TRAPPED IN A SPIRAL OF PROSTITUTION AND CRACK

Deborah Nanson just has to look up at the poster on her office wall to
remind her of the dangerous life she escaped.

It has the names of three female friends who were murdered, one who
disappeared without a trace and two who died of drug overdoses.

They were all heavy crack cocaine users who turned tricks to pay for
their addiction.

Nanson, 45, the granddaughter of a Niagara stuntman who went over the
Falls in 1928, was in her late teens when she took her own dangerous
plunge into a vortex of sex and drugs on the seedy side of the
Honeymoon City.

"It took me 25 years to do what my grandfather Joseph Albert Lussier
did in 53 seconds when he defied death by plunging over the Niagara
Falls on July 4, 1928," she wryly recalled.

The downward spiral started when she became addicted to crack cocaine.
At first, she would rob people and shoplift to raise money for drugs.

Then she turned to prostitution. It seemed like easy money at first
and somewhat glamorous for a woman whose self-esteem had been battered
by childhood abuse.

"It made me feel important. He picked me and he's paying me. You feel
loved for a while," she recalled.

She also met some "nice gentlemen" who wanted to take care of her and
make sure she was clean and well fed.

For every nice guy, however, there were dangerous, violent tricks. She
once was beaten while trying to steal a client's wallet.

"He kept punching me but I wouldn't let go of the wallet," she
recalled.

It should have been a wakeup call, but it didn't stop her from going
back when she needed money for another quick fix.

She didn't even consider quitting when one of her best friends, Dawn
Stewart, disappeared in September 1995. A prostitute and pregnant
mother of two young boys, Stewart's remains were found March 31, 1996,
in a wooded area in Pelham.

Stewart is one of five women -- several from Hamilton -- whose bodies
have been found in Niagara over the past 10 years.

The most recent is 22-year-old Cassey Cichocki. Her body was found in
brush near the Whirlpool Gorge last week.

Niagara police have issued a composite drawing of a suspect in one of
the slayings and established a task force to determine whether a
serial predator is targeting prostitutes.

Nanson continued her dangerous cycle of sex and drugs when she left
Niagara Falls and moved to Hamilton.

"When you become addicted, it doesn't matter what you go through ...
whether you get punched in the face by a client ... It's not as bad
and devastating as long as you have the drugs," she said.

She scraped by, but friends continued dying, disappearing and being
murdered.

In November, 2001, Susan Gourley vanished from the Steel City streets
where she'd often shared a corner with Nanson. Her disappearance was
finally reported to police on Aug. 31, 2002, but her fate remains
unknown. Nanson said Gourley kept in contact with her family and it
was not like her to vanish.

"She was a beautiful girl with a big heart," Nanson said, "and
honest."

Nanson was also friends with 19-year-old Kimlyn Judy Tolgyes, whose
naked body was found in Kerncliff Park in Burlington.

And 36-year-old Jackie McLean, who was bludgeoned to death in a crack
house in downtown Hamilton on Aug. 20, 2002.

Two other friends from the street died of drug overdoses.

Nanson has all their names on her office wall with a poem reminding us
of their humanity and that they had hopes and dreams like the rest of
us.

"We're all addicts together. Sooner or later we end up at the same
crack house," she said.

The Tolgyes slaying and Gourley disappearance became part of a joint
Hamilton-Halton investigation called Project Advocate, which
investigated at least 13 incidents involving sex trade workers and
street people.

Two people have been arrested and convicted of various offences in
relation to three of the attacks but all the others remain unsolved,
including the disappearance of Felicia Floriani.

The 15-year-old prostitute disappeared in September,
2002.

Project Advocate began with the premise that a serial predator might
be responsible for all these incidents.

But after two people were charged in 2003, investigators concluded
that there might be six or seven people involved.

The task force was disbanded in 2003 when it ran out of
leads.

"We took it as far as we could," Deputy Chief Ken Leendertse said on
the weekend.

Leendertse said police identified individuals of interest and
developed a lot of intelligence they'll pass onto the Niagara police
task force.

He said there may be areas where the two investigations
overlap.

"We did a lot of the groundwork," he said.

Nanson said she finally came to her senses when she was arrested in
2003. She says she hasn't touched cocaine or turned tricks since she
walked out of jail on March 8, 2004.

She is now executive director of Come Walk a Mile Services, which
helps addicts and sex trade workers. She encourages them to explore
positive life changes and to make better choices.

Nanson is trying to get funding for a call-in contact system for
prostitutes and others.

"It's important they have someone who knows if they are OK each day,"
she said. "It is a first step to trusting somebody and maybe getting
off the street."

Nanson said the streets will never be safe for sex trade
workers.

"It's always dangerous. You take your life into your hands when you go
into a strange car. You're not the driver."

Nor is Pretty Woman at the end of the rainbow, as she might have once
believed.

"Richard Gere isn't going to pull up in his Lamborghini and take you
to a beautiful life."