Global Courant 2023-05-31 08:54:38
Madison Scott’s face is everywhere you look in Vanderhoof. It’s plastered on billboards plastered every few miles along the highway into town. It’s on shop windows and truck bumper stickers and magnified on the side of a building.
She was 20 years old when she was last seen, the posters say. She was five feet five, with shoulder-length red hair, a piercing in her left nostril, and the silhouette of a bird on the inside of her left wrist.
For the past decade, these posters and billboards have been put up in the hope that Scott would one day be found alive, able to return home to this close-knit community in central BC, which has devoted the past decade to finding her .
A billboard advertises the annual search for Madison Scott in Vanderhoof, BC Days after this year’s event was held, RCMP announced the discovery of Scott’s remains. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)
But now friends and family and even people who never met her are grappling with a new reality: On May 29 — nearly 12 years since Scott was first reported missing — RCMP announced they had found the remains of “Maddy.” No cause of death has been released, but police say foul play has not been ruled out, and a team of detectives are conducting a search of an estate just a few miles from the campsite where Scott was last seen alive.
“It’s really a shock,” Mayor Kevin Moutray told CBC News in the council chamber the day after the news was announced. Outside, the municipal flag is flown at half-mast, a sign of the impact this young woman’s death has had on the community.
“We mourn,” says Moutray. “The community as a whole is stepping back[and]thinking about Maddy.”
What happened to Madison Scott?
The district of Vanderhoof is home to approximately 4,300 people and bills itself as being in the geographical center of the province, 100 kilometers west of Prince George and 800 kilometers north of Vancouver.
It hosts an international air show in the summer and is home to a sturgeon recovery center and a bird sanctuary through which hundreds of migrating geese and swans pass through in the spring. But for countless people around the world, it’s home to the mystery of what happened to Madison Scott.
Nechako Valley Search and Rescue leader Chris Mushumanski has made many visits to Hogsback Lake, Madison Scott’s last known location. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)
“This story… has defined Vanderhoof’s last decade,” said Chris Mushumanski, a search and rescue volunteer who helped find Scott 12 years ago. Her disappearance has been recounted in multiple true crime podcasts, investigative documentaries on US network television, and by word of mouth, such as when a group of her friends traveled to Vancouver’s Gray Cup to hand out 6,000 fliers asking for clues.
The baseline of the story is as follows: Scott was last seen at about 3 a.m. on May 28, 2011, celebrating a friend’s birthday at Hogsback Lake, a group campground about 16 miles southeast of the town that is popular with the locals.
She was texting her parents during the party, but they couldn’t reach her the next day. She was reported missing on May 29 when her tent and truck were found abandoned at the campground, and extensive air, ground and water searches were conducted to no avail.
Hogsback Lake southwest of Vanderhoof is the last place Madison Scott was seen alive. Police are now searching an estate near the campsite in connection with the discovery of her remains.
Mushumanski recalls that aside from her iPhone, the other personal belongings she supposedly had on her were flip flops, which would have been difficult to walk on due to the thick undergrowth surrounding the area. Both police and family say it was unusual for her to be out of touch with loved ones and her disappearance was considered suspicious.
A hope for justice
The search for Scott also came at a particularly dark time for the region: Vanderhoof is located along Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, a stretch of road known to many as the Highway of Tears due to the number of women and girls – mainly indigenous – to go missing or be killed, including several during the same time period as Scott. And in 2014, it would be confirmed that a serial killer was operating in the area, having murdered at least four women in the two years leading up to Scott’s disappearance.
“There was a lot of discomfort,” Mushumanski recalled.
An RCMP vehicle on a rural site outside Vanderhoof. Police will search the site, which they believe is linked to the discovery of Madison Scott’s remains, for several days. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)
Other than that, she was well known in the community, described as vivacious and caring with a talent for filmmaking and photography, as well as riding horses and playing hockey.
But despite an extensive campaign to find Scott, which included a $100,000 reward and annual wilderness searches around her last known location, there have been few developments in the cases so far.
“No one anticipated this,” Mushumanski said, adding that he had to read the RCMP news report several times before it dawned on Scott’s remains.
“For twelve years… you’ve had hope. And to see it now extinguished must be devastating.”
Still waiting for answers
In its statement, RCMP says the family is asking for privacy as the investigation into what happened continues.
On the MadisonScott.ca websitewhich has been run for years by one of Scott’s friends as a center for information about the search, an update posted late Monday reads: “We held onto hope for 12 years that Maddy would be found alive. Now we know she is really missing in our lives.”
LOOK | Community in mourning after Madison Scott’s death:
Vanderhoof in mourning for Madison Scott
The discovery of the remains of a young woman who disappeared 12 years ago in northern BC has shaken the small town of Vanderhoof. Madison Scott, 20, went missing from a remote campground, but the search for her has continued ever since. Betsy Trumpener spoke to the community.
Mushumanski says for many, including himself, that the discovery of Scott’s remains has reopened old pains from both Scott’s disappearance and other unresolved losses in the region. But he is also optimistic that this latest breakthrough in the case may finally provide answers to a mystery that has haunted his community for years.
That’s a sentiment echoed by Mayor Kevin Moutray, but for now he’s asking people both inside and outside his community to exercise patience while the police do their job.
“We’ve been waiting 12 years for answers,” he says. “We can wait a little longer.”
Madison Scott’s poster outside a Vanderhoof, BC business advertises a $100,000 reward. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)The municipal flag flies at half-mast outside Vanderhoof district offices to mourn the death of Madison Scott. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)A poster advertising the annual search for Madison Scott in Vanderhoof, B.C. Days after this year’s ride was held, RCMP would announce the discovery of her remains. (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)Madison Scott was last seen at Hogsback Lake, southwest of Vanderhoof, BC (Andrew Kurjata/CBC)
