Mary Jim lost one of her most precious possessions on a transit bus in Duncan on Feb. 21.
The old cell phone may not look valuable to anyone else, but it contained pictures and messages from Jim’s daughter Tyeshia Jones who was murdered when she was just 18 years old in 2011.
Angela Carpenter, Jones’ godmother, said Jim has carried the phone on her at all times since her daughter’s death because it contained some of the last pictures taken, and messages received, from Jones to her mother.
Carpenter said Jim was riding on the #7 bus route, which runs through the Walmart area of Duncan, on Feb. 21 and she believes the phone was lost when she was transferring her vest into a back pack she was carrying at the time.
She said the police and transit authorities have been notified of the loss of the phone, but have had no success to date in locating it, and family and friends have been posting information and updates on its search on Facebook.
“It’s just an old phone that would be meaningless to anyone else, and we’re assuming the battery is dead as well,” Carpenter said.
“Mary has been in dire straits since she lost the phone and can’t eat or sleep. She’s desperate to have it returned.”
If anyone has any information on the phone and would like it returned to Jim, they are encouraged to call the North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP detachment.
William Gordon Robert Elliott is serving a life sentence for the murder of Jones and another woman after his conviction in 2014.
