The community barbecue near where Tamra Keepness lived at the time of her disappearance. Photo by Manfred Joehnck.
Tamra Keepness’s disappearance remains the most extensive missing persons case Regina police have ever investigated, and 13 years later it remains unsolved.
Today, members of the police service, community members, and representatives of Regina Treaty Indian Status Services gathered in a park a few blocks from where Keepness lived to hold a barbecue in her memory.
Tamra went missing when she was five years old and if she is still alive she would be 18 now. Regina Police Chief Evan Bray says it is difficult to say what those chances are.
“That is a tough question to answer and I’m sure that it is a question you would answer with your heart and your head,” he said.
“From an investigative standpoint, our investigators are not thinking that is possible, but that is not to say that it isn’t.”
Verne Bellegarde is a board member with Regina treaty services, which has worked extensively with the family and puts on the annual barbecue in the hopes of bringing in a new lead. He says there is always hope of a happy outcome.
“Until something tells us otherwise, I think we have to maintain that hope,” he said. “We believe they are not gone until something definitely says they are.”
The investigation has involved thousands of man-hours and hundreds of leads and all of them turned out to be dead ends. Regina police recently met with the family to let them know they are in the process of searching in a couple of new areas. Some family members were at the barbecue but did not want to talk to the media.
Meantime a $50,000 reward remains in effect for information that helps solve the case.