VANCOUVER—The family of a missing Indigenous woman says a “clerical error” led police to say she had been found — when in fact she had died and her body was decomposing in a downtown Vancouver public housing unit.The body of 34-year-old Lila Moody-Ogilvie was discovered March 10 in the Marble Arch Hotel, the single-room occupancy hotel she lived in. According to her family, she was last seen alive around Feb. 22.For two weeks, Lila’s family and friends frantically searched for her, putting up posters around town and knocking on doors. Her father, Bruce Ogilvie, said he reported her missing to the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) on Feb. 28. On March 3, Bruce said, a staff member at the VPD told him over the phone that his daughter’s case had been removed from the missing person’s list because “an officer would have contacted her.”Three days later, he said, a police officer called and apologized for a mistake on her file, saying Lila was still missing and had been put back on the missing persons list.“He said this was through a clerical error, she’d been taken off and now she’s back on and they were doing everything they could to find her,” recalled Bruce, 68, a retired federal civil servant.Four days after that, she was found dead in the room next door to hers on the top floor of the Marble Arch Hotel, Bruce said.When Bruce arrived at the hotel, there were two police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck stationed outside. Bruce thought, “‘I have to be the one to tell her mother,’ so I called her right then,” he said. “‘I said ... ‘Who’s in the house with you? Grab that person and hold.’ I said, ‘Our baby girl is gone.’”Lila leaves behind a five-year-old son who is being looked after by Lila’s mother.VPD media relations officer Sgt. Jason Robillard said he could not confirm Bruce’s account or otherwise s ...
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