Haisla Collins

HE LOOKED LIKE POPEYE ( OR THE DAY I MET GARRY HANDLEN)

I’m pretty sure it was 1988. And I’m pretty sure it was the beginning of the school year. The reason I think it was the beginning of the school year is because it was hot, and the reason I know it was hot is because the stranger was sweating and fidgeting with his hat. Taking it on and off. I could see him pacing in front of the school.

I saw him from a distance. I was on the swing in front of False Creek Elementary School. At first the school yard was full of kids and parents. You could hear the chaos of kids playing, and parents rounding them up. The kinda day that preceded a weekend, where we weren’t in a hurry to get home. I was waiting outside for my friend L, who was still inside the school for some unknown reason to me. We always walked home together and today was no exception. Now after a while all the kids had gone home and it was just me and the stranger in the school yard. The stranger was now sitting on the bike rack, outside what was then the main entrance to the school. I got up from the swing and walked towards the entrance, hoping to meet my friend outside the door. The stranger, jumped up off the bike rack and said,

“Am I in your way? Do you need your bike?”

He was blocking a couple bikes on the rail, but none of them were mine. I didn’t have a bike at the time.( I didn’t get my bike until I turned 10 in April 1989, it was my birthday present. )So that’s how I know I was 9 at most.

I remember. I responded

“ No, that’s okay” or something like that

I didn’t have a bike.

He hit his head and said to me “Are you the kid I’m supposed to pick up?, you look like you might be.”

He was unsure. And I could tell.

I said “Well what’s the name of the kid you are supposed to pick up?”

He said “I can’t remember?

“What does the kid you are looking for look like?” I said, thinking I might be able to help him get connected with the kid he was looking for.

He responds “Brown hair brown eyes” and leans forward gesturing the top of my head, “About your height”

I was not convinced.

Your Mom’s friend Sharon said your mom had some kind of emergency and Sharon couldn’t pick you up, so she sent me.” At the time I had a Sharon in mind, but I knew she wouldn’t send someone I didn’t know.

“How do you know Sharon?” I asked,

“oh she’s just a friend?”

“And what’s your name?”

“It’s ______but that doesn’t matter you wouldn’t know me” I put blank because I don’t completely remember if he told me or not. I was 9.

I told him “ Well I’m not allowed to go in cars with strangers”

“He says well I know your mom’s friend Sharon, so I’m not a stranger”

And that also didn’t sound like my Mom. Mom would have never sent someone I didn’t know. I thought that I could check the answering machine when I got home. And. I mean at the time I had other plans, I was going to walk home with L. We were best friends at the time and this guy was trying to get in the way of our adventure.

So I told him , “It sounds like you have the wrong kid.”

And he then was offering me a ride anyways “Cause I’m headed there anyway”, “we could go Necking in my car on the way” he said.

Which at the time confused me, so much I almost didn’t remember the comment. He said this reaching out his hands to me. I said “That’s okay” Declining his offer. During this a remember him fidgeting with his had and touching his neck.

I remember that was just about when L and 2 adults came out of the building, it was at that point that Stranger wandered off to the south side of the building onto Lammy’s Mill Road. And I never saw him again.

I remember I could see the hair on his forearms glow red in the sun, and he had red parted hair. His forearms were covered in freckles, as a matter of fact, I think he had freckles or spots on his neck and face too. He reminded me of Robin Williams in Popeye the Sailor Man the Movie (1980. look it up), and he had style like Robert Redford, wearing his hair parted and under a touque or cap and a plaid shirt with 70’s style pointed coller. He had irish features, and a thin voice, and he had a mumbly voice, with some kinda accent or at least he was not a Vancouverite. He might have been wearing glasses. He was not tall. Taller than me as a 9 year old. But I really didn’t remember him as being tall or very big. Slim build with strong arms. But I was never standing within reaching distance from him. Which I think protected me.

Afterwards I walked home with L. And when I got home.

I remember sitting at home, wondering what the word Necking meant.

I casually asked Mom “What is necking”,

Mom looked at me curiously, “Necking is an old fashion word, for hugging and kissing, romantically”,

she looked at me horrified, “ Who is asking you about necking?”

“Just this guy I met”

“What guy” mom probed with a harsh tone in her voice, I now recognize as motherly concern.

“This guy at my school” I said thinking very little of it.

I really don’t know what she did with the information, or what else she asked me. She probably informed the neighbourhood that there was a creep infront of the school. I don’t get the feeling that I had done a very good job describing him, even though I see his face in my mind as clear as day. I guess I was 9 and I didn’t know why mom was so upset.

Now L remembers that she got a stranger danger conversation with her mom, and she feels like she was 9 or 10, she is 8 days older than me. When I talked to her, she was sure that the moms were communicating.

Years later,

after looking into the Epstein files, I realized that I had an incident with a pedophile who tried to kidnap me in front of my school, I sat there in the dark meditating, trying to see his face, so I could have a description to find him by. I remembered all the things I described above. Red hair, freckles, looked like popeye and Robert Redford, plaid. I had an image in my mind. And in the middle of the night I went searching images of “sex offenders in BC” online, and I came across Garry Handlen’s picture. It popped out at me. I clicked on it immediately. Cause it rang a bell, and then I saw the image of Monica Jack’s beautiful brown face and it struck me how much she looked like me, indigenous, with prominent eyebrows and mixed ancestry. I took a good look at Garry. It took me a while to figure out what it was about him that reminded me of popeye. Surely it wasn’t the casr tune. Was it his pointy collar? It then occurred to me that he looked like Popeye the Sailor man from the movie, that cheesy version starring Robin Williams and Shelly Deval. I compared the pictures. The comparison was striking.

When I first told dad this he was not sure it was useful, but after I compared the pictures it was hard to ignore the likeness. I had compared him to popeye for a reason.

Also after seeing his picture I realised this guy in the picture was this other guy I had seen hanging around the school yard. I had assumed he was one of the parents, or something when I saw him during pick ups that week; and I had also seen him exercising in the area on the south side of the school. Maybe even shooting hoops. He was somebody I recognized. I realized he must have worn his hat and glasses so he wouldn’t be recognized when he approached me. But when I saw his picture I put 2 +2 together. It occurred to me that maybe he had been stalking me for days before I met him. That was what he was doing hanging around the school.

When I saw video footage of him and heard his voice, it was like I remembered too. I am almost certain that it was Garry Handlen who I tried to kidnap me in September of 1988. And when I found out what he had done to those girls, I knew it was my responsibility to tell my story. And I realized how lucky I am to be alive, to have had a life. Instead of being remembered as a girl on a missing person’s poster. I got to live, be an artist, make music, have a child, get married. He would have taken that all away from me. He would have affected the lives of my family. I had never understood the the issue of MMIWG was so personal.

I found out later that after Garry reporedly got away with rape and murder in 1975 and 1978 (Of Kathryn Mary Herbert and Monica Jack) he had been put in prison on violent rape charges in late 1978. An 18 year sentence which was apparently cut in half, because he was released in 1987 from New west Minster penitentiary. (Not very far from where I met him). Before this he had had multiple rape charges. And had served time for these crimes. But in 2014 accused of murdering Jack and Herbert and got put behind bars in 2019, a life sentence of 25 years.

But all I can think about is if he was trying to add me to his list of victims at age 9, who else was he able to harm from when I met him in 1988, and when the law finally caught up with him in 2019. Because I know he was still on the hunt, I know that there was no amount of prison time that would cure him of his darker nature. And I know he was a highly manipulative man who almost killed me. In his Mister Big interview where law enforcement tried to convince him to confess his crimes for intensives I hear him describing his crimes. He describes himself meeting 12 year old Jack “I met a broad one time, and I was having sex with her and then just lost it” like he wasn’t responsible for his actions like he just lost control. Like he didn’t know full well what he was doing. I’m here to tell you he knew exactly what he was doing, and it was evil.

When he was accused CTV News reports “Senior charged in cold case murders”, not convicted rapist, he was described as a senior, in order to humanize him. When CBC covered the cases they interviewed his bar buddies “He was the kinda guy you could sit and have a conversation with” one woman said. As if they knew him. Very little attention was given to children whose lives were taken, or reports from the families who lost them. No reports were made about the fact that Handlen had been accused of trying to pick up girls when he lived in Abbotsford. And he was treated with the courtesy of humanization because he was white and his victims were indigenous.

It’s funny all these years I knew that I had run into a creep and that he had tried to get me to go into his car. But it had never occurred to me that he was specifically going after me because I was indigenous. That despite, my rather insulated and protected up bringing. I was never going to be safe, because of the colour of my skin. That made me especially vulnerable. Not only because of the racism of Handlen, but of the racism of a system that was supposed to protect me. They knew what Handlen had done, years before. He was a suspect. But the case was handled carelessly and evidence was lost, witness testimony was thrown out and they lost track of him for years after his release in 1987.

And I am here to tell you this story isn’t over. He was still after victims. And he lived free of imprisonment for From 1987-2019.

And when I met him in 1988 he was still looking. I did put in a police report recently and reported what I witnessed. But I also wanted to share my story. I truely feel there are other cold cases related to this man and his crimes. He was a serial killer. He haunted bike racks and offered girls rides. He joked about necking and he hung out at schools. He was hunting indigenous girls including me. And I am lucky to be alive. Thank you for listening.