Hunt for a suspect continues 15 years after Misha Pavelick’s murder

Who killed Misha Pavelick?

That’s the question that has haunted his family for 15 years.

The 19-year-old was stabbed to death in Regina Beach on May 21, 2006. The culprit has never been found.

However, police are still hard at work trying to find out what happened and nail down a suspect.

Sgt. Donna Zawislak with the RCMP Historical Case Unit in Regina said many challenges pop up when investigating a case as old as this one.

“Part of the reason why it has been this long is that trying to get people to open up and talk to us about the truth about what they know happened is one of the biggest hurdles that we have,” she explained.

“Time is always a factor for us … People have a tendency to move forward and start forgetting about things.”

However, there are signs that the murderer could be found at some point in the future.

“Sometimes, (time) can benefit a file in regards to eliminating barriers as to why people didn’t want to talk to police initially. People move on, they grow up, they have families of their own and can relate a little bit more to what’s happened now that they have more life experience,” Zawislak said.

Some of that positive movement is happening.

Zawislak wouldn’t share the details, but said some new information has come in “within the last few months” that could help point to a suspect.

“That information has been assisting our investigation. (It’s) kind of giving us a new light to work towards finding out what happened to Misha and to determine who was responsible for Misha’s death,” she explained.

It has already been a long-haul investigation, but Zawislak said she and the department are still as motivated as ever to bring it to an end.

“Until we’re directly affected by something like this, we don’t understand the pain and the trauma that the family goes through …,” she said. “Nothing is ever totally resolved, because their loved one is still lost in all of this and they will never get them back, but it’s able to take it to the next step and the next chapter in their life.

“We want to make sure that people aren’t forgotten. We want to try to get answers for the family.”

On Friday, the Saskatchewan RCMP is to release Who Killed Misha Pavelick? a three-part podcast that examines the case.

The podcast features the voices of RCMP officers who have been involved in the investigation, as well as other RCMP experts and Pavelick’s loved ones.

“This podcast is a first-ever for us, and a first-ever for the RCMP,” Saskatchewan RCMP Commanding Officer Rhonda Blackmore said in a media release.

“Podcasts present such a compelling way for us to tell a story, and this is one of the many stories we hope to tell with this new platform. I hope that hearing the determination in our investigators’ voices, and the heartbreak in Misha’s loved ones’ voices will compel those with knowledge of the circumstances of Misha’s death to come forward.”

The three episodes of Who Killed Misha Pavelick? will be released here.

Anyone with information on the case is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.