Denis Florian Ratte could very well still be free today if not for the efforts of his daughter, Anna Sieppert, to get to the truth behind the disappearance of her mother slightly more than 13 years ago.
Sieppert, now 30 years old, maintained a campaign to keep the case on the police radar and after about 10 years of hearing they didn't have the resources to continue the investigation, "I went a little higher and told they Prince George needed more resources."
The turning point came when Ratte became the subject of an elaborate undercover operation in which police officers posing as high-level criminals went so far as to take him on a trip to Winnipeg where they staged a shakedown to gain Ratte's confidence.
Ratte eventually confided in them that he killed his wife, Wendy Ann Twiss Ratte, 44, on August 18, 1997, disposed of her body in a swamp east of Prince George and left the family van parked at a supermarket, now Value Village, to make it look like she disappeared.
Such operations, known as "Mr. Big" stings don't come cheap. The cost of this particular operation has not been disclosed but Simon Fraser University criminology student Kouri Keenan has found they typically range from $100,000 to $300,000 and found several that exceeded $2 million.
Sieppert, who was 17 years old when her mother disappeared, was not always convinced her father killed her mother.
"Being his child I didn't want to believe it," she said Friday following B.C. Supreme Court Justice Glen Parrett's ruling that Ratte must serve at least 15 years in jail before becoming eligible for parole.
