Family, friends remember ‘stolen’ daughter
SASKATOON — Carol Wolfe never forgot the last words her daughter said before she disappeared five years ago.
“The last memory I have is Karina saying, ‘I love you mom and I will be home later,’” she said through a sign language interpreter Monday at the Saskatoon police station. Karina never came home. Last month, the man who is charged with killing Karina Wolfe led police to the area northwest of the city where they discovered her remains.
On Monday, friends and family visited the site. After a private gathering, they left flowers and a teddy bear to remember the young woman who disappeared from a busy Saskatoon street corner five years ago.
Carol Wolfe was tireless in her search for her daughter.
“She never gave up,” Darlene Okemaysim-Sicotte said, standing a few feet away from the spot where police recovered Karina’s body.
Before travelling to the area, Wolfe met with reporters.
“Karina was stolen from our family,” she said, describing her only daughter as a talented painter and writer.
Wolfe said she is grateful her daughter has finally returned home. After years without answers, her family now has more details about what happened to the 20-year-old.
Acting Staff Sgt. Tyson Lavallee said 33-year-old Jerry Franklin Constant voluntarily walked into the police station on Nov. 10 and offered information about what happened to Wolfe.
Constant appeared in court via video to face charges of second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body. A judge ordered a psychiatric exam and put the case over for one week.
Constant led investigators to the area where they found Wolfe’s body after four days of searching.
The area near Hampton Village, a residential area of suburban Saskatoon, was covered in brush, police spokesperson Alyson Edwards said, and search teams had to cut huge swaths before the remains were found.
An autopsy was performed on Nov. 18. It wasn’t until Nov. 26 that DNA evidence confirmed her identity.
Lavallee said Constant only recently became a suspect in the investigation, and he is not believed to have had a previous relationship with Karina Wolfe.
“At this point in the investigation there does not appear to be any prior relationship with the accused,” Lavallee said.
He would not go into details about what Constant said happened or how Karina died.