good afternoon and welcome to true crime mysteries if this is your first time hello and welcome to
the channel if this is not your first time you may have seen this video before I have redone
the audio as per your guys's requests and I have updated the story and just made it a little bit
smoother anyway let's get into it Monica Jack was an average seventh grader she was a good student
she had lots of friends and was well-liked she had two older brothers and three sisters on May 6 1978
Monica joined her siblings to make breakfast and bake cookies for a school fundraiser then
she was to meet her cousins in town it was the first time Monica had asked permission to ride
about 30 kilometers into Merritt British Columbia although it was a long ride her mother agreed it
was Monica's sister's birthday and Monica really wanted to get a gift for her but no one had the
time to drive into town it was only because Monica had meant to be with her cousins that
she was allowed to go and it was on the condition that she was to be home before sundown her mother
knew she made it into town because Monica had made a charge to the family account for the
gift she had purchased Monica's mother had been running errands for an overnight fishing trip
and she said that while she'd been driving home she saw Monica and asked if she wanted a ride
but she said she wanted to bike a while longer Monica had been at her cousin's house for a while
they had baked a cake but Monica decided to go home and it wanted to bike from her cousin's
house to home it wasn't a long ride but it was a new bicycle and she was still getting used to
it she had received the bike as a gift from her father a couple weeks before her 13th birthday
her mother went on the fishing trip is planned she packed up the vehicle and left noting that
Monica hadn't made it home yet but the Sun was still up she didn't know at the time but that
conversation she had on the side of the road with her daughter would be the last she spoke
to Monica when she'd returned from the trip early the following morning Monica was not home under
questioning from crown Council Tim Livingston the mother said she phoned police immediately
when she discovered her daughter had not made it home the previous evening she also found friends
starting the search for Monica her mother was quoted as saying people came very quickly to
start looking for her it's not normal for kids to not come home her older brothers along with other
family members and people from the community begun the search for Monica retracing the steps she had
last been seen along the highway he started walking along highway 5 towards Merritt along
nicola lake in search of his sister about a mile up the road at a pullout he saw her bike down an
embankment the brother said the bike was about a foot or two from the water's edge her brother said
that after finding the bike and returning home he went back to the scene and walked further down the
road before finding some children's clothing he immediately reported his discovery to the police
please investigated but little evidence was found on the bike or clothing in the 70s the Merritt
RCMP collected very little forensic evidence at crime scenes this was a small town and it
was also on a First Nations reserve the town didn't have a major crimes unit and it wasn't
equipped to handle such a serious crime Monica's mother herself pointed out that the police did
very little investigating by the time summer was over the case was officially cold the case
was eventually transferred to Kamloops RCMP old cases that had gone cold re-examined once a year
and even police investigators from the historical Homicide Unit Vancouver have looked at the case
no arrests were ever made the biggest lead in the case was several eyewitnesses having seen
a light green Chevy or GMC truck with a camper light green or tan with a brown stripe along
the middle in the area police believe the man seen with the vehicle responsible for Monica's
disappearance and it was speculated that the police had a single suspect in mind but there
was no evidence tying him to the crime there tunnel vision focus on this alleged suspect
stunted the investigation according to some on June 2nd 1995 forestry workers made a gruesome
discovery 17 years after the disappearance of Monica Jack remains were found and in early
February 1996 police confirmed the bones and partial skull where Monica's identified through
dental records finally the family was able to do a traditional ceremony on the mountain where
the body had been discovered and that helped the family Leigh Monica to rest however there
were still no answers to the questions about what had happened to 12 year old Monica and
who was responsible in November 2014 police in an undercover operation made a break 67 year
old Gary handlin confessed Handlen had been a suspect in the initial investigation but there
hadn't been any evidence to tie him he had had a vehicle that matched a description but that
wasn't enough evidence for further investigation he had also been accused of several other violent
sexual offenses handlin had thought he was talking to a big crime boss running a gang
however he was confessing to an undercover officer who was recording him the officer eventually got
handed to confess to Monica's murder he was bragging about getting away with it
yes I got it already there's a guy come on I don't know yeah used to look for me he's
retired he's not doing too good research there's not there's one possibility there's
the contamination but I [ __ ] got no ID on the cover is off so tell me what you remember
I remember picking a brought up one time
having sex
and I just lost somebody
I'm saying
Talton voltar I don't [ __ ] care but if I'm doing here I gotta go through Jaden to
do another I want you to do - dude I can't make it I don't know what I did write it
I can't remember that far back probably rules out we have an interior narrative
that's the area too weren't you
like I had to go were like where you went after winter we did we're
just caught on fire we gotta roll I don't know
Monica's mother has gone in the record to say she remembers him in the area at the time of her
daughter's disappearance he also had a green Chevy truck with a trailer that year but had
sold the vehicle in the summer of 1978 police said that he knew details about her murder that had not
been made public and are confident they have the right suspect thankfully justice will be served
for Monica Jack who was taken from this earth far sooner than she should have the crowded courtroom
had cheered when the jury read out the guilty verdict the courts have not yet determined his
sentence yet but a first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence with no chance
of parole for 25 years in Canada handlin is now 71 years Paige and will serve the remainder of
his life behind bars a woman that he had been convicted and sexually assaulting was in court
to hear the verdict when the verdict was read she yelled at him and that goes for trying to
kill me when his sentencing hearing occurs the family of Monica Jack plans to read victim impact
statements handling is a predator and good police work led to his conviction his sentencing hearing
will likely be sometime in 2020 and I will do an update if anything new develops that's gonna
be all for this case I'm so glad we got justice in this cold case thank you all for watching and
sticking around for this remake let me know if the audio has improved and you guys liked this
style better without any music also thank you all for the support and kind words this week I really
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