Crown offers look-alike to explain sightings of missing ferry passenger

VANCOUVER – Crown prosecutors have offered a theory to explain sightings of two passengers who disappeared after a ferry sank off the B.C. coast, pointing to at least one other passenger who looks similar to one of the missing.

Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette haven’t been seen since the Queen of the North struck an island and sank on March 22, 2006, and fourth officer Karl Lilgert is now on trial for criminal negligence causing their deaths.

Several witnesses at Lilgert’s trial have testified that they may have spotted one or both of the missing passengers in Hartley Bay, the First Nations community where survivors were taken.

But the Crown has suggested another passenger, Lawrence Papineau, could explain at least one of those sightings.

Passenger Sean Kavanaugh had dinner with Foisy and Rosette the evening the ferry left Prince Rupert and later told rescue officials he may have seen the couple, from a distance, in Hartley Bay.

Now, Kavanaugh says he doesn’t believe the people he saw were actually Foisy and Rosette, and he agreed with a Crown lawyer who suggested Papineau and Foisy are similar in appearance and were wearing similar clothing, including a baseball cap.