‘Should’ve been the RCMP:’ Saskatoon woman details search to find missing cousin, friend

Family members of a woman who died in a fatal crash last week are speaking out about their frustrations with police involved in the search.

Alyssa Durocher was Karianne Morin’s cousin, and Morin was friends with Morgan Boyer.

Morin said both the women’s phones lost contact around 8 p.m. on Sept. 11, with calls going to voicemail. Around 6 p.m. on Saturday was the last time Morin said either of the women opened her messages on SnapChat.

Nobody heard from the women Sunday. That’s when a friend of Boyer’s contacted Morin and they decided to take action.

Knowing the women’s last whereabouts was at the Co-op in Big River, Morin called the RCMP to report Boyer and Durocher missing.

Throughout numerous calls with the Saskatchewan RCMP over a few days, Morin said officers she spoke with seemed uninterested, and called one “arrogant.”

Morin said one RCMP officer she spoke with commented that the two women and a man were likely trying to evade police because they had ditched their gas bill at the Co-op.

“I told them, ‘No, they wouldn’t be running away from you guys for $41,’ ” Morin said.

Morin said employees at the Co-op had reported that the three people had “seemed intoxicated” when they were there, and had driven north when they left the station.

Morin said she called repeatedly for updates and officers still had no information for her on Sunday night.

“(The Mounties) weren’t doing anything,” Morin said, adding she asked them how they were actively trying to find Boyer and Durocher.

“I don’t even know. I called so many times.”

After RCMP officers assured her they were looking, Morin said she asked an officer if the RCMP had been out on the roads or had searched around the bridges in the area.

Again, Morin said the Mounties told her they had done so, but Morin said she didn’t believe them.

“I got so frustrated at one point I just hung up the phone,” she said.

Morin said she and a cousin called tow truck companies in Meadow lake, Green Lake, Big River and Beauval to see if the vehicle her friend and cousin were last seen in had been attended to. Then, Morin decided to make a post about her missing cousin and friend. She said her post was shared a lot.

Eventually, feeling she wasn’t receiving updates from the RCMP, Morin decided to leave work early to go search herself, along with her cousin and other family members.

After driving almost three hours from Saskatoon to the Green Lake area, Morin said their immediate instinct was to search the bridges, and that led them to search the Beaver River Bridge along Highway 155.

“Obviously (Mounties) didn’t (search there) because if they did, they would’ve seen the scene that we found — that me and my family found,” Morin said.

She described the bridge’s barricade being bent as if something had collided with it, with wood debris and  parts of her cousin’s vehicle — part of a headlight and foglight — scattered around.

The women and a man were found dead in the vehicle on Sept. 13.

“I’m more upset and frustrated,” Morin said, because she feels the RCMP did not take her and her family’s concern seriously.

“It took us family members to drive out there, find gas money … and search,” Morin shared.

“It should’ve been the RCMP.”

Dangerous driving

Morin said the road in the area around the bridge is very rough and narrow with lots of potholes and deep ditches running alongside it — another place Morin said she suggested the RCMP search  “because I’m from the north.

“I know the North. I know the roads,” Morin said she told an officer during one of her calls.

Const. Hachey with the Saskatchewan RCMP said the collision on Highway 155 is not the same bridge over Beaver River where another fatal crash happened in August.

Hachey used to be stationed in Meadow Lake, and said he only saw one collision on Highway 903, where the earlier crash occurred, during his several years there. He said he doesn’t see any public safety concerns with the road.

An officer at the Green Lake RCMP detachment called the bridge and roadway along Highway 155 a “stable highway” and said the investigation into why the vehicle Durocher and Boyer were in careened off the road is ongoing.

Morin also feels the tragic end to their search could have been prevented if the Big Lake RCMP had been more proactive and alerted the Green Lake RCMP that two potentially intoxicated females were driving on the road.

“They knew what vehicle they were in, they knew the licence plate, and they did nothing to prevent this,” Morin said.

‘Upset and frustrated’

“They told me they went there and checked all the bridges, but they didn’t,” Morin explained.

She said throughout her time trying to get updates on her cousin and friend, she felt the RCMP was not taking her calls and tips seriously.

“I just feel like they didn’t do anything and I honestly feel that if it was three different individuals who were a different culture, they would be doing something,” Morin said.

In a statement responding to the concerns Morin shared, the RCMP confirmed the Ahtahkakoop detachment received a report that Durocher and Boyer were missing on Sept. 11 around 4:30 p.m. and “immediately began a missing persons investigation.”

The Mounties said they learned the women had been seen last the previous evening in Big River — the detachment that took over the file. Officers began to make inquiries and started patrols in their communities. Alerts advising people to be on the lookout for the women were made to nearby communities and detachments.

Officers also reportedly started checking surveillance and calling phone and vehicle companies to find the women. They shared a missing persons release asking for help from the public to find the women on Sept 12.

That evening, the Meadow Lake/Green Lake RCMP received a report “of a potential submerged vehicle” just off Highway 155 at the Beaver River Bridge — more than 100 kilometres from where the two women had been seen last.

Officers from several RCMP teams reportedly responded to the scene and determined the vehicle had driven off the road into the water.

The Saskatchewan RCMP said loved ones on scene were offered victim services and an officer stayed on scene to communicate with the family through the night while RCMP continued investigating.

“Officers continue to liaise with family as the investigation continues,” the Saskatchewan RCMP said in its statement.

 Alyssa and Morgan

Boyer and Durocher, both 25, died in the crash, along with their friend, 31-year-old Conrad McDonald.

“They need to do a better job. They really do,” Morin said of the RCMP.

Morin described Boyer as shy but very kind.

Durocher was “just so free-spirited, she was just kind of go-with-the-flow kind of girl,” Morin shared.

Morin recalled both women as very generous. Both were also mothers.