anything unusual while out near the river's bank.
