Good morning. I’m Jana Pruden, an Edmonton-based reporter at The Globe. I’ll bring you the story behind my new podcast, In Her Defence: 50th Street, which premieres today and investigates the killing of 20-year-old Amber Tuccaro. But first:
Tension in the Mideast
An Israeli airstrike hit central Beirut on Monday, a day after a series of ferocious assaults across Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen. The weekend onslaught followed Friday’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which marked a stunning escalation in the conflict between Israel and the militant group.
- Analysis: For many Arabs, Nasrallah was a villain not a hero, Mark MacKinnon writes.
- What is Iran’s role? We delved into that recently here.
- In photos: See the latest images from the conflict.
Amber Tuccaro was 20 years old when she left her infant son with a friend at a motel on the outskirts of Edmonton, and got into a vehicle with an unknown man. She was never seen alive again.Illustration by Lauren Crazybull
In Her Defence: 50th Street
Searching for Amber’s killer
I first heard the recording of Amber Tuccaro’s last phone call at an RCMP press conference in Edmonton in the summer of 2012. There were two voices on the recording. One was the young mother from northern Alberta, feisty and tough, but growing increasingly more frightened as the call went on. The other was the voice of a man driving the vehicle, cooly lying to Amber, as he drove her away from Edmonton to her death.
Both of their voices have been in my head ever since.
But more than 14 years after Amber disappeared, and 12 years after her remains were found, her death remains unsolved – despite what appears to be the voice of her killer captured on an audio recording.
Who is that man? And why can’t police find him?
When The Globe’s editor-in-chief David Walmsley asked me if I had an idea for a second season of our hit narrative podcast series In Her Defence, I knew immediately I wanted to go back to Amber’s story. Back to that man. Back to the voice.
We began our reporting for In Her Defence: 50th Street last winter, with a trip to meet Amber’s family in the remote northern Alberta community of Fort Chipewyan. Fort Chipewyan is only accessible in the winter by air or ice road. The week we went, the community was packed with people arriving for the winter carnival, and we found last-minute accommodations at a work camp.
Audio producer Kasia Mychajlowycz and I spent seven months working on Amber’s story, getting to know her family, and following her journey from her home community to the rural area outside Edmonton where her remains were found.
Along the way, we learned a lot more about how police mishandled the early investigation into Amber’s disappearance, about the friend with whom she’d travelled to Edmonton, and the numerous men who emerged as suspects in her death. We explored Amber’s possible connection to the homicides of four other women, who are believed to be victims of a serial killer.
There are people out there who believe they know who Amber’s killer is. I talked to two of them.
When we started this project, I believed that if only someone heard the recording and recognized the voice, he would be caught and charged in Amber’s death, and maybe in the deaths of the other women, too. I now know it’s far from that simple.
Was Amber the victim of a serial killer who has never been caught?
And will her killer ever be brought to justice now?
Where to listen
- The new season of In Her Defence is out today on Apple and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
The Shot
‘There are very few places like this left’
Horseback riders make their way along a mountain trail in the Altai Mountains near Darvi, Mongolia.PAT KANE/The Globe and Mail
Last fall, photographer Pat Kane spent a month living with nomadic herders on the vast, barren steppe in western Mongolia. It was an experience that affected the Yellowknife-based storyteller deeply, and he fell in love with the country and its pastoral people, one of the world’s last surviving nomadic cultures. See more of Kane’s photos here.
The Week
What we’re following
Today: National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Willow Fiddler looks back at the history of The Globe’s coverage of residential schools.
Tuesday: Four Indian nationals charged in the death of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar are scheduled to appear in court.
Tuesday: Republican JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz will meet at 9 p.m. ET for the first (and probably only) vice-presidential debate, hosted by CBS News. Here’s why it could actually matter.
All week: The foreign interference inquiry continues in Ottawa. And a senior European Commission official is taking notes.
Correction: In Friday’s edition an unfortunate typo stated that the new Live Nation venue will be north of Toronto, when in fact it is on the Downsview lands in the northern part of the city.