In 1990, three young girls on southern Vancouver Island were sex trafficked and murdered, but those responsible were never caught.
One Vancouver Island-based journalist and true crime podcaster, Laura Palmer, has since taken it upon herself to do right by these three girls and their families by bringing their cases back into the spotlight and changing the narrative surrounding their deaths.
Her podcast is called Island Crime and its new season, Sweethearts, focusses on these murders.
Kimberly Gallup, 17; Cherri Lynn Smith, 18; and Melissa Nicholson, 17, were all killed within a short amount of time in and around Victoria back in 1990.
According to Palmer, all three were labeled by the police and media as “teen hookers,” adding an insurmountable and problematic stigma to their case.
“They were characterized in a way that they shouldn’t have been, as teen hookers and nothing more,” Palmer told Victoria Buzz.
“Today, I’d like to think there’s a bit more recognition that these girls weren’t out there making a choice to prostitute themselves, they were being trafficked.”
She says that the shameful way their daughters have been painted in the media has been incredibly hard for all the involved families to overcome.
The first episode which was released on Tuesday, April 2nd, and after introducing the series, Palmer focuses on the death of Kimberly Gallup, with interviews from her father, friends and Bland, who was a police officer during this time.
While she was working on a season of Island Crime which focussed on Michael Dunahee’s case, a retired VicPD officer, Don Bland, said that during the time young Dunahee went missing, the police force was also trying to investigate these three girls’ deaths.
Before the officer brought them up, she had never heard of their cases before, which is what inspired her to look a bit deeper.
In addition to this, around the same time a friend of one of the victims reached out to her.
“One of Kimberly Gallup’s friends emailed [and] said this has been on her mind for decades, and she just feels like there’s so many questions.”
The Investigations
Palmer says that none of the police officers she spoke with would connect the stigma surrounding the case to the fact that it remains unsolved, but she and others believe this to be the case.
“I do believe that that is true, but no, I have not found a police officer who was involved in these investigations who said that,” Palmer said.
“I would be surprised if any of them did say that, but I found family, friends, advocacy workers, people who were around the investigation being interviewed and that was their perspective—that it wasn’t taken as seriously and that it was quickly forgotten.”
Palmer told Victoria Buzz, through her process of research and looking into these murders, the police’s cooperation was her biggest hurdle.
“These cases are more than 30 years old, but the standard line is always, ‘well we can’t talk because it’s an active investigation and it might impact the integrity of the case if we were to reveal anything,’” Palmer explained.
“Meanwhile, the families of these girls are saying, ‘look, it’s been 30 years with no updates, no information, how is that helpful?’”
Palmer continued by saying that the Nicholson family simply wants the RCMP to close the cold case so they can have access to information that might provide them closure in their daughter’s death.
In addition to these challenges, Palmer says she believes the way that the local police departments are divided in Greater Victoria could have contributed to miscommunication and some information about the case slipping between the cracks.
Island Crime’s Sweethearts
“Cherri Lynn Smith has the focus on her in the second episode and then Melissa Nicholson’s story is in the third,” Palmer explained.
“Then there are five episodes after that where I dig into some of the similarities in their stories and talk to some of the people who were around at the time; some witnesses, some boyfriends, you know, people who were close to the victims at the time of their deaths—trying to pull it all together.”
Palmer also says she has no doubts she will continue to work on this for some time after all the episodes air due to the amount of people who knew these girls who have already reached out after just one episode airing.
This is the sixth season of Island Crime and certainly won’t be the last as Palmer has a knack and a passion for getting to the bottom of Vancouver Island’s myriad of cold cases.
The first season she focussed on Lisa Marie Young, a young woman who went missing in Nanaimo; the second looks into a string of men who have gone missing in recent years; season three takes an extensive look into the circumstances and theories surrounding Michael Dunahee’s disappearance; season four is about a missing Port Alberni woman named Amber Manthorne; and season five takes a deep dive into the unsolved Halloween night massacre on Vancouver Island.
Palmer also told Victoria Buzz that no season is ever complete until it is solved. The Lisa Marie Young season began with six episodes and now there are 14 because more information came her way after the initial episodes’ release.
“It’s the kind of thing where, because there is no answer yet, I continue to talk to people and research and do whatever I can to really push the investigation,” said Palmer.
“The stories don’t really end for me until I have all the information.”
So far, the Sweethearts season has taken Palmer six months to put together and produce.
The latest installment from ‘Island Crime’ can be found on all major podcast platforms.
