6 - Wednesday. Apri! 7, 1999 - North Shore News E West Vancouver Police board needs to start asking some questions about operations down at West Vancouver Police head- quarters. Take the unsettling story of Zachariah Paul Steudle, for example. The 17-year-old’s body was found in September of 1997 under the Nelson Creek Bridge near the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal. The West Vancouver Police original- ly told the dead teenager’s mother that her son had committed suicide and that the case was closed. Last month, however, West Vancouver Police announced that a 17-year-old Richmond girl had been charged with second-degree murder in connection with Steudie’s death. Bad enough that the boy’s mother had been misin- formed initially about her son’s fate, but West Vancouver Police had failed north shore news VIEWPOINT ce probe to update her when the case was reopened last summer. And as of the March 29 police press conference on the issue, she still didn’t know the cause of her son's death. An equally troubling aspect of the Steudle case revolves around the dead teen’s missing car. After it had original- ly been found by chance near Sorrento, B.C., the 1976 Bobcat was examined by police and then inexplicably turned over to a local towing company. Again, Steudle’s mother was never notified of the car’s whereabouts, and what could be a key piece of evidence in the mur- der investigation was subsequently sold for spare parts. The procedures that led to the laps- es in the Steudle case need to be over- hauled before any more damage is done to the good name of the West Vancouver Police.