ARTICLE #91) Jessie Foster's father adds $40, 000 to the initial offer: Missing woman's father puts house up as equity

Sunday, December 23, 2007
Jessie Foster's father adds $40, 000 to the initial offer: Missing woman's father puts house up as equity
Edmonton Sun by Cary Castagna

It’s not nearly as heartwarming as having her missing daughter home for the holidays, but Glendene Grant calls it a “wonderful Christmas present.”

The reward for information leading to Jessie Foster’s whereabouts has been raised from $10,000 to $50,000, Grant told Sun Media Sunday.

The extra $40,000 is being put up by Foster’s father, Dwight Foster, and will be offered through Crime Stoppers.

“This is such a wonderful Christmas present to Jessie from her daddy,” Grant said from her Kamloops, B.C., home, explaining her former common-law husband’s plan to shore up the funds through equity on his Calgary home and other assets.

“It’s quite a jump. If need be, it’ll go up even higher.”

Foster, an Alberta woman missing since March 2006, is believed to be the victim of a human-trafficking ring that landed her in Las Vegas’s seedy underbelly.

Once a straight-A student, Foster travelled twice to the U.S. in the spring of 2005 with a man she met at a reggae party who promised to pay the way.

She wound up meeting another man a short time later and by June was already working as a prostitute in Sin City.

Foster, who has several relatives in Edmonton, returned north of the border later that fall to visit her parents.

But on the morning of Dec. 25, 2005, Foster – then 21 years old – said she needed a ride to the airport because she had to go back to Vegas immediately, Grant recalled.

That Christmas was the last time she saw her daughter.

“This time of year is especially tough,” she added.

Grant, who believes her 23-year-old daughter is still alive, has no doubt that she’ll eventually find her.

The heartbroken mom is hopeful that the $50,000 reward should help loosen someone’s lips.

“I sure hope so. Money talks,” she said. “The more we offer, the more likely someone’s going to come forward.

“It’s really hard. I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know where else to turn.”

Dwight Foster couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday on the beefed-up reward.

Meanwhile, as Sun Media reported Sunday, Grant is trying to contact Yvonne Hubrechtsen, a friend of Foster’s who was in Vancouver prior to being arrested and deported back to the U.S. on Wednesday.

Hubrechtsen, 22, was taken into custody on a Canada Border Services warrant for not revealing her criminal record when she entered Canada, according to media reports.

Grant believes Hubrechtsen was part of the group of acquaintances that lured Foster to Vegas with promises of a lavish lifestyle and may have information on her disappearance.

cary.castagna@sunmedia.ca