33-year-old Maureen Mosie was in Salmon Arm trying to thumb a ride for the 110 kilometre trip along Highway 1 to Kamloops.
She had brown, shoulder-length hair with a blonde streak and was wearing a fringed buckskin vest over a multicoloured blouse, blue jeans and fur-trimmed moccasins.
It was Friday, May 8, 1981. Maureen never made it to Kamloops. The next day, a woman walking her dog found Maureen's battered body at the end of a run-off lane on Highway 97 near the Trans-Canada highway, about 16 km east of Kamloops. Police said she was killed at the scene but had not been sexually assaulted.
The lead detective on the file, now-retired Sgt. Mike Eastman, an innovative Mountie determined to solve the case, used hypnosis on several witnesses.
Two people who were hypnotized recalled seeing Mosie and the suspect car in Salmon Arm, Eastman said in 1981, while three others recalled seeing the possible murderer where her body was found.
The suspect's car was described as a noisy, greenish-blue "junker" with an Alberta license plate hanging from the front bumper, no rear plate and a dangling tailpipe. The driver had dark, collar-length hair and two-week-old growth on his face.
Eastman tried to determine whether there was any connection between Mosie's file and other "hitchhiker murders."
By the fall of 1981, Eastman had compiled 900 pages of investigative notes, interviewed more than 1,000 people, had 11,000 licence plate numbers reported and enlisted the help of an Ottawa-based psychic, but no suspect was ever charged.
