In the spring of 2007, Angel Edna Carlick, an 18-year-old Kaska Dena First Nation woman, stood on the cusp of a promising future in Whitehorse, Yukon. Having overcome a difficult youth that included poverty and homelessness after her family relocated from British Columbia, she had found her footing. Angel was a dedicated employee at the Blue Feather Youth Centre, where she ran a dinner program, cooking meals for children, and was known as a caring big sister figure and a loyal friend.
She was an advocate for youth, enjoyed music and painting, and was just about to graduate from high school. Her dream was to create a stable home for herself and her younger brother, whom she hoped to pull from the child welfare system. Everything seemed to be falling into place for the vibrant young woman who had worked so hard to turn her life around.
The bright future Angel envisioned began to fade on the evening of May 26, 2007. After attending a graduation barbecue, she left a friend's house and rode her bicycle downtown. Later that night, she used a payphone to call her best friend, making plans to meet up. However, she was last seen walking away from Main Street, accompanied by one or several unidentified people. That was the last time anyone is known to have seen or heard from her. When she failed to show up for work, especially on a payday, her colleagues at the youth center knew something was wrong and reported her missing. For nearly six months, her family, friends, and community anxiously searched for answers. The search came to a tragic end on November 9, 2007, when a hiker discovered her remains in a shallow grave in a wooded, remote area near the Pilot Mountain subdivision, about twelve miles north of Whitehorse.
The discovery of Angel's body confirmed the community's worst fears; her death was officially ruled a homicide. However, due to the decomposed state of her remains, an autopsy could not determine the exact cause of death. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched an extensive investigation, conducting over 100 interviews and searching by air, land, and water, but the case grew cold. A critical but unresolved lead is the report that she was last seen with two unknown males, who have never been identified. In 2018, the Yukon RCMP established a Historical Case Unit to bring fresh resources to unsolved cases like Angel's. Despite these continued efforts, including ruling out a connection to serial killer Israel Keyes, no suspects have ever been named, and no arrests have been made in her murder. Tragically, a decade after Angel's death, her mother, Wendy Carlick, was also murdered in an unrelated event. As of today, the murder of Angel Carlick remains an active and unsolved investigation, leaving her loved ones and community still searching for justice and the answers to what happened on that spring night in 2007.
