An Ontario senior has been charged in the murders of two young B.C. girls taken from their families more than three decades ago.

Mounties arrested 67-year-old Garry Taylor Handlen in Surrey late last week in connection with the cold case killings of Kathryn-Mary Herbert and Monica Jack, whose heartbreaking disappearances took place years apart in separate cities in the 1970s.

Handlen has since been charged with two counts of first-degree murder.

“This is a moment I’ve waited for 39 years. Finally it’s here,” Herbert’s mother Shari Greer tearfully told reporters after the charges were announced Monday.

“When this is over I will have a well-deserved breakdown,” she added. “There is no such thing as a cold case to families, nor is there ever closure.”

Greer’s daughter was just 11 years old when she went missing in Abbotsford in September 1975. Her remains were found two months later in an undeveloped area.

Jack was days shy of turning 13 when she vanished while biking along Highway 5A in Merritt in May 1978.

Her bicycle was located the next day in a ditch, but her remains weren’t found for another 17 years, when they were uncovered in a fire at a rural area kilometres from the highway.

“I’ve always hoped and prayed that my daughter would return, and she did,” her mother Madeline Lanaro said.

“I always hoped and prayed that whoever hurt her and murdered her would also be found.”

The RCMP credited the charges with information-sharing between various investigative and integrated policing teams over the years. Jack’s case was eventually transferred to Project E-PANA, a task force probing cases of missing or murdered women, while Herbert’s went from the Abbotsford Police Department to the Provincial Unsolved Homicide Unit.

Chief Supt. Jim Gresham of the RCMP Major Crime Section also thanked both victims’ mothers, whom he described as “amazing advocates for their daughters” who helped keep the investigations moving forward.

“Ensuring you had the answers you so rightly deserved was a powerful force that guided us over these many years,” Gresham said.

Handlen is being held in custody pending his next court appearance on Dec. 8.

The RCMP has released a photo of the accused taken around the time of the offenses, and is asking anyone with information about him or the girls’ disappearances to call their tip line at 1-877-543-4822.