NOV 13, 2021
Missing Portage woman's family mark solemn holiday 13 years after disappearance | Canada.Com
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“And another year passes.”
This upcoming Christmas will mark the 13th that Lori will spend without her daughter Amber, who went missing on an early fall morning back in 2008 after a night out at a Portage la Prairie nightclub, and has not been seen or heard from since.
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“That first Christmas of 2008 without Amber, we just left the house,” Lori said. “We didn’t put up a tree. We packed up and went to my sister’s house for Christmas, and she looked after us.”
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“Our family is incomplete without Amber, but we have learned to go on without her,” Lori said. “It’s become a little easier over the years as now we often reminisce with laughter in our memories of Amber, wherein the earlier years the reminiscing always brought tears.
“We have special ornaments for Amber that we put on the Christmas tree every year. We really missed her those first few Christmases because she always wore the Santa hat and loved to hand out the presents in her pyjamas.
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Friends of Amber’s have said she was at the nightclub with her ex-boyfriend, Kelly Garrioch, and there is security footage from that morning that shows her with Garrioch and another man, later identified as Graham Saxon, in the hotel’s beer vendor.
Garrioch was 38 at the time, and later admitted he was with Amber early that morning despite a court order prohibiting him from being with her, stemming from an alleged assault in May 2008.
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Police have said that two searches were conducted at the home where Garrioch lived when McFarland went missing, with one taking place in 2008, and a second being conducted in 2009, and in the 2009 search, officers from the forensics identification units reportedly dug up parts of the property.
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“I miss Amber just as much now as in the initial years that she was missing. A parent never gets over the loss of a child. You just learn to live with it and find ways to cope. It becomes your new normal. I immerse myself in my work and in giving attention to my family.
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“We want there to be justice for Amber,” Lori said. “She was loved, and she had her whole future ahead of her.
“Her life mattered.”
Anyone with information about Amber McFarland’s disappearance can contact their local RCMP detachment, or call Manitoba Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
* Photo gallery with 17 photos at the link.