Granddaughters of missing Langley senior share hopes and fears, one week after disappearance

When 82-year-old Jane Whitehouse failed to pick up her young grandson as scheduled last Friday, her family knew something was wrong.

“It was very unusual that she didn’t show up when she said she would and pick someone up when they needed it,” said Jane’s granddaughter, Kendra Craig.

“From there it was report her missing, call the hospitals – because we originally thought maybe a car crash,” said her granddaughter Tessa Antosh.

On Sunday, Whitehouse’s family was dumbfounded when her van was found abandoned in a creek off a remote forest road an hour’s drive north of Harrison Hot Springs.

“It seems extremely random, out of place. Not connected at all. She drove where she knew,” said Antosh.

“It doesn’t seem like her at all,” added Craig. “It doesn’t make sense she would drive up there.”

Kent Harrison Search and Rescue have scoured the area for days — on the ground and from the air — but there’s been no sign of the Langley grandmother.

“Of course there have been conversations about survivability, especially (in) this weather, on a mountain,” said Antosh. “And she was not prepared she didn’t take any extra clothing with her.”

Langley RCMP have released a still image from a surveillance camera that shows Whitehouse behind the wheel of her van on that forest road just after 4 p.m. last Friday. They also released an image of a Mercedes SUV going the other direction, and believe it’s the last vehicle that would have passed her. They want to speak to the driver.

Jane Whitehouse is seen behind the wheel of her van on Oct. 25, 2024, on the remote forest road where the vehicle was later found abandoned. (Handout)

“It’s just looking at this point for closure,” said Antosh. “Of course there is a small hope that maybe she’s alive if someone did something, but we don’t have clues either way.”

Whitehouse’s granddaughters are pleading with the public to keep looking, hoping someone will remember seeing Whitehouse in the bright green jacket she was wearing the day she disappeared.

“We are going out to the Christmas market in Chillwack today to hand our fliers and post them we are assuming lots of people will come and if they’re from the Harrison Aggasiz area they will know about it,” said Craig.

“We would be so entirely gracious as family to have a form of conclusion and a way to even just recover my grandmother in order to say goodbye in a more final way,” said Antosh. “Just to hold her hand again. That was one of my favourite things to do, so that would be lovely.”