Pam Neufeld runs a YouTube channel called Missing in BC. She came across a photo of Sharon McKenzie-Cramond on the Vancouver Police Department website Vancouver Missing Persons and was surprised when she searched for information and found nothing. Pam did a story on her channel in an attempt to get more information and connected with Sharon’s older brother Patrick Cramond, a now retired UBC instructor and engineer.
I talked to Patrick on the phone today to try and find out more about his sister, who was 38 at the time of her disappearance.
Sharon, Patrick told me, was a charming and stunningly beautiful woman who struggled with alcohol and prescription drug dependency and had left an abusive marriage shortly before she vanished.
Her husband, he says, was violent and narcissistic.
Sharon was close to her mother and when she hadn’t called in a few weeks, the family was concerned. Patrick went to the police station and reported her missing.
There are no newspaper reports of Sharon’s disappearance, no missing posters, and no evidence that the police investigated her disappearance at the time. Patrick says the only suspect was her husband and she had filed a domestic violence report with police on at least one occasion.
I asked Patrick how he would like his sister remembered. “I would want her remembered truthfully,” he said. “There is a fair amount of guilt on my part, and I have had to deal with that. For contributing to her problems and not protecting her when I could have in the way I should have.”
Patrick says their father was a strict disciplinarian and he was out of the house at sixteen, Sharon at seventeen. He went on to university, Sharon became a flight attendant with Pacific Western Airlines when she was twenty-one. He believes that long overseas shifts may have started her dependency on sleeping pills and pills to help wake up.
Patrick says that while he would like to see his sister’s remains found and her murderer convicted, he acknowledges that after 43 years, this is unlikely to happen.
If you have any information on Sharon’s disappearance, please contact the Vancouver Police Department’s Missing Person Unit at 604-717-2530.
- Every six days a woman is killed by her partner in Canada
- Each year, over 40,000 arrests result from domestic violence, that’s about 12% of all violent crime in Canada. Since only 22% of all incidents are reported to the police, the real number is much higher.
- Indigenous women are 3.5 times more likely to be victims of violence compared to other women.
- About 25% of all women who are murdered by their spouse have recently left the relationship.
- The facts about gender-based violence
If you are in an abusive relationship contact:
- Ending Violence
- VictimLinkBC 1-800-563-0808 – open 24 hours a day
- Find Family Violence Resources in your area
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
3 comments on “MISSING: Sharon McKenzie-Cramond”
Hi Eve…I did a little research on Sharon (out of curiosity). Can’t find any connection to the name “McKenzie” in her family. Could it be her married name? Her maternal uncle died in April, 1981 & her father died in 1982.
Her mother had a large family- (Wortendyke)& passed away in 2013. So surprised that her ex husband wasn’t a suspect.
Thanks for doing more research Darlene. McKenzie was her married name, and her ex was definitely a suspect. Problem was there was no body.
Not having a body is no reason to not look for a missing person. Some times bodies were hidden or the murder occurred in a very rural area. But then again 49 women disappeared from the DTES and not much was done to find them. The police just didn’t seem to think it was worth their time to look for women who they did not consider up to the “standards of the day”.
It is interesting her family did not hire a private investigator to look for her or find out what happened at the time. I do recall Kaban was hired to look for some women over the years. One was a woman from Richmond.
Was she still employed by P.W.A. at the time of the disappearnce? Were her collegues ever interviewed. During that time period most air line “gossip” made the rounds and there were also regular “parties” sponsored by the air lines in night clubs, before they opened to the pubic. They were a hell of a good time. Another question comes to mind, did PWA actually know because I do recall a flight attendant with another airline was having spousal problems and the air line transferred her to another country along with her young child.
Did anyone contact the Union for the flight attendants to see if they had any information or flight attendants who worked during this time period. I had a school friend who was working for PWA, as a flight attendant, during this time and gossip was always around. I actually knew 3 people who worked at PWA during that time period and a number at CP Air. Back in the day air lines employed a lot of people.
As to not having a body, I do recall back in the day, a man disappeared. They searched all over the place and when they couldn’t find him after some time, they abandoned looking for him. Some time after that they found his body by the Granville St. bridge in the shrubbery. He’d been there for some time. At the time they thought he might have been hit by a vehicle.
In 1981 Greater Vancouver was still a “small city” and lots of people knew each other–it wasn’t 6 degrees of seperation, it was more like 2 or 3. This disappearance did not happen in a vacum. People would have known her, even if her family didn’t keep in contact. It would be interesting to find some of the flight attendants from 1981. Some one might have information which could help. It might be worth seeing if one of the t.v. stations wants to do a small segment on this for their news so retired flight attendants would be informed and might contact you.
I don’t recall hearing or reading anything at that time, although it was a busy time for me. Don’t think anybody really knew about the disappearance or if it was a murder no one was talking about it. Amongst some groups of people back in the day, there weren’t many secrets in Vancouver or B.C. for that matter because it was so small, well not much of a population and in some circles every one knew everyone, if only by reputation.
Enjoyed your book. Remember a lot of the cases, especially the one regarding the woman whose body was found on a vacant lot, I think it was around Christmas. Never forgot that case.