EDMONTON — The commanding officer of the RCMP in Alberta has apologized to the family of an Indigenous woman who disappeared nine years ago and whose killer has never been found. “Our Leduc detachment’s initial missing persons investigation was not our best work,” Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki said Thursday. “The early days of our investigation ... required a better sense of urgency and care,” he said. “On behalf of the RCMP, I am truly sorry.”

As of right now, the apology doesn’t mean anything to me. Tootsie Tuccaro

The family of Amber Tuccaro rejected the apology. “As of right now, the apology doesn’t mean anything to me,” said her mother, Tootsie Tuccaro. “They did it because they were told to.” She reacted angrily when Zablocki left the news conference early, pleading a pressing meeting. “An apology needs to be heartfelt,” she said. “They’re the ones apologizing, yet they can just get up and walk away.” Amber Tuccaro was 20 years old in August 2010 when she flew to Edmonton from her home in Fort McMurray, Alta., and booked into a hotel near the airport with her 14-month-old son and a female friend. The next day, police said, she caught a ride into Edmonton with an unknown man. Investigation was deficient The woman from the Mikisew Cree Nation was never seen alive again. Her skull was found in the bush two years later. In 2012, police released a cellphone recording between Tuccaro and the man who gave her a ride. “You’d better not be taking me anywhere I don’t want to go,” Tuccaro can be heard telling the man. An independent federal review released in 2018 found that the Leduc detachment’s investigation of her disappearance was deficient.

Canadian Press Paul Tuccaro gives testimony during the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Edmonton Alta, on Nov. 7, 2017.

Her brother, Paul Tuccaro, testified for two hours to its lackadaisical nature at the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls during its Edmonton hearings. RCMP downplayed the family’s concerns and wouldn’t list her immediately as a missing person. Then her name was wrongly removed from the list for a month. He said Mounties later told his family that investigators had the cellphone tape for a year before releasing it. The family was passed from officer to officer and RCMP didn’t keep in touch after his sister’s remains were found. Her belongings sat in a hotel room for months before police took them and eventually threw them away.

The Canadian Press Paul Tuccaro gives testimony during the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, in Edmonton Alta, on Nov. 7, 2017.