The flight into Edmonton is always an emotional one for Vivian Tuccaro.
Eight years ago, her daughter, Amber, flew into the provincial capital from Fort McMurray with her then 14-month-old son and a friend.
The next day, August 18, police say Amber got into an unknown man’s vehicle to catch a ride into Edmonton.
Except for a later-found recording of a conversation between her and the driver, Amber wasn’t heard from again.
Her body was found in Leduc County two years later. The case remains unsolved.
“As the plane was landing, I’m looking around,” said Vivan. “The memories all come back.”
Vivian made the trip to Edmonton Wednesday, as did other members of the family, to release chosen excerpts from a 121-page review of the investigation into Amber’s disappearance and death. The family said the review by a federal police watchdog confirms their belief the RCMP mishandled their loved one’s case.
“Now we got something on paper, saying we were right,” said Paul Tuccaro, Amber’s brother.
The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission is an independent government agency that examines complaints of misconduct by RCMP.
The Tuccaros said the family filed a complaint with the CRCC in March 2014. An investigation was supposed to take 16 months, but the family didn’t receive its findings until last week.
Part of the report released by the Tuccaros said the investigation into Amber’s disappearance “was deficient in that various members were either not properly trained or did not adhere to their training.”
Another read, “In effect, approximately one month passed without any effort being made at the detachment level to investigate Mrs. (sic) Tuccaro’s disappearance.”
The Tuccaro family has been critical of the RCMP’s handling of Amber’s case.
At the national inquiry into murdered and missing Indigenous women in Edmonton last year, Paul testified RCMP downplayed the family’s concerns about Amber’s disappearance, wouldn’t list her as a missing person until she’d been gone 24 hours, and didn’t keep in contact after her remains were found.
Paul also alleged his sister’s belongings were left at the hotel for a month before police threw them out.
The family said the report gives them a sense of vindication, but not closure.
“We have to absorb all of this,” Vivian said. “I’d like for us as a family to get together and talk this thing through and see where we’re going to go from here.”
“I start to read it and then I get really emotional because we’re talking about Amber… It’s really hard reading.”
The family said it was not sharing the full document for reasons that couldn’t be commented on at the moment, but that the report did include some things they didn’t agree with.
The complaints commission said it would not comment on the matter unless the Tuccaro family chooses to make the full report public.
RCMP were given a copy of the report. CTV Edmonton has not yet received a comment from K Division.
With files from Dan Grummett
