Two Inuit families, hundreds of kilometres apart, wait for news of missing women

The disappearance of 26-year-old Loretta Saunders made headlines across Canada this past week. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The family of Angela Meyer, who vanished without a trace on Nov. 27, 2010, said they are still waiting to find out what happened to her. (FILE PHOTO)

The disappearance of Loretta Saunders, a young Inuk woman from Nunatsiavut, has brought up painful memories of loss for another Inuit family.

Angela Meyer has been missing since Nov. 27, 2010, the day she vanished from her parent’s Yellowknife home.

“We don’t have any news to report, but that doesn’t mean someone else might not have any,” said Janet Brewster, a cousin of Meyer who lives in Iqaluit.

“Perhaps there’s someone out there being triggered by the news of Loretta Saunders’ disappearance that might be ready to share.”

Meyer, the daughter of Kathy and Dean Meyer, was 22 when she received a pass from the psychiatric ward at Stanton Hospital to visit her family at their home in downtown Yellowknife.

Meyer had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and Type 2 diabetes and police later said she may not have been taking her medication when she was let out from the hospital.

When Meyer stepped out outside her parents’ home that November afternoon to smoke a cigarette, that was the last time her family saw her.

Police later found Meyer’s white coat inside another residence, but interviews and air and ground searches offered no clues to her whereabouts.

“I think my uncle Deano said it best in a statement a year after she disappeared: ‘Angie is still out there somewhere and I’d like someone to do the right thing now. It’s been a year. We are not interested in laying any charges. Whoever has any information can call us directly if they don’t want to talk to the RCMP… no questions asked,’” Brewster said in an email.

“We just want to know where she is,” Brewster added. “I think we’ve come to a point where we know in our hearts that she is in heaven with all of our relations, but we’ll never really know until someone tells us where she is.”

At the time she went missing, Meyer was described as 5’ 10” and 230 pounds, with short black hair and glasses.

Anyone with information about Meyer’s disappearance is asked to call the Yellowknife RCMP detachment or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

The recent disappearance of another Inuk woman hits close to home, Brewster said, although Loretta Saunders lived at the other end of the country.

Saunders’ family has also made a public plea for information about the 26-year-old woman’s disappearance. Saunders’ sister Delilah Terriak held a press conference Feb. 21, urging the public to come forward with any information that could lead police to Saunders’ whereabouts.

Saunders, originally from Hopedale, Labrador, was working towards a sociology degree at Saint Mary’s University when she disappeared from her Halifax apartment Feb. 13.

Police have since arrested a man and woman in Ontario who were found in possession of Saunders’ car.

As part of her honours program, Saunders was working on a thesis about missing and murdered Aboriginal women.