JESSIE FOSTER - STILL MISSING IN NORTH LAS VEGAS - REWARD INCREASED TO 50,000 USD

JESSIE FOSTER MISSING SINCE MAY 28TH 2006 WITH HER MOM GLENDENE GRANT

JESSIE REMAINS A MYSTERY
Sun, December 23, 2007
By DANIEL MACISAAC, SUN MEDIA

Members of Jessie Foster's family say they're frustrated a woman who may have information on her disappearance seems to have slipped through the fingers of Canadian authorities.

Foster's mother Glendene Grant has been trying to speak to American Yvonne Hubrechtsen since her 23-year-old daughter went missing after being lured from Alberta to Las Vegas in May 2005, a suspected victim of a prostitution ring.

"This has haunted me," Grant said from her Kamloops, B.C., home. "Because when she first went down to Las Vegas in May 2005 I asked her, 'If anything happens to you or if you go missing, who can I call?' "

Grant says Foster, who lived in Calgary, gave her the number for Yvonne "Angel" Hubrechtsen - but that Grant never needed to use it until all communication with her daughter broke off in March the following year.

When Grant eventually tried the number, the woman who answered refused to co-operate - and she's never been able to talk to her.

So, Grant says it was both shocking and distressing to learn from media reports this week that Hubrechtsen had been in Vancouver until authorities arrested and deported her back to the States on Wednesday.

Vancouver police took Hubrechtsen into custody on a Canada Border Services warrant for having illegally entered the country by not revealing her criminal record.

Grant is convinced that Hubrechtsen, just 22-years-old herself, was part of the group of acquaintances that lured Jessie to Vegas with promises of a lavish lifestyle, and turned her into a sex slave.

Grant has received support from groups like the U.S.-based Anti-Trafficking League Against Slavery - and says she can only hope Foster is being held somewhere against her will and is, at least, still alive.

But she also complains of a lack of co-operation from Las Vegas police in solving Foster's disappearance - or in cracking down on the sex trade industry.

"It's just the girls who get arrested, who may or may not be doing it by choice," she said.

"They're not busting the pimps or the escort services - just the little girls."

Edmontonian Crystal Foster, 24, says she's taking her younger sister's disappearance particularly hard because it was two years ago on Christmas Day that she saw Foster for the last time - at the airport heading back to Vegas and the fate that awaited her there.

"I looked back over my shoulder and she was looking at me with an expression that didn't make sense to me at the time," Crystal recalled.

"I thought maybe she was thinking 'I'm gonna miss you guys,' but later I realized it was something deeper like a silent scream: 'Don't let me go!' "


JESSIE FOSTER AND PETER TODD - THE LAST PERSON JESSIE WAS SEEN WITH

NOTE FROM GLENDENE GRANT -
Wonderful News...Jessie's dad, Dwight told me that we are raising our reward from $10,000 to $50,000 for information leading to Jessie's whereabouts. This is such a wonderful Christmas present to Jessie from her Daddy.
Glendene

REWARD FOR MISSING WOMAN RAISED
Jessie Foster's father adds $40,000 to the initial offer
By CARY CASTAGNA, SUN MEDIA
Sun, December 23, 2007


JESSIE AND HER DAD DWIGHT

It’s not nearly as heartwarming as having her missing daughter home for the holidays, but Glendene Grant calls it a “wonderful Christmas present.”

The reward for information leading to Jessie Foster’s whereabouts has been raised from $10,000 to $50,000, Grant told Sun Media Sunday.

The extra $40,000 is being put up by Foster’s father, Dwight Foster, and will be offered through Crime Stoppers.

“This is such a wonderful Christmas present to Jessie from her daddy,” Grant said from her Kamloops, B.C., home, explaining her former common-law husband’s plan to shore up the funds through equity on his Calgary home and other assets.

“It’s quite a jump. If need be, it’ll go up even higher.”

Foster, an Alberta woman missing since March 2006, is believed to be the victim of a human-trafficking ring that landed her in Las Vegas’s seedy underbelly.

Once a straight-A student, Foster travelled twice to the U.S. in the spring of 2005 with a man she met at a reggae party who promised to pay the way.

She wound up meeting another man a short time later and by June was already working as a prostitute in Sin City.

Foster, who has several relatives in Edmonton, returned north of the border later that fall to visit her parents.

But on the morning of Dec. 25, 2005, Foster – then 21 years old – said she needed a ride to the airport because she had to go back to Vegas immediately, Grant recalled.

That Christmas was the last time she saw her daughter.

“This time of year is especially tough,” she added.

Grant, who believes her 23-year-old daughter is still alive, has no doubt that she’ll eventually find her.

The heartbroken mom is hopeful that the $50,000 reward should help loosen someone’s lips.

“I sure hope so. Money talks,” she said. “The more we offer, the more likely someone’s going to come forward.

“It’s really hard. I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know where else to turn.”

Dwight Foster couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday on the beefed-up reward.

Meanwhile, as Sun Media reported Sunday, Grant is trying to contact Yvonne Hubrechtsen, a friend of Foster’s who was in Vancouver prior to being arrested and deported back to the U.S. on Wednesday.

Hubrechtsen, 22, was taken into custody on a Canada Border Services warrant for not revealing her criminal record when she entered Canada, according to media reports.

Grant believes Hubrechtsen was part of the group of acquaintances that lured Foster to Vegas with promises of a lavish lifestyle and may have information on her disappearance.

cary.castagna@sunmedia.ca


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CRYSTAL HARRIS