Dawson Creek RCMP seek public help as city's latest homicide victim identified

Dawson Creek RCMP are investigating a suspected homicide after the remains of a 24-year-old woman who had been reported missing weeks earlier were found.

Twenty-four-year-old Emily Ogden was reported missing from Fort St. John, about 74 kilometres northeast of Dawson Creek, on March 29. 

Her remains were found on April 14 and identified by police on April 24.

"We would like to know if anyone saw or heard from Emily during the time she was reported missing, until the discovery of her body," Sgt. Kris Clark said in a statement.

Ogden was described as a white female, five feet ten inches tall and 155 pounds with brown eyes, light brown/blond hair and a large honeycomb neck tattoo.

Her death marks the latest in a series of violent incidents in the community of roughly 12,400 people in northeast B.C. that include at least two high-profile shootings, a drive-by in a residential neighbourhood and another in a business area that left one dead and another injured earlier this year, prompting additional police resources to be sent to the area.

Dawson Creek has already been dealing with the fallout of a series of violent incidents going back several years, which were the subject of a CBC Fifth Estate investigation broadcast last fall. The investigation found that since 2021, 11 people have gone missing or been murdered in the community, a dramatic increase given that just seven years prior, the city had only one recorded homicide.