Police searching for remains of senior missing since 1990 north of Edmonton

Edmonton police believe the remains of Ruth Clarke, an 83-year-old woman missing for 35 years, are in an area north of the city. Amanda Anderson reports.

The Edmonton Police Service is asking rural landowners to help them find a body of an Edmonton senior missing for more than three decades.

Ruth Clarke, who was 83, was last seen on Nov. 1, 1990.

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A wellness check was conducted on Nov. 12, 1990 at Clarke’s home, which she shared with her 42-year-old son Ronald Clarke.

Police believe she was murdered.

Despite investigating for several years, her remains were never located.

Thanks to new information, investigators now believe Clarke’s remains are in a hand-dug well on a rural property less than an hour north of St. Albert.

The well is believed to be one of two accessible from trails through the brush.

The wells are approximately 50-60 feet deep and one is lined with wood and the other brick.

One or both of them may be filled or covered with brush or debris.

“When you go out to these locations, those wells are not always where the map says they are, and so typically, you have to engage the landowners, the farm owners, and they’ll know that Uncle Jed down the road used to have a well by his farmstead on this quarter. And so they have to point it out to us,” Staff Sgt. Kevin Harrison, with EPS Historical Crimes Section told reporters at a news conference.

“Farmers that may have these on their property would also be concerned about something, someone falling into them, just by by accident, and so they typically get stuff dumped in them, or they might have covers, metal covers, like bars, grates put over top of them as well, to prevent someone from falling in. So they could and they could be overgrown by this point.”

He also clarified that police aren’t looking for new wells.

“We’re not interested drilled wells that are 200 feet deep. We’re talking about ones that were hand dug in the early 1900s.”

Harrison says his team has searched six locations matching the description in the Bouchard Lake area this year, but has not found any trace of Clarke.

Anyone with land in the areas around Morinville, Barrhead, Westlock, Rochester or Redwater is asked to come forward if their property contains wells matching the description.

Clarke’s nephew also echoed Harrison’s plea.

“It is our family’s hope that we can lay her to rest next to her husband, which is what she wanted,” Richard Wetmore said. “So we would like to ask if anyone has any information that would help the Edmonton Police Service locate our aunt Ruth, please reach out to the Edmonton Police Service.”

In 1990 police investigated Clarke’s son Ronald as a suspect.

On Wednesday, Harrison wouldn’t say whether or not they’re still investigating him.

“Because of the fact that we cannot or have not laid criminal charges I can’t get into the details of that,” he said.

He also said he doesn’t believe Clarke was killed by a stranger.

“I would, I guess, make the statement that I don’t believe this was a random attack.”

Anyone with information about Clarke’s disappearance is asked to contact EPS at 780-423-4567 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.