In 1989, Ronald and Doreen Jack were going through tough times.
Ronnie and Doreen, both 26, were the parents of two small boys, Russell, 9, and Ryan, 4. The Jack family were Indigenous; both Ronnie and Doreen were members of the Cheslatta Carrier Nation, a First Nations band from the area of Nechako Lake, British Columbia. Not much is known about Ronnie's early life, but Doreen's sister, Maria, has spoken about their childhood, and has stated that there was physical and sexual abuse, as well as abandonment of the family by their mother.
From 1976 onwards, Doreen attended a Catholic boarding school in the region, where she met Ronald. A couple of years later, their first child, Russell, was born, and Ronnie and Doreen moved in with his parents in nearby Southbank, BC. In 1985, Ryan joined the family. Family members have stated that things seemed to be going well for the young couple through this time period, and they seemed happy.
But in the late 1980s, Ronnie lost his job at a local sawmill following a back injury, and the family was forced to go on welfare to survive. During this time, they relocated to Prince George, British Columbia, in hopes of finding more job opportunities. Ronnie was, in his mother's words, "desperate to work", and Doreen descended into heavy alcoholism. Domestic violence from Ronnie towards Doreen was witnessed by family members; the couple was in extreme poverty, with reports of Doreen stealing cough medicine for the boys, and Ronnie telling his mother that he was in debt for an "unknown amount of money" to an undisclosed individual.
On August 1, 1989, Ronnie was at the First Litre Pub in Prince George, which was four blocks from the family's home at 2116 Strathcona Avenue. At that time, the First Litre had a reputation for being a shady establishment, and often attracted a rougher crowd than other bars in the area. While drinking, an unknown man began speaking with Ronnie, and offered him a job at a logging camp that was reportedly somewhere in the area of Cluculz Lake. Cluculz is roughly 40 kilometres west of Prince George, along BC's Highway 16, or the infamous Highway of Tears. (It should be noted here that the Jack family's disappearance is not officially on the RCMP's E-Pana list of Highway of Tears cases, though it's often mentioned in conjunction.)
During the course of this conversation, the stranger told Ronnie that the job would only last a couple of weeks, and that there would be work available for Doreen, as well as childcare for the two boys. (A personal note - I am from British Columbia and am familiar with the forestry industry. It would be basically unheard of for a family or children to be anywhere near a logging camp. Logging is a hazardous job, and these camps are often very remote. It would also be unheard of for there to be "daycare" at a camp.) When Ronnie told the man that the family did not own a vehicle, the man offered to drive them to the camp in his pickup truck.
At 11:16 pm, Ronnie and the unidentified stranger left the First Litre and went together to Ronnie's house, further down the street on Strathcone Ave. At some point in the early hours, Ronnie phoned his brother (who lived in Burns Lake, roughly two and a half hours west of Prince George), hoping to ask that his brother watch the children while he and Doreen were at the camp working. His brother refused, so shortly after this phone call, Ronnie made another call, this time to his mother. From everything I can find, it is not known what was said during this phone call, except for the end of the conversation, when Ronnie asked his mother to look for him if he did not return. During these early morning hours, Ronnie and Doreen began packing belongings, and her sister, Loreen, witnessed them loading these belongings into the truck.
This was the last time that the family was ever seen.
Ronnie's mother, Mabel Jack, did not hear from him for several weeks, so at the end of August, 1989, reported him missing to the RCMP. The Strathcona house was searched, and police found that most of their clothing, furniture, and childrens' school records had stayed undisturbed.
On September 7, the RCMP erroneously reported that the family had been found. This was untrue; however, the investigation was closed for a short time.
The case went cold for seven years, until January 28, 1996. That morning, at 8:33, the Vanderhoof RCMP detachment received an anonymous phone call. Audio of this call can be found on Youtube. The caller said only "the Jack family are buried at the south end of ___ ranch", and promptly hung up. The audio of this call has been analyzed by the University of British Columbia, but the ranch being referred to has never been confirmed. Police were able to trace this call to a residence in Stoney Creek, which is a small Saik'uz First Nations hamlet southwest of Vanderhoof. When the RCMP investigated this call further, they believed that the call was made during a house party, but they have never been able to identify the partygoers. In 2018, an appeal was made for the caller to come forward.
RCMP conducted ground-penetrating radar searches on a property on Saik'uz First Nation territory in August 2019, with no evidence found.
The suspect who met with Ronnie at the First Litre pub on August 1, 1989 is described as a white male in his late 30s, between 6 to 6'6" tall, and weighing between 200 to 275 pounds. This man had red, or reddish-brown, hair, a large beard, and was wearing blue jeans, a checkered red work shirt, a ball cap, a blue nylon jacket, and work boots with leather fringes over the toes. A sketch of this man is available and posted in the links below.
36 years later, no trace has ever been found of Ronald, Doreen, Russell, and Ryan Jack.
If you have any information about this case, please contact the RCMP, call 250-561-3300 or anonymously contact Crime Stoppers at 1(800)222-8477, or online at www.northernbccrimestoppers.ca.
Wikipedia - Jack family disappearance
Prince George Citizen - Serious Crimes Unit continues investigating, 35 years later
Jack must’ve been really desperate for work to take his whole family with him in the middle of the night with a complete stranger.
Yes, I think you're sadly right. To most of us, it would probably sound too good to be true, or we would get an 'off' vibe, but taking into consideration what we know about the family's financial situation at the time, I think Ronnie probably was desperate and thought it sounded like the opportunity he needed.
Also, consider that Ronnie was most likely intoxicated to some level as this was all happening, which would lower his inhibitions and influence his decision making.
It's hard to really describe the lack of economic opportunities in some remote parts of BC to someone who hasn't been here. A logging camp job probably seemed too good to pass up. And sadly I don't think that job ever existed.
I man, yes, from the sounds of it these people were desperately poor. Stealing cough medicine?! They were clearly in dire straits. You’ve gotta remember that we’re talking about generational poverty and trauma here, so it’s not like they had middle-class parents who could help get them back on their feet
One of the craziest cases. Lots of people wondered if it was Robert pickton or his brother but doesn’t really fit his pattern at all
Yes, Dave Pickton has been mentioned many a time in previous discussions because of his resemblance to the sketch, however there is zero evidence linking him to this case, and Port Coquitlam, where the Pickton brothers lived, is a 9 hour drive south of Prince George. Neither of the Picktons would fit the physical description of the man who met Ronnie, as that man was reportedly between 6 and 6'6" - the Pickton brothers are/(were) quite a bit shorter than that, from what I can remember reading (source would be On the Farm by Stevie Cameron). There's no indication that either Dave or Willie Pickton ever spent time in PG.
But I can totally see why the sketch makes people think it could be one of them.
This is pretty far from Pikton's area, no?
Yes definitely. I think ppl just grasping for other Canadian serial killers who lived in the wilderness
A whole family also wasnt his M.O.
Maybe it was Israel Keys!! 😱
Maybe if Keyes was wearing a red wig and fake beard
Keyes is definitely involved in other murders. I know that’s become a big running joke in this sub, but he wasn’t keen on taking credit for his murders. People love to paint him as some Henry Lee Lucas just dying to take credit for every murder. Watch the interviews (yes he was an unbearable douchebag) but you can tell he wanted to keep his crimes close to the chest. He definitely loved toying with investigators, but he wasn’t a braggart.
They do the same thing trying to connect Clifford Olson to every possible case, even those that occurred after he was in prison.
Not Pickton's MO. He wouldn't have picked a family that would be missed.
Or Bobby jack?
Maybe? I think Fowler was confirmed to have been in BC in the mid 70s. I can't remember if he was around in the late 80s. Maybe someone else can remember better than me!
ETA - did a bit of searching and saw that Kim Rossmo, an internationally renowned geographic profiler from BC, is on record stating that he does not believe Fowler was involved in any cases from 1989-2006.
I live and work in a similar environment as the one from which the Jacks vanished—rural, small-town Alaska in the commercial fishing industry, which sometimes feels like it's stuck in 1989. It's common for things like employment, tenant agreements, business deals, whatever, to be a 'spit and a handshake' although I'd say that is definitely more frequent when both parties are known to each other. Both my husband and I have found jobs at the local bar just from talking to other locals (it helps to keep a good head on your shoulders and avoid heavy drinking, though). I've heard of people getting lured to remote communities with no money or backup plan after being promised jobs that turn out to be very exploitative or not to exist in the first place—then they get stuck there or taken advantage of.
This is all just to say that I find it totally plausible that Ronnie either went to the bar looking for work or mentioned that he was job-seeking while there, and an ill-intentioned stranger used that information to lure the Jacks away that night. I might buy the theory that the job was legit and they drove into a body of water on the way there but the whole 'there just happens to be a job for your wife and daycare for your kids at this remote logging camp' thing just really makes it seem like a predator found a target (or in this case, four) who displayed enough desperation and willingness to go along with whatever he instructed. A reputable timber company would also not likely hire Ronnie on as a bucker—a physically-demanding job that requires using a chain saw to cut felled trees into smaller logs—because he apparently had a back injury so severe that he was receiving disability for it. Unfortunately, I think the Jacks were murdered shortly after leaving PG and their bodies were concealed somewhere in the wilderness or on a remote property. Very sad case and I do hope there is some closure someday.
It does sound like a typical snake oil salesman. I wonder if human trafficking plays a bigger role than anyone thinks; are the children actually dead?
I was thinking so too. I know human trafficking is usually a big stretch, but i really wonder why some psycho would want to take the whole family like that
Very odd for a whole family to be abducted. Not sire how big the area was but im assuming the money lenders were known to cops and I also cant see a moneylender owed, going to an elaborate set up like that. A beating to warn Ronnie maybe. But why kidnapped a whole family.
It is a very strange case.
Prince George is about 77,000 people, and was about the same size then, so it's not a large city by any means, but it's not a small town either.
Interestingly enough, I have read about this case many times before but never picked up on the detail about Ronnie owing money to someone until I was putting this write-up together. However, I do tend to think it's a red herring and most likely not related to the case.
I think Ronnie owing money is relevant only insofar as it likely added to his willingness to pack his family into a stranger's truck at 1:30 in the morning with the aim of getting to a job that sounded sketchy from the jump.
Shoot, most of us owe money to corporate gangsters in one way or another.
The only way to get the kids would be to take the whole family. They likely were the actual target.
That's so horrific
This reminds me of the Lake/Ng killings in Northern California in the mid 1980s where they made whole families vanish.
Folks in previous discussions seem to bring up Pat Carson a lot, who was a province over years later but was also interested in families, and the age matches.
Pat Carson is definitely brought up a lot. I wonder if there's any record of him having been in BC in the late 80s.
I think Pat is just a creep who doesn't have a real 'type', as it seems he has shown interest in families, single men, and single women. I also don't think he has ever been charged with murder, though he is certainly suspected often. I know he has a violent criminal history that involves sexual violence, though.
I want to be careful with what I say here as I know that people shouldn't just be named willy nilly, but anyways - I personally think it is a stretch but would still be interested to see a photo of him to compare to the sketch. I don't think I've ever seen a photo of PC.
Absolutely fair, I generally try to stay out of the perp side of things and jumped on speculation a bit too quickly after seeing the length of time yet another group of Indigenous victims have gone without closure. I saw this brought up so often in other places that I forgot to consider subreddit rules.
I've found photos but am too faceblind to say, though some descriptors between him and the truck owner match. Anyone more familiar with the area or Canadian records is welcome to look into public records placing him or anyone else known to LE in the area (edit: I wasn't able to find anything definitive). It looks like there's been some investigative reporting over the years on him for several cases, but nothing public-facing yet. I personally was able to find nonconfirmed business names in both provinces that are similar.
Good point about pat. I remember seeing his ads. He’s a good person to at least look into
He has very similar cheeks to the sketch, that much I can tell. Can't seem to get a good look at his face front-on though.
Catholic boarding school = residential school
So much trauma in this family’s life, even before they met up with this last monster.
Life is so flipping unfair sometimes.
Agreed. It's terribly sad.
I hope they had some moments of peace and happiness throughout their short lives.
I pulled from Wikipedia a bit on this article and I quote: "Following the closure of the Lejac Residential School in 1976, Doreen attended a live-in Catholic high school."
So, yeah. Terms differ. But I guess you're probably right.
I don’t mean to nitpick, sorry to come off that way. It adds relevance I think
It definitely does add relevance! No worries.
Thank you! This immediately stood out to me.
Came to say this.
Was gonna say the same
I get that the “body of water” is a bit of a meme recently in the true crime community, that is often true. This is one of those cases I wonder about a vehicle at the bottom of a ravine or river/lake that has never been found
I also have seen quite a bit of discussion about this theory in regards to this case and would be somewhat inclined to believe it, except for the question of what would have happened to the mystery man with them. I guess it's possible that no missing person report would have been made for him, but given that his sketch was circulated in the Jack case, you would think that if an accident had happened, someone's memory would have been jogged about someone they knew who looked like that being missing as well.
There is certainly water around that area that they could have gone into.
There is also the notion that Cluculz Lake was a location intended to throw people off, and they traveled an entirely different direction.
However I just think the circumstances around this case heavily suggest foul play. The strange man, the phone call (which easily could have been a prank call), etc.
yeah the "body of water" really would be only if the Man was a loner and wouldn't be missed (still possible he was nefarious in that instance). If it was a legit offer the Man's place of employment would have reported him and placed the photo eventually.
The YouTube channel "Abstract" did an excellent documentary on this case as well
I very strongly recommend it too. Link Here
She does a good job putting in the context of the epidemic of violent crimes against indigenous women and girls in Canada which the RCMP are/were at best indifferent to. Reportedly relatives of the Jack family who campaigned about the police’s slow and shoddy investigations were threatened by the cops and told they’d stop investigating at all if they made too much noise.
I hadn’t realized that the family lived so adjacent to the notorious Highway 16, better known as the Highway of Tears(a stretch of highway in rural British Columbia where over the decades dozens of indigenous women and girls have gone missing, and where the RCMP have concluded that multiple serial killers were operating along).
Before that video I semi-seriously wondered if the dad had set this all up as some elabaroate family annihilation but now I’m certain that it was some kind of predator who abducted and murdered them all. And if he’d targeted a whole family this almost certainly wasn’t the first murder he’d committed.
A bit of rambling perspective from someone who has lived in BC for my whole adult life - I think the Highway of Tears has become this great boogeyman that conjures up a lot of feelings and images of a terrifying serial killer who hunted down and searched out all of the many dozens of missing people up north and killed them all himself in some secret wilderness torture cabin or something. I think the reality of the situation is quite a bit more complex than that.
Do I believe that there was/is a serial killer, perhaps multiple, that used the isolation of that area as their perfect cover for their crimes? Yes, absolutely.
But attributing all of the cases in the area to that alone takes away from the very real issues that continue to plague northern BC and the First Nations communities there. Generational trauma is real. Many of these families experienced residential schools. Alcohol and drug use is very prevalent; domestic violence, abuse (physical, sexual, emotional) is as well. Employment is often difficult and so is education. Northern BC is more remote than most people could imagine. In short, many of our First Nations communities are trapped in cycles of behaviour that are inherently very high-risk. And it isn't something that we can point and say is their fault. They have been failed by everyone - social services, the RCMP, hell, there wasn't even bus service available in most of that area until recently, let alone cell service. Canada has done a terrible job of supporting our First Nations communities, and even now, after the push for Truth and Reconciliation, we still continue to do a terrible job in so many ways.
And there could be so many paragraphs written about the systemic racism within the RCMP and their unwillingness to investigate so many cases. Pickton is an example of this. Other people have written about this issue in a far more eloquent way than I can, so I'll leave the topic alone, but we know for a fact that the RCMP essentially shrugged the Jack family investigation off when it happened, and were less than kind to the remaining family members who pushed for further investigation.
So that said, I do believe that many of these cases (particularly the E-Pana list), can be attributed to predators who took advantage of the circumstances I mentioned. And I do think the Jack family was targeted by someone who recognized how vulnerable they were. I guess my point is that when researching cases in this area, it's important to slow down and not wildly go "oh, Highway of Tears!!!" and really take the time to understand the myriad of factors that go into a lot of these disappearances and crimes.
I heartily agree.
There are definitely one or more serial killers operating along the highway, but they are definitely not the sole reason behind all of the disappearances.
As for the Jack Family, I do think the mysterious man in the Hsquvarna jacket killed them and that he was an experienced killer. I also unfortunately don't think they will ever be found.
I believe he was experienced as well; abducting an entire family (with witnesses! Remember, the Jacks made several phone calls while he was at the home with them, and Doreen's sister actually saw them leave) is an incredibly nervy, risky endeavour.
Your first paragraph put my feelings about the MMIP crisis in Canada (and Alaska, closer to home) into words so perfectly. Personally, I find it far more terrifying and heartbreaking that there are so many perpetrators of violence out there (especially against vulnerable women and girls) who have been literally getting away with murder for decades and will continue to do so due to systemic racism.
Highway of Tears by Jessica Mc Dermiad is an excellent book on this subject.
Agreed!
Yes they did!
Thanks for the write-up. This is one of those cases that I find so desperately sad and would love for there some day to be resolution. Who knows- maybe someday something will be found and the mystery solved, but it does seem vanishingly unlikely we will ever know what became of these poor souls :/
I hope so too. I do think it is possible that both the killer and the mystery caller are still alive and that info could eventually come out... but sadly unlikely.
Especially if the family really is buried, they will most likely never be found unless someone gives an exact location or coordinates. That area is vast.
It sounds like the suspect was really interested in the whole family, which makes me wonder if the whole point was to traffic the wife and children and just get the husband out of the way.
Unfortunately, I do think that a woman and/or children might be more 'desirable' to that kind of predator than a man.
There are so many potential motives and angles you could look at this case from.
Extremely unfortunate that the suspect in this case is so incredibly...average, I suppose? Like, aside from being tall, this guy looks like any number of guys you'd see in the logging/forestry industry, or even just rural British Columbia in general.
It seems likely that the Jacks fell victim to an opportunistic killer or trafficker who targeted them after learning about their dire economic and living situation. The man Ronald met at the bar is almost certainly the culprit, though it's possible other persons were involved as well, and I'm tentatively open to the possibility that he may have been sent by whoever Ronald owed money to as opposed to being a random stranger (let it be known, however, that I still don't think that's particularly likely).
I'm somewhat inclined to believe the anonymous phone call was genuine, or at the very least that the caller believed the information was correct, as seven years seems a bit too far removed for prank calls. I can definitely imagine a situation where someone is at a party and either a) hears a fellow party-goer confess to killing/burying the Jack family and decides to make an anonymous tip or b) was directly involved in the family's disappearance, gets reminded of it somehow, and, through a combination of guilt and inebriation, makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to call in an anonymous tip.
In any case, this seems like one of those crimes that will only ever be solved if someone confesses and actually leads LE/RCMP to wherever the family was buried.
This case has always gotten to me. Nothing of theirs has been found. I think it's likely that the wife and or children were the main reason this guy chose Mr. Jack. I do often wonder, had Mr jack had his own transportation, if this man would have given him a false address. If the man was banking on them not having their own vehicle.
I do believe that their lack of personal transportation was a key factor in the case. It would be, sadly, much easier to control the situation and its outcome when you have the whole family in your vehicle, rather than them travelling to this supposed "camp" the next day in their own car at a more reasonable hour than 1 or 2 am.
I find this the most unsettling aspect of the Jack case and the one that points to foul play. It seems super plausible that the man in the bar chose the Jack family specifically because they were reliant on him for transportation, meaning that he dictated their sudden departure in the middle of the night. Their desperation for work and willingness to do whatever he asked undoubtedly showcased exactly how vulnerable they were. :(
I can't imagine the guilt the family must feel about not agreeing to care for the boys while the parents went off to the 'job'. That would be very a very difficult decision to live with.
To be fair, asking the family to take care of two kids out of the blue was a hell of an ask. If a family member asked me to look after their kids for more than a day or two I'd have to say no, because I'm in no way prepared or capable to do so.
I wonder how the weather was that day, are there any records of that? If it was storming is it possible to end up in a river or lake? I don’t know the area well but i grew up in Northern Manitoba and car accidents happened all the time. I could totally see a truck getting lost in the bush if something like that did happen. With people being found so many years later in bodies of water i mean it could be possible. Probably unlikely but maybe it wasn’t anything nefarious after all
I'm having a very hard time finding historical weather data that far back. August tends to be fairly hot and sunny, but thunderstorms are more likely in the area from April to June, roughly. It isn't impossible that it was storming, but I wouldn't say it was super likely either. Maybe if someone here is from that area and lurking, they can chime in. I live further south in BC, but in an area with similar weather patterns.
Someone else brought up the car accident theory earlier in the thread. I can entertain that possibility, but I get stuck on the man that took them. Would he have been reported missing too? You would think so, although there are of course plenty of circumstances in which he wouldn't either. I do think it is unlikely that this was anything other than foul play, but I do also know how common it is for people to be found in vehicles in water years later.
Not to nitpick, but to clarify, Doreen did not only attend “a catholic boarding school”; she initially attended a residential school. Lejac Lake Residential School, specifically. This is a pretty huge distinction given that residential schools were the sites of massive abuse, genocide, and many children who attended them did not make it home alive. Attending this school almost certainly added to Doreen’s trauma. Speculatively, I suspect the high school she and Ronald attended was also a residential school.
ETA: just want to be clear, OP, I suspect you know this and didn’t mean anything by excluding it. Just feel like the added context is important for international readers because Canada (I am Canadian) often seems to have an inaccurate international image.
This has been brought up by others in this thread. I worded it the way I did because this is what Wikipedia stated: "Following the closure of the Lejac Residential School in 1976, Doreen attended a live-in Catholic high school."
So I assume she attended Lejac Residential School first and then continued on to a school that was pretty much exactly the same thing, just with a different name.
This is something I probably should have added to the initial case write up, but I was in a rush.
Sorry if I offended you at all!
Not offended! Just thought it was worth clarification for readers who might not be well versed in Canadian history.
I know family members of the Jack family. It’s such a sad sad case. Apparently some people have said they have seen one of the boys homeless in Manitoba.
Where was Bobby Jack Fowler?
I'm not sure there is available public info on his whereabouts in 1989, but Kim Rossmo (a world-renowned geographic profiler who worked on the Pickton case and many others, both in BC and internationally) is on record saying he does not believe Fowler was responsible for any cases from 1989-2006.
Wow I've never heard of this case, thank you for posting - I'm so grateful to writers that keep these lesser known cases circulating.
This is horrifying and dark to think about...
I think that trafficking angle is absurd, as well as it having to do with any money being owed. I don't see it being a car accident either.
Sounds to me like a monster saw an opportunity. They must have been reluctant or had some intuition to try and leave the kids and tell his mom to look for them if they aren't heard from, that makes it darker for me,I can just imagine the uneasy feeling as they pulled away...
Unfortunately it sounds like the odds of us ever having the answers to what happened to this poor family is slim( but not zero) 😭
This sounds like such a sad situation all round.
I'm wondering what happened between this mystery man saying the kids could come to the camp, and Ronnie calling family members in the middle of the night to try and organise childcare?