Family of British Columbia woman believed murdered in Peru awaiting justice 5 years later | The Canadian News

Friday marked five years since anyone saw Kimberlee Kasatkin alive.

The 41-year-old mother of two disappeared in Lima, Peru, on November 26, 2016. Her partner and father of her children, Christopher Franz Bettocchi, is accused of murdering her.

“It has been difficult because five years have passed since Kim disappeared with no answers,” Jason Grafstrom, Kasatkin’s brother, told Global News.

“At first, just living in Canada, you think that justice is going to be done, there will be some kind of resolution, but five years later we have practically had no response to anything other than the fact that she will not come and that we cannot expect any kind of response soon “.

Bettocchi remains at large and Kasatkin’s mother, Kathy, told Global News that her lawyer has asked a judge to vacate his arrest warrant because he is ill.

Kimberlee’s body has never been found. She was last seen in surveillance video showing the couple had returned home on the night of Nov. 26, the last time police documents say she was seen alive.

Surveillance video recorded the next day shows Bettocchi dragging a large bag that he could barely lift to his vehicle in an underground shelter. A Peruvian court has heard that Kimberlee’s body was suspected of being inside.

Bettocchi has always maintained his innocence and has stated that the bag contained camping gear.

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He remains accused of femicide: the murder of a woman, according to Peruvian law. Kathy told Global News that Interpol assured her that her case is still active. However, you cannot be tried until you show up or are arrested.

“I really want to have faith that they are watching,” he said.

Kathy and her husband Al have spent their retirement savings seeking the truth and fighting for access to the children, who are now eight and 11 years old.

The family has had little recent contact with Kimberlee’s children, who remain in their grandmother’s care on Bettocchi’s side, he added.

“The children will investigate and discover that their father was not looking for their mother as their grandmother told them,” he said.

“They are going to discover through all this that he is not working somewhere, he has been hiding because he is not man enough to stand up and prove his innocence which according to him is so easily proven.”

She said that while she is losing hope that there will be justice for her daughter, she remains hopeful that one day they will be able to reconnect with the children.

“Our family is incomplete without all of our grandchildren. They have a family here that loves them so much, ”he said.

“We miss summer picnics in the backyard with them, we miss sledding with them. We love them unconditionally and we want them to come back, we want to have a relationship with them, but we can’t even Skype with them. “

Grafstrom said he remains optimistic that there will be a closure in his sister’s case, although hope fades a bit with each passing year.

“I still have a little bit of faith, you want to hold onto the hope that something will happen, it’s a small, small amount of faith,” he said.

“I don’t want to completely give up on Kim getting justice, but as time goes on, it diminishes a bit.”