Yellowknife (Dec 29/06) - The dying daughter of women's shelter namesake Alison McAteer is speaking out to say she believes her mother was murdered when she went missing 30 years ago, and that police botched the case.

On Dec. 25, 1976, McAteer was supposed to be visiting her son for Christmas. Her failure to appear touched off a search that went unresolved for five months until her body was found near a walking trail on Tin Can Hill.

Alison McAteer was reported missing Christmas day, 1976. Thirty years later her daughter Barbara Robinson still considers her mother's death an unsolved murder. - NNSL file photo

She was last seen on Dec. 22 by a friend in the Yellowknife public library. When found May 19, 1977, her body was so disfigured by the ravages of time and winter, it had to be sent to Edmonton so that lab tests could confirm her identity.

Her estranged husband, Emerson McAteer - who died five years ago - had her body cremated.

Thirty years later, her daughter Barbara McAteer Robinson still considers her mother's death a murder, one that was swept under the rug by police.

She said she also thinks that the murderer is still out there wandering the streets.

"It was well known that they (the RCMP) wanted it to go away," said Robinson. "We [my family] still consider this a murder unsolved. Women disappear all the time, and this was 30 years ago. We believe she lost her life because of her work."

McAteer, whose accomplishments are embodied in Yellowknife's Alison McAteer house for abused women and children, was a strong advocate for women's rights at a time when women in power were highly controversial.

She was a city councillor, co-ordinator of the NWT Status of Women Action Group and took an active part in other women's groups.

McAteer touched many lives during her work in Yellowknife, but not necessarily to everyone's approval. In hiding families who were suffering abuse, McAteer was not for want of enemies. As her house became known as a haven, it also became the place where abusers would search for their fleeing families.

Robinson remembers helping her mother hide the families.

"I'm in the closet with my hand on a child's mouth, and I hear the voices," recalled Robinson, adding that the abusers she saw enter the home came from all walks of life.

"Then I see them, and they're teachers and police. I'm thinking, 'I know you're a bad man.'"

After McAteer went missing, the RCMP reported having talked with friends and relatives, and having flown around the city searching for her. By Jan. 10, 1977 they reported having no new leads.

McAteer's body was discovered four months later in the bushes by resident Mary Ann Dewolf, who was out for a walk.

Back then, she told Yellowknifer that she could clearly see the body just beside the path near the Con Mine bunkhouses around Tin Can Hill.

The RCMP had suspected that since McAteer habitually took long walks around Yellowknife she might have suffered a mishap. That winter, temperatures reached extremes of -45C.

Robinson doubts that her mother, a cross-country skier, who knew how to handle the weather, could have simply succumbed to the cold.

The RCMP conducted x-ray testing at laboratories in Edmonton. Although most of the body had withered away, the police concluded that there was no evidence of foul play, and that she had frozen to death. No further investigation was deemed necessary.

Robinson maintains to this day that there was never a proper investigation conducted.

"The RCMP screwed up the day she disappeared," she said.

Police had little to say when contacted earlier this week, saying that no one at the department has been there long enough to be familiar with the case.

Now 30 years after her mother died, Robinson is also facing the end. Diagnosed with a rare genetic disease, Autonomic Degeneration with Hyperadrenergic Central Nervous System, she doesn't expect to live past this summer.

Before she dies, Robinson hopes her mother will be remembered for her contributions to improving the lives of women, and for the spirit she carried with her throughout.

"She believed in dignity, and she believed in respect," said Robinson.

"She crossed all the boundaries, she would talk to anybody and she would help everybody."

Robinson moved to Ontario before her mother disappeared.

There, she met her husband Russ to whom she has been married for 24 years. The two raised three children Micah, 17, Nathaniel, 20, and Moshe, 26. She has worked as a technical writer, administrator, and stockbroker but due to her illness she can no longer work.

After a car accident last summer where both her sons were seriously injured, Robinson has carried on her mother's legacy in living her life to the fullest, especially when times are tough.

"We live spontaneously, we hug each other, and we tell each other we care," said Robinson.

"My mother lost her life, my kids almost lost their's and mine is drifting away."