This is Amanda, Ashley's sister. If anyone knows her whereabout please contact myself or my mother....ASAP!!!
April 30, 2016
My cousin Julie Major was worried and shared the post on Facebook with her friends and family. I was confused.
I had never heard of Ashley Simpson, or Julie's brother John who had apparently been adopted years ago by my father's brother, Murray. It's a long story. Suffice to say Julie had many siblings who were adopted by my aunts and uncles, who raised them as their own.
I knew three of the little adoptees but had no recollection of Uncle Murray adopting John who was the blood grandson of Murray's wife Henrietta. Stay with me here.
So now I had a cousin named John and his daughter was missing out in Salmon Arm.
I was intrigued.
"Why would she not call?" Julie asked me in a Messenger post. "It's not her nature to not contact her mom or dad or anyone. She knows her father would come anywhere to get her home safe and sound. He would move the sun and the moon for his kids."
I decided to write a post about Ashley's disappearance. That's what I do. I write blogs.
And so began my involvement in her case.
I simply could not believe how fucked up the whole investigation was. The family suspected her new boyfriend, Derek Favell, who didn't contact her mom for days, then disappeared from view. Cops seemed to be asleep at the wheel, I suppose because back in 2016 they thought it normal for young women to disappear into thin air. (It was.) Locals started fighting when a frantic John arrived with a posse after travelling across the country to find Ashley. Everyone was pointing fingers. Ashley's dad was about to explode, and may have come close to being arrested himself.
Rumors were running wild.
Who was this Ashley? We don't know her. She probably got picked up by a phantom trucker, or maybe she was eaten by a bear.
Locals involved closed ranks and began to spread lies.
I'm a city girl who is used to seeing justice served in the majority of major crime cases. I was shocked that this little hotel worker could simply disappear and nobody was looking for her.
So I contacted her parents and began my own journey to find Ashley, and to hold those responsible to account. First, it was a blog a day. Then a blog a month. That was five years and eight months ago.
In May, we held a virtual vigil for Ashley to commemorate the fifth anniversary of her disappearance, and I wrote a series of blogs, and her parents appeared on numerous television shows, and in the news. Still nothing.
I told the local CBC that as long as I was alive, I would never stop looking for Ashley and putting pressure on the cops to find her. I even prayed to God, and God and I are rarely on speaking terms.
I couldn't get her out of my mind. It was like I had been implanted with a computer program that was always running in the background. I got tips and gave them to the cops. I made friends with people all over the world who call themselves silent searchers.
Even though I'd never met this particular branch of the Simpson family before 2016, I was now considered family. And I would do anything for them.
Then last Friday, we got the news that Ashley had been found "in the wilderness outside of Salmon Arm" and that the boyfriend was in custody charged with second degree murder.
I have so many questions. On the last day of her life, Ashley was in the company of Derek Favell's two friends. When reached by the media this week both said they were no longer his friends. They said they hoped he went to jail.
I have the last picture taken of her with one of those individuals. What about him? He said he dropped Ashley and Derek off, and went home. Okay.
Then how did Derek get rid of the body? By bus? Did he call his mom to pick them up?
Even if Derek acted alone in committing this terrible crime, he could not have hidden her body alone, of that I am sure. Derek relied on friends for transportation so how could he drag Ashley kilometres down the road and get rid of her? Not possible.
Why are the police so circumspect in relation to where she was found? How did they find her in the middle of the wilderness when all ground searches came up without a trace of her? Remember this is a place with rugged terrain and the recent floods and fires would have made it even more difficult to find human remains left to the elements for more than five years. So who tipped them off?
Mostly, why did it take so long? Everyone and their brother concluded that Derek was the main suspect but he was allowed to move to Fort Saskatchewan and other places over the years, and live his life while the Simpson family continued to suffer.
He was only recently considered a suspect. Huh.
Meanwhile, he and his buddies continued to threaten members of the local media, and close friends of Ashley's whenever her disappearance was discussed. They spread wild rumours and innuendo about her character. Derek told a friend of mine that he wasn't even her boyfriend. He was her driver.
People in the local community also feared for their safety. Others kept their silence. To them I say, I hope you sleep well at night.
A journalist asked me last night how I felt when I heard the news. I had to think.
I feel relief that Ashley has been found and will be returned to her loving parents. I am sincerely grateful to the RCMP unsolved crimes unit who took over this case just six months ago, and solved it.
I feel sadness that Ashley's life was cut short in such a senseless act of domestic violence. I feel intense pain for the families of the other women who disappeared from the area that same year, and have not yet been discovered.
But mostly, and I'm not alone here, I am trying to swallow a feeling of intense anger with a side order of disgust that it took this long for justice to be served.
My sense is that this is not nearly over. Others need to be held accountable. Those who helped Derek hide Ashley's remains. Those who hid him, and covered up for him, and made false statements to the media and the police.
Mostly, I fear that the justice system will try to wrap this case up in a big red bow, and send Derek on his way to oblivion alone while others get to walk around and play with their kids, and celebrate Christmas with them.
The Simpsons will never have that kind of Christmas.
There will always be an empty seat at the table.
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