SUNDAY
March 16, 1997

Makeover
Madness

NEWS photo Terry Peters

AUNTS Kore Siddoo (left) and Terra Paul are shown with a photo of Kelly Kaler in front of the dead woman's North Vancouver home.

NV family mourns

lurdered W

By Anna Marie D'Angelo
News Reporter

KELLY Kaler was bowling with
her aunt and cousin on March 9
at Thunderbird lanes in North
Vancouver when the always-happy
19-year-old announced to the
world that she was the queen of
bowling.

Three days later Kaler was savagely stabbed to
death during a planned robbery while she finished
work ata Money Mart store near Cambie and West
Hastings Street in Vancouver.

The Sutherland secondary graduate bled to

death alone in the store.
“I would like people to remember ber tor the

DOING IT-RIGHT.
BEFORE YOUR EYES. §

MR. LUBE.

TIME FOR YOUR
_ SPRING OIL CHANGE

1790 Marine Dr. North Van 987-8006

19-year-old NV woman
stabbed to death in
Vancouver Money Mart

happy, gentle, giving person she was. Iam going to
miss her and I loved her dearly. [ just hope that this
perpetrator gets what he deserves,” said a crying
Terra Paul, Kaler’s aunt.

On Friday merning, at least 30 bunches of flow-
ers were left against the grey fence of the Kaler
home in the 300-block of East 17th Street.

The family was too upset to speak inside, bur
Paul and another of Kaler’s aunts, Kore Siddoo,
came ont and spoke in the front yard.

Kaler worked part-time at the Money Mart store
in Lower Lonsdale for about seven months, During
the last couple of months, she was occasionally

+ North Shore
weddings and
anniversaries

posted alone at the Skid Row oudet near Vicrory
Square in Vancouver.

During the 10 days leading up to her murder,
Kaler endured a “pest” regular customer of the
store who used to wait for her outside and approach
her after her work shift, according to her family.

Kaler called the customer a “weirdo.”

On the night she was killed, Kaler was called in
to work to fill in for a ma. who was writing exams
ar UBC.

Kaler’s aunts said that she struggled with the
robber.

Kaler was supposed to finish work at 9 p.m.
According to her family, she died between 9:30
p.m. and 9:45 p.m. A security guard working for
the cheque-cashing store discovered her body ar
11:30 p.m.

“If they had followed procedures at 9 p.m, (clos-

Sve Store pane 4

High school
| senior boys
hoop all-stars

Monday: Ram, windy
High PPC low 3°.

By lan Nobile
News Reporter

A Ports Canada
Police officer had
harsh words for the
feds after learning
Friday morning that
he, along with dozens
of other ports officers
in the Lower
Mainland, wil! be out
of a job.

As word of Transport
Minister David Anderson's deci-
sion to disband Ports Canada
Police was trickling our of
Ottawa, Ports Canada Police
Association Pacific region presi-
dent lan Whittington summa-
rized: “I'm disappointed in our
federal government.

“Especially with the policy of
safe homes and safe streets. To
me this smacks in the face of
another falsehood by the federal
government, another promise
that has been unfulfilled.”

He reserved his harshest crit-
icism for the transport minister,
who represents a Victoria-area

Whittington called the dis
ng of Ports Canada Police
at Canada’s ports “another situ-
ation in the province of B.C.
where he has shown he’s not a
irue individual concerned about
the citizens of the province of
B.C.>

But Rot Brooke, the federal
Transport Ministry’s Pacific
region's advisor, said
Whittington's comments repre-
sent political rhetoric not backed
up by the facts.

“Every single scrap of evi-
dence says there is a better way
to have safe homes and safe
streets and that the best model is
not ports dedicated police. But
the best model is the one we are
going to,” he said.

Police services at the port of
Vancouver and five other
Canadian cities are provided by
the Ports Canada Police.

The police force is under the

Ser Lavoffi page 3

Mee Seniors section
looks at life in
the leisure lane

feature p20