Episode 235: On February 22, 2002, a vehicle was found in the ditch off the Trans-Canada highway near Boston Bar, B.C.

The car was registered to 61-year-old mother, grandmother and recent great-grandmother, Diana Russell, who was nowhere around the car. RCMP obtained a key to Diana’s Kelowna townhouse and went inside finding the woman partially clothed body underneath some mattresses and furniture. She’d been hogtied, raped, beaten and strangled.

Police quickly determined that Ronald Leal Fowler, 31, was a person of interest in the murder. Fowler, father of one of Diana’s grandchildren after a brief relationship with Diana’s eldest daughter, Fowler was later dramatically captured in Vancouver. He was then charged and in 2006 was convicted of first degree murder.

Diana Russell's daughter Valerie MacPherson kindly shared her writings about her family's pain around the time of the murder and the twenty years since. In part 2 we will hear from Diana's grandson, Collin Lucksinger, as he shares first hand his thoughts and feelings around Diana's murder.

Sources:

Facebook — Biography of Diana Russell

Search Castanet News - Ronald Fowler

2006 BCSC 1215 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2006 BCSC 1214 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1876 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1875 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1874 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

CN BC: Drug Experts Differ Over Blackouts - Rave.ca

Femicide

RamsReef — Twitch

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