✝️ Samantha Tayleen Berg, age 19 – January 25 2005, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 🇨🇦💔
Samantha had been in prostitution since age 13. She was addicted to drugs.
Kourch Chan, an outreach worker with Crosssroads, had last been in contact with her in November 2004. He told the media: „She was involved before she was an adult. I think there`s been many challenges that she`s attempted to adress over the course of her, unfortunaly, short life“. A former friend, Stephanie Harpe, told the media: „She was a nice, sweet girl. She just seemed lost“, and said that Samantha would try any narcotic and her addictions worsened. „Behind addiction is always pain. I didn`t know what her pain was. We would never talk about things like that.“ Another friend, Bonnie Pool, had met Samantha at a safe house, when Samantha was 14 years old. There they shared a room for six months. Bonnie recalls that Samanthas was scared and wanted to make a change. But she had an abusive pimp. Also she was addicted to crystal meth: „She was so smart. And she wanted to go back to school. […] She was so skinny in the face, and she just looked like death. And she looked like she`d just had enough, enough of using. Andi t looked to me like she was ready to start recovering.“ Samantha`s partially-clothed body was found frozen to the ground under a mound of snow.
In December 2003, Samantha had registered with Project Kare, the RCMP task force investigating the cases of 79 missing and murdered sex-trade workers and others with high-risk lifestyles. She provided them with a photo and contact information in the event that she went missing or was found dead.
On Samantha`s funeral Charlene Gauld, who was a friend and prostituted as well, promised to get off drugs and off the streets. Charlene was also murdered shortly after, in April 2005.