File:Lisa-Searches.mp4

Summary

Lisa Marie Young: Failed RCMP Searches

This video goes into more depth about the technical reasons why the RCMP's three searches of the correct property still failed to find Lisa's remains.

Lisa's remains are located beneath concrete in the backyard of 827 Nanaimo Lakes Road, the same location as first house party Lisa was taken to, right across the street from Colliery Dam Park. [49.14502, -123.97504]

Adjacent to the back of the house, a 4 square foot concrete pad was poured atop the grave. It was further concealed by planting a garden above, later unearthed by new owners. Over the years, the awkward little patio had various uses, mostly as home to a picnic table. — But didn't they already search that property? Yes, they did, at least 3 times. The first 2 searches took place in December 2020.

This is the property Nanaimo RCMP officers spent yesterday searching. Police won't say what they were looking for but confirm that the search is in relation to the disappearance in 2002 of 21-year-old Lisa Young. It's the second time this month police searched the Nanaimo Lakes Road property.

CHEK News, December 17, 2020 RCMP conduct new searches in two-decade-old case (Kendall Hanson) Source

Satellite photos already had me confident in the accuracy of my information about Lisa's burial. The neighbour's chilling report only reinforced it further.

None of the neighbours were willing to go on camera but one neighbour recalls seeing what looked like a body in a hammock in the backyard of 827 Nanaimo Lakes Road, around the time that Lisa Young went missing. Soon after, he says he saw equipment moving a lot of soil around in the back yard. He says he reported this to the police at the time.

In the 2020 search, RCMP stated they utilized ground penetrating radar, a police dog, and a search team. This sounds great, but let's take a closer look: Why didn't they find the grave?

• A "police dog" is not the same as a "cadaver dog".

There are very few Cadaver Dogs in Canada. The first one, "Doc", joined Saskatchewan RCMP in 2016. Nanaimo RCMP brought "Luca" along for the search. Luca is good at chasing bad guys, but she can't locate a body that's been buried deep beneath concrete for 20 years.

Addendum: 4 months after the search, it was reported Luca had received additional training in the detection of human remains. The class consists of 1 or more weeks of training using actual human remains. However, according to this study, the training does not include detection of human remains buried under concrete, as does the training of a dedicated Cadaver Dog (which can detect human remains that have been buried below concrete for decades.)

• Ground Penetrating Radar can't scan through concrete.

GPR can be used to test within concrete for structural faults, only since the waves bounce back from the other side. Standard procedure of police forces everywhere is to first remove concrete, before scanning with GPR. We know that this didn't happen as shown in this satellite image from 2022.

• Ground Penetrating Radar does not work on wet ground.
  Moisture in the ground absorbs radio waves, which drastically reduces the accuracy of GPR scans. November and December are the wettest months of the year on Vancouver Island. In the days leading up to the RCMP's GPR scan it had rained on 27 of the previous 30 days, and it had been raining for 11 days non-stop.
  For these reasons and others, those 2020 searches had no chance of success...
  • didn't remove concrete
  • too wet for GPR
  • lacking basic GPR knowledge (based on previous 2 items)
  • GPR scan of a yard that size should have taken ~11½ hours
  • high clay content in area further reduces accuracy
  • high mineral content due to a seismic fault line which runs directly under the property "Chase River Fault"
  • Luca's a biter, not a sniffer.

Sometime later, RCMP quietly returned to the property for a third search.

They likely used a resistivity search method where electrodes are stuck into the ground, to detect objects between them. — Why didn't they find the grave? (again) — Resistivity methods scan a straight line between electrodes, or an area between several electrodes. The burial location's position, adjacent to the house, would make it impossible to suitably surround the grave for scanning.

Ground Penetrating Radar: Information Sources

• Utilizing Ground Penetrating Radar the Location of a Potential Human Burial under Concrete (Journal of the Canadian Society of Forensic Science, September 2009) — (Source)

• Coupling Ground Penetrating Radar Applications with Continually Changing Decomposing Human Remains (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) — (Source)

• Using Ground Penetrating Radar and Resistivity Methods to Locate Unmarked Graves (Criminology Department, The University of Newcastle, Australia) — (Source)

• Forensic Application of FM-CW and Pulse Radar (Departments of Biosystems Engineering & Environmental Science, and Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville) — (Source)

Under these moist, clay-rich conditions, the 900-MHz antenna was able to penetrate slightly beyond 30 cm beneath the concrete layer. However, neither system was able to penetrate beyond a one meter depth in the moist, clay-rich soil (fine, mixed, thermic).

• Strategies for searching bricked up and concreted over objects: Establishing forensic search protocols within engineered structures (School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University, Belfast, Ireland) — (Source)   ...radar wave penetration was lost at a depth of 450 mm...

• Ground Penetrating Radar: Limitations (Wikipedia) — (Source)

The most significant performance limitation of GPR is in high-conductivity materials such as clay soils and soils that are salt contaminated. Performance is also limited by signal scattering in heterogeneous conditions (e.g., rocky soils). Other disadvantages of currently available GPR systems include:

• Interpretation of radar-grams is generally non-intuitive to the novice.
• Considerable expertise is necessary to effectively design, conduct, and interpret GPR surveys.
• Relatively high energy consumption can be problematic for extensive field surveys.
• Using Ground Penetrating Radar for Forensic Investigation (utilitylocator.com) — (Source)

Clandestine graves where only skeletal remains are present can be difficult to identify as well, as much of the body mass has decayed away and there is not a great deal of surface left for the radar to reflect off of.

• Forensic use of ground penetrating radar: Teaching (sensoft.ca) — (Source)

• Utilizing ground-penetrating radar to assist in a forensic cold case investigation (Geophysicists Society of Exploration) — (Source)

• Factual Geotechnical report for Colliery Dams Remediation Project (City of Nanaimo) — (Source) (PDF, shows high clay content in the area)

• Nanaimo Weather for December 2020 (Environment Canada) — (Source)

• Soils of Southeast Vancouver Island (Ministries of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries) — (Source) (PDF, shows that, on average, December is (by far) the wettest month in Nanaimo)

[Reproduced under Copyright Act (Canada) s.29.2 — Fair Dealing for the purpose of news reporting]