VANCOUVER — RCMP have arrested a 67-year-old Ontario man for the separate murders of two young girls who vanished in southern British Columbia almost 40 years ago.
Police say they believe they have solved the cold cases of 11-year-old Kathryn-Mary Herbert and 12-year-old Monika Jack by gathering enough evidence to accuse the same suspect.
Officers arrested Garry Handlen in Surrey, B.C., on Friday, saying he travelled extensively through the Lower Mainland and Alberta during the 1970s but no longer lives in the province.
Two charges of first-degree murder have been laid against against Handlen and police have released an old photo of the man while asking for the public's help for more information.
Herbert disappeared in 1975 on her way home from a friend's house in Abbotsford, B.C., but her body wasn't discovered until two months later.
Jack was last seen in 1978 riding her bicycle alone along a highway in Merritt, B.C., and it took 17 years for her remains to be found, eventually prompting Mounties to add her case to a high-profile project investigating a series of unsolved murders in B.C.
