Canada- Glenna "Dusty" SOWAN, 25, Sex worker, murdered,Vancouver, 30 September 1988 *New Initiative*

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Glenna SOWAN – Case Overview | Vancouver Police Department Cold Cases (vpdcoldcases.ca)
''Glenna SOWAN – Case Overview
Just after noon on September 30, 1988, Glenna Marie Sowan’s naked body was found by a neighbour in the tall weeds and brush overgrowth near West 24th and Willow Street. She was only 25 years old.

There was a ligature marking across her neck and numerous other marks on her body, including injuries to both of her cheeks that showed the use of blunt force. An autopsy later determined that Glenna had died at approximately 4:30 that morning.

Glenna was last seen the day before by her boyfriend, between 1:00 and 5:00 p.m., inside an apartment near East 6th Avenue and St. George Street. She was a sex worker, and during her young life, she had struggled with drug addiction to heroin and cocaine. She had suffered the loss of her close friend, Lisa Gavin, who was murdered just one month earlier.

Glenna, also known as Dusty, was an Indigenous woman, and weighed only 92 pounds. She was 5’2″ tall and had shoulder-length black hair. Her clothing from that night was never located.

Despite investigators’ best efforts, there has been no justice for Glenna. For over 30 years, someone has evaded arrest for her murder. Help us catch a killer.

This is an ongoing file.Please check back regularly for updates.''

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Ws thread for Glenna's friend..
Canada- Lisa Gavin, 21, Sex worker, Body in laneway, Vancouver, 12 August 1988 *New Initiative* (websleuths.com)

March 31 2022
Vancouver crime news: 1988 murders added to cold case website | CTV News
''Two unsolved murders committed weeks apart back in 1988 have been added to the Vancouver Police Department's cold case website, as investigators seek fresh information that could finally bring the killers to justice.

The website features crime scene photos, news clippings, maps and details that could potentially jog someone's memories of Lisa Gavin and Glenna "Dusty" Sowan, two friends whose killers have managed to evade law enforcement for decades.''
 
June 29 2023
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''Lisa Gavin and Glenna Sowan/VPD
When the Vancouver Police Department posted the unsolved murders of Lisa Gavin and Glenna Sowan to its cold case website last year, it took retired detective Brian Ball by surprise.

Ball was the original investigator on the Sowan case in 1988, and much later he and retired detective Alex Clarke were part of a joint RCMP/VPD taskforce called E-Alley that investigated the murders of sex trade workers in the late 1980s. As far as Ball and Clarke were concerned, they found Gavin and Sowan’s serial killer, and he died in 2009.''

'Just over six weeks after Lisa was murdered, the body of her best friend, 25-year-old Glenna Sowan, was found strangled, beaten and left behind a house on West 24th Avenue and Willow Street. Slowan was from High Prairie, Alberta, and at the time of her death, had a baby daughter who lived with her grandmother.''

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Alley near where Glenna Sowan was found/VPD

The investigation into the sex trade worker murders stalled until 2000, when Clarke searched for DNA recovered from crime scenes of unsolved homicides. She found suspect DNA on Gavin and Sowan’s bodies.

Because Dan was a tenant in the Mount Pleasant rooming house and had refused to answer questions at the time of Grant’s murder, his name was near the top of the suspect list. And, when Project E-Alley took another look at the murders, a surveillance team followed Dan and gathered his castoff DNA from a cigarette and drink container. His DNA matched that found on Gavin and Sowan’s bodies.

Ball felt they had a solid case to take to Crown Counsel and charge Dan with the murders. Counsel disagreed — they wanted a confession. But Dan, who was already in poor health, died without confessing.''
 

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