‘WE ARE NOT GOING AWAY’
Tuccaro family says report shows case was ‘mishandled from the outset’
“I don’t think we will ever have peace of mind,” said Vivian (Tootsie) Tuccaro Wednesday during a new conference to discuss an RCMP report on deficiencies in the investigation into the unsolved 2010 homicide of her daughter Amber Tuccaro.
The family of an Indigenous woman whose remains were found in a Leduc field in 2012 say they might never have closure, even after receiving a long-awaited report detailing the deficiencies of the RCMP investigation into her case.
Amber Tuccaro was last seen alive at a motel in Nisku on Aug. 18, 2010 after flying to Edmonton from Fort McMurray with her 14-month-old son Jacob and a female friend a day earlier.
Police said that between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. that night, the 20-yearold got into a vehicle with an unknown man to travel to Edmonton.
Tuccaro’s skull was found in rural Leduc County on Sept. 1, 2012, nearly two years later.
The family filed a complaint with the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP in 2014 and earlier this month finally received a 120-page report.
What was supposed to take 12 to 18 months took close to four years.
Paul Tuccaro, Amber Tuccaro’s brother, told a news conference Wednesday that reading the report resulted in “lots of mixed feelings and emotions.”
While not willing to release the report in its entirety, he said the commission found that the investigation “was deficient in that various members were either not properly trained or did not adhere to their training and that various members did not comply with procedures and guidelines.”
The report also highlighted the fact that there was a month delay before any effort was made at the detachment level to investigate her disappearance and that it was four months before the first interview took place, which the commission described as “unreasonable and unexplained.”
Her removal from a missing persons database was also an “erroneous decision,” the commission concluded.
The report also found that contact information for potential witnesses was not always recorded.
“This is by far the hardest thing our family has had to face,” Paul Tuccaro said.
“We now have the report and now know that my sister’s case was mishandled from the outset.
“We have something in black and white saying what we’ve been saying all along, that what should have been done wasn’t done.”
Their mother, Vivian (Tootsie) Tuccaro, urged other families in their situation to never give up.
“I think the hardest thing for myself and my family is knowing the killer is still out there. And I don’t think we will ever have peace of mind,” she said.
“To the dirty bastard out there, we are not going away. We will keep searching until you are caught.”
Reading from a statement on behalf of RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki, Alberta RCMP acting commanding officer John Ferguson thanked the family “for having the courage to speak up about the injustices you have experienced.”
Ferguson said Lucki had “personally reviewed the report and the RCMP is committed to immediately implementing the recommendations.”
“The RCMP understands the urgency and importance of missing persons cases,” he read.