The search for a missing 82-year-old woman who vanished last month has been suspended until the summer.
Jane Whitehouse, 82, was reported missing on Oct. 25. The last time she was seen was at 10:10 a.m. in Aldergrove, B.C.
Police and search crews told the family that Whitehouse likely "slipped into the swollen waters of the creek and was carried further down."
“The chance of her surviving the fall into icy waters is pretty much non-existent,” says her daughter Eileen Antosh. "This is high altitude in the mountains with winter weather setting in. There's snow and it's now too dangerous to try to locate her."
Whitehouse’s grey Dodge Grand Caravan (licence plate CP6 01A) was found abandoned on a forest service road 150 kilometres from where she was last seen. Her shoes were also found nearby.
A man who was in the area at the time came across her vehicle on Harrison East Forest Service Road, which runs along the east side of Harrison Lake.
Search and rescue and police officers spent more than 1,000 hours looking for the grandmother. Drones, helicopters and search dogs were also used over every possible route she could have taken.
"No heat signatures or scent were ever picked up,” says Antosh.
If Whitehouse didn’t slip, the other possibility is she found shelter in the underbrush and would have succumbed to hypothermia.
The search has been suspended but the investigation remains open.
Antosh says the search will be resumed in the summer once the water levels have diminished and it's safer to do a recovery.
The family thanks police and search and rescue members for their hard work in the investigation. They also thank the strangers who reached out with thoughts, prayers and support.
People are being asked not to try and search the treacherous mountainside right now.
"The family is at peace with where things are now and with the recovery efforts slated to resume in the summer, we don't want to see anyone injured or worse in attempts to find Jane,” says Antosh.
Langley RCMP released recent photographs of Whitehouse in a green jacket and also a vehicle that drove by her the day she went missing.
Anyone with information about Whitehouse is asked to call police.
