A grieving mother has purchased a billboard ad outside Edmonton, Alta., in an effort to help investigators crack the case of her daughter’s unsolved murder.
The move echoes the premise of the Oscar-nominated 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, in which a mother purchases a string of roadside billboards after no arrests are made in her daughter’s death.
On the digital billboard along the Yellowhead Trail expressway, drivers might catch a glimpse of Kathy King’s ad: a crumpled red dress on pavement and the web address “MissingCara.ca.” The website tells the story of King’s daughter, Cara King, whose body was found in a farmer’s field near the hamlet of Sherwood Park a month after she went missing in early Aug. 1997. No one has been charged in her death.
“The grief is hard, but I don't think it's as hard as not knowing,” King told CTV Edmonton.
Though the ad, which also names advocacy group CEASE (the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation), is a short five seconds, King hopes it might generate tips around the cold case and spark interest in other cases involving missing and murdered women.
“If there's 150 missing and murdered women in Northern Alberta, there's at least 150 people who know something,” she said. “It is a national tragedy. I mean, it’s about me, but I don’t want it to be just about me -- I want it to be on behalf of all the families.”
After being up for 28 days, King’s billboard campaign will end Monday.
With a report from CTV Edmonton’s Jeremy Thompson
