EARLY LIFE:
Roberta Marie Ferguson was born on November 19, 1968 as the youngest of nine children. Part of the Dunvegan Beaver band, she lived in Grimshaw, Alberta, Canada, over 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
Growing up, Roberta had to deal with a hole in her heart, which required her to take medication until she was in her teens. Despite this, she kept her spirits high. While a bit on the quiet side, she was known to be a joker, and spent her free time drawing, dancing and reading Archie comics. She was also incredibly strong-willed, a trait her mother passed down to all the children.
When Roberta was 14 years old, her mother died, and she spent a year living with her older sisters, Carol and Marilyn, in Edmonton. After this, she moved to Surrey, British Columbia to live with her other sister, Verl. According to the elder Ferguson, Roberta struggled to keep focused in school following their mother’s death.
DISAPPEARANCE:
In the final days of August 1988, Roberta, her niece and cousin, and a couple of friends decided to go on a camping trip to celebrate the end of a summer work-study program. The group were staying at Sunnyside Campground on Cutlus Lake, about an hour east of Surrey.
Having developed a fever, Roberta decided she wanted to go home. At 8:00PM, she told her friends she planned to take a bus back and left the area on foot.
Around this time, a witness reported seeing a girl matching Roberta’s description walking along the side of the highway, near the intersection of Vedder Mountain and Cutlus Lake roads. A man, described as average height, with blond or light brown hair and a prominent jaw, pulled over in a red sports car. The witness reported it looked like the girl backed away from the vehicle, as if she was scared.
That evening, Carol had embarked on a 15-hour road trip from her home in Fairview, Alberta to Surrey. About two hours in, she learned that Roberta hadn’t yet returned home. A few hours later, without any word from her younger sister, Carol told Verl to report Roberta missing to the RCMP. Since Roberta was an adult and it hadn’t been 48 hours, the authorities refused to file a report.
Without the support of the RCMP, Roberta’s family launched their own search, making posters and scouring the area in and around Cutlus Lake.
INVESTIGATION:
When the RCMP finally launched an investigation into Roberta’s disappearance, the search yielded many files, but nothing that pointed them in the direction of what happened to the 19-year-old. According to Verl, a body was found that matched her sister’s description, but investigators said the decedent, whose identity remains unknown, was Asian.
Following the arrest of Robert Pickton in 2002, the Ferguson family was approached to submit DNA to test against human remains found on the serial killer’s pig farm. No match was made.
Despite confessing to 49 murders and being charged with 26, Pickton was only convicted on six counts of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years – the longest possible sentence under Canada’s criminal justice system.
In the early 2000s, convicted killer Terry Arnold reportedly claimed to have been the last person with Roberta. He’d been found guilty of the rape of four girls in Newfoundland and a murder in British Columbia. He was also suspected in the 1981 death of Barbara Stoppel in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was believed to have been responsible for a murder that had taken place in Alberta just a year prior to Roberta’s disappearance.
According to reports, Arnold took investigators to where he’d allegedly dumped Roberta’s body, but it had been moved and the search was called off. After being mistakenly released from police custody, he took his own life. He’d left behind a note, in which he recanted all his previous confessions.
Officers with the RCMP Detachment in Chilliwack continue to contact Verl every few years, to keep her abreast of the investigation.
DETAILS:
19-year-old Roberta Marie Ferguson was last seen at Cutlus Lake, near Chilliwack, British Columbia, on August 24, 1988.
An Indigenous female, she stood at 5’5″ and weighed between 111-120 pounds. She had long, curly black/dark brown hair and brown/black eyes. It’s been noted that she had all her teeth at the time of her disappearance, and that there was a scar on her right knee.
The last time anyone saw Roberta, she was wearing a black shirt with a navy blue tank top over it, stretchy black pants that had been rolled up to her knees, dirty white running shoes and octagon-shaped sunglasses. She was also carrying an army-green backpack.
CASE CONTACT INFORMATION:
Roberta’s case is classified as endangered missing, with foul play suspected.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to contact the Serious Crime Section of the RCMP’s Chilliwack Detachment at (604) 792-4611. Tips can also be called in anonymously via Crime Stoppers at +1 (800) 222-8477.
Image Credit: The Doe Network
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