Body of missing Whitehorse woman found

The body of a 19-year-old Whitehorse woman missing since May was found over the weekend, RCMP confirmed onTuesday.

Family and friends had spent the past 5½ months searching forAngel Carlick, who was last seen on May 27.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, Whitehorse RCMP Sgt. Roger Lockwood said the human remains of a young woman were discovered Friday in a wooded areaby a hiker walking on a hydro access road in the Pilot Mountain subdivision near Whitehorse.

"It was confirmed over the weekend that the remains are that of the deceased individual, Angel Edna Carlick," Lockwood said.

Hesaid police do not yet know how Carlick died or whether she died in the area where her body was found.

Police blocked off a large section of the Pilot Mountain area on Tuesday, limiting road access to local traffic only.

Forensic teams are combing the area for evidence, while officers are conducting door-to-door interviews with nearby residents. A helicopter was used to photograph the scene from the air and a police dog was brought in to try to find clues.

Previous searches in Whitehorse over the summer by police and volunteers with the Blue Feather Youth Centre, where Carlick worked, turned up no clues. Police also searched for Carlick in Alberta and British Columbia.

Grieving friendswork onmemory book, ribbons

While RCMP await the results of an autopsy and try to determine how Carlick died, friends of the young woman grieved atthe downtown youth centreonTuesday.

"They are traumatized," said Sandy Bryce, a grief counsellor working at the centre this week.

"Some people want to know what happened, they need to have very, very strong details," she said.

"We don't have a lot of details right now, so what we want to do is … celebrate Angel's life. We want to focus on the person that she was and we want to focus and celebrate her life in that way."

Bryce said several projects are in the works, including a memory book and reflective art.

"We also think that music was such an important part of Angel's life, so we'll make sure that we are able to do something with music," she said.

"We're going to probably produce some little ribbons. Angel's favorite colour was blue, and so we want to be able to have people wear a little blue ribbon in honour of her."

Call for a youth shelter

Irma Scarff, who led some of the past searches, said government inaction, in the absence of a youth shelter, may have been a contributing factor in Carlick's death.

Scarff called on Yukon politicians to create a safe place for homeless teenagers, urging them to remember Carlick and to think about their own daughters.

Scarff believes Yukon politicians failed to protect Carlick by providing a shelter for homeless youth.

"If the kids had a place to go, this would never have happened," Scarff said.

"The government people in charge today should take heed of this, because tomorrow it might be their child [going] missing."

Scarff had organized several volunteer-run searches for Carlick over the summer, raising money toward a reward. But on Tuesday, she said she felt she didn't do enough.

"I just think that if we would have looked a little bit harder and maybe pounded on a few doors, we might have had a better outcome," she said.