Metro woman killed in B.C.
Published Thursday June 18th, 2009
Body of Turtle Creek native Angela Crossman, 39, found at side of road
It's hard to imagine how a gentle, caring, fun-loving woman of deep religious faith who loved to sing and play music and organize coffee houses could even have enemies.
That's why it's unimaginable that someone could have murdered 39-year-old Turtle Creek native Angela Crossman in British Columbia, just as she was making plans to move back home to southeastern New Brunswick.
Still, her best friend Claudette Ingalls says she absolutely believes Crossman would have turned the other cheek when facing her as-yet-unknown attacker, even as she was dying.
"I know she forgave before she even passed," Ingalls said yesterday from her home in Haute-Aboujagane.
"I'm not saying she gave in like a lamb, (but) I honestly believe she forgave even as it happened."
Last Thursday, a family going on a fishing trip found Crossman's body at the side of a forestry road that runs to a popular campground at Chehalis Lake near Agassiz, B.C.
Police have not disclosed the cause of death but say signs of trauma on her body make it clear it was a homicide.
Agassiz is about a half-hour's drive from her home in Abbottsford and about 115 km (72 miles) east of Vancouver. The spot where she was found was only 2.5 km (1 mile) off a highway.
Police were not able to immediately identify her and had made a plea in the region for people to come forward if they knew of anyone who hadn't been seen for a few days. Police successfully identified her this week and made her identity known yesterday.
Crossman had lived in British Columbia about a year at the time of her death, and had just moved into a new apartment in a private home about 10 days before her death, having moved from another apartment in a home next door. She was single and had no children.
She was not previously known to police and an RCMP spokesman in British Columbia said investigators have not found any links to drugs, gangs, organized crime or other homicides.
Police know with certainty that she was still alive the evening before her body was found, because she was at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital getting treatment for a medical condition. Where she went after she left the hospital is not clear, though police did do a thorough search of the home she had been living in.
Crossman had suffered a litany of medical problems and complications throughout her life, among them scoliosis that saw her have a steel rod inserted in her spine as a teenager, to a life-threatening and ongoing battle with cancer as an adult. Her friend Ingalls said she was suffering a third bout with cancer at the time of her death, after being in remission for a second time.
"She's a survivor, not a victim," Ingalls insisted yesterday, in the face of the tragic irony that someone has taken the life Crossman had struggled so long to preserve.
The women, who spoke every day, were planning to have Crossman move in with Ingalls' family this summer. Ingalls said Crossman was getting more ill, and she had hoped to be able to take care of her.
"I was getting nervous because I hadn't heard from her. Then on the 14th I got the word," she said yesterday.
Crossman was born in Ottawa to a military family that moved around a lot. As an adult, she lived off and on with Ingalls over a period of about 10 years. Though she was only in Abbotsford about a year, she had lived in British Columbia previously for a time, had returned to our area, and then gone back.
Rev. Laverne Lewycky will preside at her funeral, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at Lower Turtle Creek Baptist Church, in the community where her parents Gary and Dorothy Crossman live.
He said yesterday Crossman's family is relying on its religious faith for strength.
"God prepares us for whatever we might face," he said, acknowledging the senseless death of a good woman by someone's hand is particularly heart-wrenching.
"I tell people the shortest version of the Bible is, 'Jesus wept.'"
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That ladie was suffering enough as it was. I hope they catch that or those SOB's and deal with them very severe.
B.C is getting to be a very dangerous,mostly Vancouver. I was watching a show a few weeks ago about Vancouver's east end on how it drug and street gang infested.
Such disregard for a human life makes me sick. Whoever did this will be out in 12 years thanks to our injustice system.