Angela Mary Arseneault was a 17-year-old from Burnaby, British Columbia who disappeared in the summer of 1994.

Angela’s parents had separated when she was young and her mother remarried when she was five years old. Her stepfather had worked in construction and the family moved around a lot, even spending time in Alberta. Angela attended her first year of high school in Trail, British Columbia and it’s during this time that her mother believes she had begun to experiment with street drugs.

The family later settled in Surrey and Angela dropped out of school. She eventually moved out of her parents’ home and left for Burnaby. Angela had even turned to sex work on the mean streets of downtown Vancouver for a short time before meeting her boyfriend, Edward Bethel.

On Friday, August 19th, 1994 Angela spoke with her mother over the phone and made plans to go shopping the next day for shower curtains. She then met up with her boyfriend and a male friend in downtown Vancouver for dinner and a shopping trip. After the trio went out for dinner and spent some time shopping, Angela reportedly took a bus from 11th Avenue and Commercial Drive back to the apartment she shared with her boyfriend.

The following morning, when her boyfriend returned home he found the lights on and a window open. According to him her purse, money and ID were all found in the kitchen and all of her shopping bags were discovered in the residence.

However, Angela was nowhere to be found.

Angela was reported missing by her common-law partner two days later on Sunday. However, according to the Report of Missing Women Commission of Inquiry titled Forsaken, Angela was not reported missing until Agust 29th. This timeline leaves 10 days between when Angela originally went missing and when she was reported missing to authorities.

Despite the discrepancy, what is clear is that the Burnaby RCMP did not arrive at Angela’s apartment or interview her boyfriend until the following month on September 22nd.

Angela was described as standing 5′ 6″ to 5′ 7″ and weighing 150 lbs to 170 lbs with long brown hair and brown eyes. The 17-year-old reportedly had an inch-long scar on the inside of her left knee and two unique tattoos. Angela had a tattoo of a purple rose on her right ankle and a second tattoo of a Chinese symbol on her left shoulder that reportedly said “Rock and Roll.” She was last seen wearing white denim jeans and a cotton sweatshirt in grey and maroon.

Angela Mary Arsenault, fondly called Angie, was also known to use the surnames Baines and Kennedy.

A Missing Teen

While Angela was last seen in Vancouver, she was reported missing in Burnaby. Information regarding her case was forwarded to the Vancouver Police Department, while the Burnaby RCMP continued to investigate.

Despite leaving home Angela frequently kept in touch with her mother and she had plans to go to her family’s house in North Surrey three days later but she never made it to her parents’ house either. Two weeks later a welfare cheque arrived via the mail at her apartment but Angela never collected it.

“Angela would never, ever do this to family,” Angela’s mother, Margaret Kennedy, explained. “Somebody out there knows what happened to Angela.”

Angela’s mother insisted that her daughter did not appear to have plans to run away. This was echoed by Ted Davis, an investigator for the Missing Children’s Society of Canada who had spent years on the case.

“There was no particular reason for her to disappear. Things were starting to look up for her. She had money coming in from welfare. She had been accepted to school,” Ted Davis explained.

Despite this, Angela’s mother has expressed publically that she feels the RCMP dismissed her daughter as a teenage runaway.

“I can’t believe the way the whole thing was handled right from the beginning,” Margaret Kennedy told the Vancouver Sun in 2001. “They just didn’t seem to care.”

Angela’s grandmother told the Vancouver Sun that she had little faith in the RCMP after so long.

“I’ve called and called and called now. But I’ve given up this last year, so I never bothered them at all. You just get this run around,” Pat Arseneault explained.

Margaret Kennedy, Angela’s mother, claims that her daughter was being harassed by a former pimp who was trying to force her back into sex work.

The RCMP had plastered posters of Angela’s face across the country with little to show for it. The nationwide campaign only produced two tips and neither appeared to be helpful to investigators. A friend of Angela’s in Trail mistakenly believed they had seen her and an American psychic tried to provide their own theory.

At some point, Angela’s family hired a private investigator but little evidence was discovered.

A year after Angela disappeared her mother, Margaret Kennedy, admitted that she was losing hope after so much time had passed.

“I hate to give up hope that she is still alive, but it’s been so long that she would have called us,” Margaret Kennedy stated. “I hate to say it, but I’d like to know what happened, where she is. Somebody out there knows what happened to her.”

Angela’s grandmother spoke with the Vancouver Sun in 2001 and expressed that she wanted to see her granddaughter found even if she was no longer alive.

“I know she’s dead. But please find her so we can have an end to this,” Pat Arseneault asked. “It’s in my heart every day. Every day.”

The Pig Farmer K*iller

Between the late 70s and early 2000s, as many as 65 women went missing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

In February 2002, the RCMP searched a farm in Port Coquitlam owned by Robert William Pickton, who later became known as the Pig Farmer Ki*ller. Between 1978 and 2002 Robert Pickton targeted se*x workers in Vancouver’s core, brutally ki*lling them before disposing of their remains on his pig farm.

At first, authorities hoped to connect Robert Pickton to the disappearance of as many as 50 women, including Angela. Eventually, DNA evidence tied Robert Pickton to six women and in 2007 he was convicted of six counts of second-degree mur*der.

Robert Pickton was never officially connected to the disappearance of Angela Mary Arseneault.

Angela was born in 1977 and would be 47 years old today. However, three decades later, Angela remains missing.

If you have any information about the disappearance of Angela Mary Arseneault please contact one of the following:

• Burnaby RCMP 604–646–9999 Reference Case#: 1994–47424
• Crime Stoppers: 1–800–222-TIPS(8477)