Kairsten Fatland was just five years old when she last saw her mother Christine Jack.

With Tuesday marking the 25th anniversary of her being reported missing, the pain of losing her has not dulled, only deepened.

"I remember I was very close to her, she was everything to me," Fatland said. "It's very hard. I think about her every day. I lean on my family and friends and God to support me. It's very hard day to day."

Jack, 33, disappeared Dec. 17, 1988, three days after speaking to a lawyer about ending her troubled marriage to former Blue Bomber Brian Jack. Days later, police charged Brian Jack with killing her.

Massive ground searches failed to uncover Christine's body.

Brian Jack has always maintained his innocence, claiming Christine, after an argument, left their St. Vital home in a yellow Chevrolet Blazer and never returned.

Brian Jack was tried three times in Christine's killing. In 1997, three appeals later, Jack walked away a free man, despite being convicted of manslaughter, after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it would be an abuse of process to try him again.

After their mother's disappearance, Kairsten and her brother Adam were raised by Christine's parents, Violetta and Stefan Reiter, in New Jersey.

"They have been awesome," Kairsten said. "They taught us everything we know and molded us into who we are today."

Both Kairsten and Adam now have young children of their own.

"My grandma always tells me mom would be an amazing grandma," Kairsten said. "Now that I have kids, it's even harder for me because I wish she was here with my kids, too."

City police declined to officially comment on the Christine Jack case, only confirming it remained an "open file."

"You just never know when you are going to get that call," said one police officer. "Someone gets picked up on a serious charge and they want to trade some information."

Without fresh evidence, the case remains at a standstill and the location of Christine's body unknown.

"I try to think about ways I can help," Kairsten said, adding in years past she would call city police to "brainstorm."

"We would like to have closure and find where she is so we can give her a proper burial," she said.

Kairsten said she and her brother have no contact with their father. Not that she hasn't tried.

Five years ago, Kairsten wrote to her father "to get him to admit where my mom was placed."

He never replied.

"According to police, he didn't think it was me who wrote the letter, but it was," Kairsten said.

"The only reason I was contacting him was to get answers ... I wish my dad would find it in him to tell us what happened that night.

"There may be other people who know but I don't know who they would be," Kairsten said. "If there is someone who knows something, I really hope they would come forward."

Cheryl MacMillan and Christine Jack met in high school and remained close friends right up to her death.

Christine is never far from MacMillan's thoughts. A casual remark, a chance meeting, or as recently happened, a daughter's shopping trip to Grand Forks, are enough to bring memories of her long-gone friend flooding back.

"I thought, 'Oh, that's what we used to do," said MacMillan, 58, the same age Christine would be if she were alive. "Things will remind me of her. There's lots of instances. Chris is always there."

MacMillan said she is certain somebody somewhere knows what happened to Christine.

"One day, they will say 'I can't live with this any longer, I have to tell this story,'" MacMillan said. "Somebody knows something. Nobody can vanish like that without somebody knowing.

"We do want to know what happened," MacMillan added. "You had your friend one day and she vanished off the face of the earth the next. It's hard to grasp. Sometimes I think I will find out what happened and other times I think I will have to wait to ask Christine when I see her in the afterlife ... You want to know. It's too hard to accept someone could vanish without a trace."

On Dec. 17, as they always do, MacMillan and other friends will go to church, remember the woman they lost, and share stories.

"She was one of these truly compassionate people," MacMillan said. "She wanted everybody to feel happy. She went out of her way to do things that would make you feel good. That was probably one of the most special things about her."

Jack case like no other before: attorney

In a legal career spanning 40 years, Richard Wolson has had no other case like it.

“I certainly had no idea when I signed on to do this case that I would be at it for about a fifth of my law career,” said Wolson, who spent 8 1/2 years representing Brian Jack through three trials and three appeals, two of them before the Supreme Court of Canada. “It was an adventure.”

The case consumed the local media: Jack, a former Blue Bomber and businessman, was accused of killing his wife Christine, a popular and respected speech therapist.

“I think until the Mulroney inquiry (for which Wolson was lead counsel 20 years later), I had never seen a gathering of media in a courtroom like I did at Jack 1,” Wolson said.

“It received a lot of attention because of the nature of the people involved — they were solid citizens, these were people who lived in suburbia — and (because) there was no body.”

Brian Jack steadfastly denied killing Christine and the case against him was circumstantial, Wolson said.

“There can be circumstantial evidence (cases) that amounts to proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Wolson said. “There can be a confession without a body ... In this case, there was no confession. There was the opposite, an absolute denial of any wrongdoing.

“At the end of the day, I was satisfied that there was reasonable doubt,” Wolson said. “I’m not a jury and I’m not a judge — I’m the man’s lawyer. But if you would have asked me at the conclusion of this case whether I thought that there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt, I would have said I thought that was lacking.”

dean.pritchard@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @deanatwpgsun

A history of the disappearance of Christine Jack:

• Aug. 23, 1980: Christine Reiter and former Winnipeg Blue Bomber Brian Jack were married after the two met at a football-related function. They had two children.

• Dec. 14, 1988: Christine Jack met with her lawyer to discuss options available to the 33-year-old woman in regards to divorce.

• Dec. 17, 1988: Christine Jack disappears. Brian Jack tells police that after an argument in their St. Vital home, she left in their yellow Chevy Blazer and never returned.

• Dec. 23, 1988: Acting on an anonymous tip, the Blazer is located behind a Salisbury House on Ste. Anne’s Road. Brian Jack later admitted he was the one who tipped police off about the Blazer, after officers told him they had evidence the call came from his home. Witnesses would later report they saw the Blazer travelling between Winnipeg and Falcon Lake, leading police to comb the area’s bush looking for clues. Ste. Anne residents say they saw someone fitting Brian Jack’s description driving a vehicle similar to a Blazer the night Christine disappeared, while others claimed to helping him fix the truck that night. Jack told police he went to a neighbour’s house the night she disappeared.

• Dec. 26, 1988: Brian Jack is arrested and later charged with his wife’s slaying.

• Jan. 5, 1989: Police search garbage at the Brady Road landfill.

• April 24, 1989: Police resume search in the Ste. Anne area. It would end again in June.

• Oct. 11, 1989: A one-day search in the Ste. Anne area turns up nothing.

• Sept. 24, 1990: Brian Jack’s second-degree murder trial begins.

• Oct. 11, 1990: A rare blood type consistent with Christine Jack’s was found in the family home and vehicle after she went mising, an RCMP blood expert testifies.

• Nov. 13, 1990: In his closing argument, Crown attorney Jack Montgomery said: “Christine Jack was killed in the family room of her home ... and there was one eyewitness to this tragic death of this young woman — her husband, the one who killed her.” Montgomery said Jack killed his wife when she told him she wanted an end to their eight-year marriage, citing evidence from blood on the foam of a freshly-laundered couch cushion.

• Nov. 16, 1990: Jack is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder following a 10-week trial, believed to be the longest in the province’s history to that point. “At least it’s over,” Violetta Reiter, Christine’s mother, told the Sun.

• January 1992: The Manitoba Court of Appeal grants Jack a new trial and he’s granted bail after serving a year in prison.

• Oct. 30, 1992: Jack is found not guilty at his second trial.

• Nov. 12, 1992: The Crown appeals Jack’s acquittal.

• May 24, 1994: The Supreme Court of Canada sends Jack to a third trial.

• March 3, 1995: Jack is sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter.

• Sept. 25, 1996: The Manitoba Court of Appeal dismisses Jack’s third appeal, but his lawyer appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada.

• June 20, 1997: Jack wins his freedom after three trials, two convictions, and three exhaustive appeals as the Supreme Court of Canada stays manslaughter charges against the 49-year-old in a 4-1 decision.