Eighteen years later, tears are still streaming down Vijay Rattu's cheeks.
"It's very hard around his birthday," she sobbed, remembering her son Balraj.
"I don't like talking too much about him.
It brings pain."
The case of Balraj Singh Rattu, 19, is one of the older mysteries that Surrey RCMP has on the books.
"We're open to any and all possible theories," said Cpl. Mike Hall, in charge of the detachment's Unsolved Homicides Unit.
"We'll treat this investigation as a missing persons investigation where foul play is suspected. Obviously, we have not found Mr. Rattu's body so, does the possibility exist that he's left and is still alive somewhere? That is a possibility. There's no evidence to support that at this time, but I'll keep an open mind to anything."
Balraj's dad, Gurmukh Rattu, remembered his son as a strong, gentle young man.
"He was responsible," he said, straightening up in his seat.
After attending Frank Hurt secondary school, and Invergarry work and learn, Balraj started driving a Royal City Taxi cab part time on weekends with his dad.
On the day he disappeared, Balraj had asked his dad if he could take his car to go see some friends.
That was on Nov. 6, 1995, six weeks before his 20th birthday.
At about 7 p.m., he was seen by a fellow Royal City Taxi driver who'd been shopping at an Indian grocery store near 138th Street and 72nd Avenue in Newton.
Balraj had been sitting in a car, drinking a beer with another young man.
"That was it," Gurmukh said. "That was the last he was seen. He left us.
"Where is my son?" The Rattus had been living near Bear Creek Park at the time. Vijay and Gurmukh both believe their son didn't use drugs, or was involved in anything bad.
His disappearance came completely out of the blue, they said. Balraj had been his normal self in the days leading up to it.
On the second night of Balraj failing to return home, the Rattus received a creepy phone call at 1:06 a.m. "There was a young girl on the phone," Gurmukh recalled. "Same age, you know. My voice and my son's voice were very similar. I picked up the phone, I said 'Hello,' and she thought I'm him. She said, 'Raj, Raj, you were beaten up, eh.' And then she said, 'A ha ha,' she started laughing."
The Rattus then received a second phone call at precisely the same time, 1:06 a.m., on the following night. This time, it was an "old lady."
"She said very clearly our son is not alive any more," Gurmukh said.
"It sounded like an old woman." Both she, and the young girl before her, spoke in Punjabi.
"Like mockery, taunting," Vijay said. Gurmukh said the police told him they were unable to retrace both phone calls.
He suspects his son had been in a fight.
After the third day, the Chilliwack RCMP called the Rattus to report they'd found their car - a silver Hyundai Stellar - burnt, in the Vedder Canal, not far from No. 3 Road. It had been driven off the dike.
"It was completely burned," Gurmukh said.
The police had identified it by its Vehicle Identification Number.
Gurmukh said Balraj's jacket, undershirt, grey sweatshirt and jeans were found rolled up on the Stellar's front passenger floor.
His shirt was partly burned and there was a spot of blood on the right collarbone area of his sweatshirt. A DNA test confirmed the blood to be his. A $20 bill had been tucked into his clothes.
"They didn't find the body, nothing,"
Gurmukh said. "My son got murdered. Like the phone call, they were telling me clearly.
"Somebody must have seen the burning of the car, and the people around," Gurmukh said. "There are people out there, they know something. Somebody must have seen something."
Vijay suspects two cars went there, and her son's killer or killers were familiar with the spot where they burned the car. Gurmukh suspects his son was murdered in somebody's house in Surrey, his body was taken in the car, and then the killer or killers did something with his body before burning and dumping the car.
Gurmukh said he still visits the RCMP station every once in a while, "to wake them up.
"This is what I do." He figures the case would have been solved sooner had it happened in India.
"I'd certainly like to solve this case before I leave this world."
Gurmukh, 64, is still driving taxi. Balraj had his look, and his voice, he said. "My son, we were friends."
Novembers and Decembers are still "very hard to go through. There is no Christmas since he left."
"In the beginning it was very hard. You learn how to live with pain. There isn't a day I don't remember my son. Whoever did the crime, he should pay for that."
The still grieving dad struggled for a metaphor. Finally, he said he feels like he entered this world with two wings, and society has cut one off.
"It's hard for me to go through this life. If somebody knows what happened to my son, please come forward."
Asked if Balraj was involved in crime, as far as police know, Cpl. Hall replied that it's "unknown whether Mr. Rattu was involved in anything criminal that contributed to what happened to him. We need to be open to any and all possible theories as to what happened until such time that all of the facts are known."
Hall noted that the main challenge for
investigators in this case is, of course, that Balraj has never been found.
"This leaves the big question of what happened to him. We're able to go back and retrace his steps before he went missing, and then we have the car being found in Chilliwack. It's the mystery of what happened to him
during this time that we're trying to unravel."
The identity of the two callers, on the second and third night of Balraj's disappearance, remains a mystery.
"But we believe they may have information on what happened to Mr. Rattu and would like to speak with them," Hall said.
No one has ever been arrested or charged in connection with the case.
If police do have a suspect or suspects in mind, Hall's not saying.
"Generally we probably wouldn't be announcing to the world when and if we did, but I'm not saying that in this case," he said.
Asked if police believe Balraj was killed in Surrey or in Chilliwack, or if he can reveal the circumstances under which police suspect Balraj might have met his end, Hall said that "until such time that the mystery of what happened to him is solved, it would simply be speculation on my part to say what happened to him, or where it happened.
"We believe there are people out there who know exactly what happened to Mr. Rattu and we encourage them to come forward to tell their side of what happened."
Asked if there is any solace police can offer to the Rattus in the meantime, Hall had this to say.
"The message I'd give not just to the Rattu family, but really to all of the families - people who have been victims of murders, such as this, or missing persons where we suspect something bad has happened to them - is to not give up hope.
"Sometimes it may take 10, 15 years before there's a resolution. That's what we are working towards, and we're looking towards bringing that news to the family, that we're able to give them some semblance of closure."
Police are asking anyone who has information that could help make that happen to call Cpl. Hall at 604-599-7634.