A Nova Scotia mother is appealing to the public for clues 20 years after her daughter was murdered.
Carla Strickland grew up on the South Shore of Nova Scotia and she was a third-year student at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax at the time of her death.
She was a cheerleader, a beauty queen and a graduate, but her busy life ended early at the age of 20.
Strickland was murdered in June 1991 and her body was found in a wooded area off Highway 118 near Lake Micmac in Dartmouth.
She was last seen at a birthday party at a Halifax nightclub. Her murder remains unsolved, but her mother believes that someone who was at the club that night must know something about her daughter's death.
"I want to know why," Alma Whitman tells CTV News. "I used to have nightmares, you know. Did she suffer? Did she know it was the end of her life?
These questions have gone unanswered for 20 years and Whitman wants them answered. She says that while the public may have forgotten about the case, she remembers it every day.
"She was always very, very outgoing," she says of her daughter. "It's not fair. He's had a life for 20 years, and she hasn't. And I want him to pay."
Strickland's case has been added to Nova Scotia's program for major unsolved crimes, which means that if someone provides information that leads to the arrest and conviction of her killer, that person could receive up to $150,000.
"It may be that one small piece that a member of the public doesn't realize is important," says Const. Brian Palmeter. "It may be just what we need to put it all together and lay charges."
Whitman says she will never rest until that happens.
"If there was anything I could have in the whole world, it would be to have my daughter back."
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell
