184th ARTICLE: Everywhere on the Internet but still missing

Calgary Herald

October 21, 2009
Everywhere on Internet, but still missing

by Sherri Zickefoose

CALGARY — Glendene Grant's days begin around 3:30 a.m. by typing her daughter's name into online search engines and monitoring dozens of websites devoted to missing women.

Daughter Jessie Foster may have vanished in the underbelly of Las Vegas in 2006, but her presence on the Internet is inescapable.

"She's to me the most well-known, unknown missing person in the world," said Grant, who has created nearly a dozen websites in her daughter's name. She adds Foster's photograph and story to every missing persons list and forum she can find.

Calgary-born Foster was 21 when she disappeared in March 2006, four months after moving to Las Vegas.

Grant believes her daughter is caught up in a human trafficking ring, lured to glamorous Las Vegas by a recruiter who helped turn Foster into a sex slave.

Before her abrupt disappearance, Foster painted a picture of happiness to her parents. She told them she was engaged to a wealthy man, Peter Todd, who drove fast cars and lived in a fancy house in north Vegas. She phoned often and came back to Canada for visits.

Grant eventually learned her daughter's so-called fiance was a pimp with a prior conviction for spousal assault, and that Foster was working as prostitute for an escort agency.

Foster had twice been arrested for solicitation in 2005.

Prior to her disappearance Foster travelled to Nevada, New York and Florida with high school friend Donald Vaz. She called home and said he asked her to earn funds turning tricks because he gambled his money away.

Despite her work in the prostitution trade, Foster kept in touch with family unfailingly, Grant says.

In March 2006, Foster called home to announce she was coming to Kamloops for a visit in a few days and on to Calgary for her stepsister's wedding.

She never arrived.

March 28, 2006, was the last day Foster was seen alive. Since then, Foster's credit cards and bank accounts haven't been touched.

Her frequently used cellphone hasn't been used.

All of these clues are leading Grant to the same horrible conclusion and she is doing everything she can to keep Foster's story alive.

"I want her to be Canada's poster child for human trafficking. It's a symbol of the whole thing. Human trafficking needs to take on a face so people will remember," says Grant.

"Whether she's back or still missing, whether she's alive or not alive, she's already helped a lot of other people start talking about this."

Her website, www.jessiefoster.ca, and YouTube montages offer a $50,000 reward for information about Foster's whereabouts.

She spends hours every day trying to track down leads.

"We're slowly getting Jessie's case saturated around the world. I write enough stories and tag her enough that her name is alive out there."

Grant says she doesn't want to think about her daughter's death, because she wants to focus on finding her alive.

"I think the absolute worst is knowing you're never going to see your child again. But I think I will see Jessie again. I know I will."

Calgary detectives have an average case load of 3,200 missing person reports each year, but "99 per cent of those people are found or find their way home," said Det. John Hebert of the Calgary Police Service major crimes unit.

Calgary simply doesn't have a number of unsolved high-profile cases of local women disappearing under sinister circumstances.

"We're certainly not seeing them. In terms of missing persons we're seeing resolutions of the vast majority of cases as opposed to having a great number of outstanding ones," said Hebert.

"The vast majority of our outstanding missing persons that are reported are resolved in one way or another in a reasonably timely manner."

szickefoose@theherald.canwest.com

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