Discovery ends 38-year mystery for son
Published: April 29, 2010 6:00 PM
Tears are slowly giving way to closure for the son of a woman whose remains were discovered Sunday after she had been missing for nearly four decades.
“I’m pretty much cried out for now, but to get some type of ending ... and the more it sinks in the happier I am that at least I now know something,” said Gordon Thomas, 40, who was only two when his mother Betty Thomas disappeared while on her way to her brother’s wedding in November 1972. “I have a lot of family up there in Penticton, pretty well any Thomas you find in the phone book is related to Betty, cousins, second cousins and I’m sure they feel the same way I do.”
Like many other people, Gordon, who now lives in Surrey, had been following the story about the finding of human remains in the rusted hulk of a mid-60s Chrysler pulled from the bottom of Skaha Lake by Oceantec scuba divers.
“Yesterday (Wednesday) morning RCMP from Penticton contacted me and told me they had made a discovery and I knew right away,” said Thomas in a telephone interview Thursday. “I asked him (the officer) if it was my mother they found in that car and he said ‘yes it was’ but I guess I was still pretty shocked.”
Betty, whose first name is actually Elizabeth, and her young son were living in Hedley at the time of the accident.
When the 20-year-old woman failed to arrive at her destination and no trace of her could be found, Gordon stayed with his mother’s parents (since deceased), who also lived in the small mining community.
He moved to the Lower Mainland to finish high school at the age of 16.
The late woman’s brother and sister are both thought to live in the Greater Victoria area, although Gordon has only spoken to his uncle.
“I think he’s feeling pretty much the same though,” said Thomas.
Over the years he tried without success to find any trace of Betty, either through police or private sources.
And although he remembers almost nothing from the brief time the pair spent together, he has talked to relatives and others who knew her and what she was like.
“I spoke to a few of my mother’s friends, including her best friend who she had known since she was three,” said Thomas. “She’d (best friend) always maintained that something happened to her (Betty), that she wasn’t missing, that something had happened. She told me my mother wasn’t the kind of woman who would just run off and leave me — that if she was going somewhere she would have taken me with her.”
He also remembers seeing pictures of the two of them in an old family album which have taken on even greater significance since the discovery.
RCMP and the coroners service were able to identify the woman after finding personal ID during a forensic examination of the car and its contents Tuesday.
Sgt. Rick Dellebuur of the Penticton RCMP said the fact the documents had lasted as long as they did in those conditions was “miraculous.”
Without the paperwork, officials had predicted the process would be long and very difficult.
A thorough investigation also indicated foul play was not an issue in Thomas’ death.
The car was thought to have been northbound when it went off Highway 97 near the lookout south of Penticton and plunged down a steep embankment, winding up submerged on its roof in about 15-30 feet of water.
It was first discovered by divers last August and was being taken out of the lake as part of an Earth Day cleanup project by the local dive firm.
Gordon Thomas is planning to come to Penticton this weekend or early next week to retrieve his mother’s remains and some of her other possessions, including jewelry that were found at the same time.
He is also considering having a service for Betty here.
Thomas does admit that up until Wednesday he had a faint hope things wouldn’t end up the way they have.
“I guess it’s always in the back of your mind — wondering if she was still alive, where she would be and what she would be doing,” he said. “It’s a bitter sweet ending.”
http://www.bclocalnews.com/okanagan_similkameen/pentictonwesternnews/news/92465819.html
