In the year since Irma Galastica disappeared, her family and friends are desperate to find answers about what happened to her.
The 32-year-old mother vanished from a Burlington home, but not before sending a friend a test message expressing concern; she may not make it home.
“Her apartment was fully intact … Everything’s there, passport, jewelry, everything. So, she clearly wasn’t running away? No, and with the clothing she had on, I doubt she went very far,” said Galastica’s cousin Ana Sotelo.
“She’s not one of those people to just up and disappear from her loved ones. She loves her daughter; her daughter is number one. And she would never, anywhere she goes in this world, she would always contact me. This is just not like her,” said her friend Shemica Duncan. Irma’s daughter is now living with her father and family in Trinidad.
Duncan was the one who established who Galastica was with before she disappeared, and the whole family formed a search team going through the area where her phone was last tracked.
“We set up a ground search. On multiple occasions, a lot of our family members had gone to put up posters. We went knocking on the doors, talking to neighbours, speaking to the community, just trying to raise awareness of, hey, there’s a missing woman that dropped a pin here. And this is where she was last known to be. This is where she last said she was. But we never found anything there either,” said Maria Sotelo, another cousin of Galastica.
“I don’t (that) she was ever at Miles Road. She never left Old York Road,” said Duncan. Miles Road is Galastica’s phone’s last known location.
And Old York Road is where they think Galastica tried to seek help on the day she disappeared.
Duncan said she just wishes the police would use their resources to speed the investigation up. “Her background, her nationality, you know, it does play a big role in what’s going on right now.”
Duncan believes that Galastica’s risky lifestyle and previous run-ins with police have made her disappearance less of a priority for police.
CityNews met with Halton police and the investigators involved in Irma’s case, to share some of the evidence we’ve collected through the course of our investigation.
Previously, the police have said that it is an ongoing investigation and a lot of the material they are dealing with is very sensitive.
“This is obviously very important. It’s a very, very sensitive investigation. We can sit down. We can answer some questions for you, hopefully. But hopefully, we can start with the information that you’ve got, and then we can just come and move on from that.” said Halton Police Const. Jeffery Dilon.
Following the meeting with the police, it was clear they were actively still working to find Galastica and have been investing a lot of resources and time into solving this case. Both the Human Trafficking and Homicide units are involved in the investigation
Some of the evidence presented by CityNews was new information for the police which will hopefully turn into new leads and breathe new life into Galastica’s case.
But for now, Irma’s family is still waiting for answers – and praying for closure.
“I think It’s a matter of the right person hearing this, or touching the right person’s heart,” said Maria. “It’s like, something’s going to come up, but I have a lot of faith in God that we’ll find her. I don’t know when, but I know we’ll find her.”
If you have any information about Irma Galastica or Eric Carpenter, please contact Halton Police or Crime Stoppers at 1-888-444-TIPS(8477) to report anonymously.
