Delores Dawn Brower, a 33-year-old Métis woman known to her friends as “Spider,” was a tiny and quiet person with a gentle demeanor. Those who knew her, including police officers who patrolled the streets of Edmonton, Alberta, described her as approachable and pleasant, though often carrying a deep sadness and low self-esteem. For years, Delores had navigated a difficult life, working in the sex trade and struggling with drug use.
By 2003, however, she was making plans for a different future. She told friends she was trying to leave the streets and had found a male friend who was going to help her by offering a place to stay. It was a glimmer of hope in a life lived on the margins.
That hope was extinguished in the spring of 2004. In the pre-dawn hours of May 13, at approximately 5:40 a.m., police officers saw Delores for the last time. She was standing on the corner of 118th Avenue and 70th Street, trying to hitchhike a ride heading west. At the time, she was wearing a black sweater and black jeans. After that morning, she vanished. For over a year, her fate remained a mystery until her family officially reported her missing in June 2005. Investigators immediately suspected she had met with foul play.
Years passed with no word of Delores's whereabouts. Her case became one of many haunting disappearances in the Edmonton area, investigated by Project KARE, a special RCMP-led task force created to investigate the deaths and disappearances of vulnerable women living high-risk lifestyles. Delores, with foresight, had registered with the project in 2003, providing them with her personal, medical, and dental records—a decision that would prove crucial years later. Her disappearance is considered part of a cluster of unsolved homicides and disappearances attributed to a suspected serial predator known as the Edmonton Killing Fields Killer.
The long wait for answers came to a grim end on April 19, 2015. A property owner walking through a wooded area on his rural land near Rollyview Road in Leduc County, south of Edmonton, discovered skeletal remains. Using the dental records Delores had provided to Project KARE, authorities confirmed the remains belonged to her. The location was chillingly familiar to investigators; the remains of several other missing women, including Katie Sylvia Ballantyne and Amber Tuccaro, had been discovered within an eight-kilometer radius over the years.
Despite the discovery, a full sense of justice remained elusive. The medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death, though her case is being investigated as a homicide by the RCMP's Historical Homicide Unit. No one has ever been charged in connection with her death, and her case remains unsolved. Police have appealed to the public for any information that could help them understand what happened to Delores after she was last seen trying to catch a ride.
In the wake of the devastating confirmation, Delores's family released a statement through the RCMP. "While we are saddened to have confirmation that Delores' remains have been found, there is a sense of thankfulness as well," they wrote. "We loved Delores and are grateful to have some closure." Their words reflected a heartbreaking mixture of grief and relief, a sentiment echoed by many families of the missing. "While we are grieving with some sense of relief, we know there are many families who have yet to find the answers they are seeking." Delores Brower is remembered not for the life she was trying to escape, but as a loved person whose chance for a new beginning was stolen.
