WOMAN'S DEATH CONFIRMS FATHER'S FEARS

Police ID Human Remains

More than two weeks passed before authorities identified Helena
Mihaljevic's remains and made official what her father feared from the
moment he heard the news.

When two girls found Mihaljevic's then-unidentified remains in a field
near Airdrie on May 13, her father believed from the beginning it was
her.

Mihaljevic, 32, had been addicted to crack cocaine for a year and a
half before her disappearance in early July 2006 and her family was
afraid her involvement in the drug culture placed her in danger.

"The thought crossed my mind right there," Vladimir Mihaljevic said
Friday.

Although the woman has been found, the investigation is far from over:
police haven't determined if she was killed or died some other way.

"Until we know differently, we'll handle it as suspicious," said RCMP
spokesman Sgt. Patrick Webb.

Prior to disappearing, the woman's life had spiralled out of control:
she lost her tidy apartment downtown and a good job as a legal assistant.

She also lost custody of her eight-year-old son to her parents -- but
no matter how bad things got, she would visit the boy, take him out or
ensure she phoned him every day, the father said.

The family reported her missing July 2, the last time anyone saw
her.

"She just stopped calling -- what else are you going to think? The
worst," he said.

A plea by Calgary police last January for information regarding her
whereabouts produced no leads.

The break came when two young sisters picking flowers found her
remains in a field near Township Road 280, near Symons Valley Road.

The local RCMP investigation is being helped by Project KARE, a task
force probing homicides and disappearances of women and men who lived
in the dangerous world of prostitution and drugs.

Mihaljevic was "known on the streets" in Calgary, Webb said, but
stressed it's too soon to say whether she was involved in the sex trade.

Project KARE has also helped investigate the unsolved death of another
Calgary woman, Sharene Rae Oswald, whose remains were found in 2005
not far from Mihaljevic's.

Oswald, 42, had been dead for up to five month when children looking
for antlers found her remains south of Airdrie on Feb. 27, 2005.

Webb cautioned, however, the locations are so far the only concrete
similarities between the cases.

"We'd be foolish to not realize there's a possible geographic
relationship between the two, but there's no other connection," he
said.