Selah Reed's family first knew something was wrong when the 20-year-old missed a routine Saturday night call with her sister. When no one had heard from Reed or her mother, Jenny Balcarras, by the next morning, they asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to check on their home in Bella Coola on British Columbia's central coast. Balcarras' car was gone and the doors were locked.
They found the car at a trailhead up the road, but Balcarras and Reed were nowhere to be found. Family members across Canada and the U.S. started mobilizing. Jenny Balcarras' brother, Matt, headed north from Vancouver Island, and his brother left from Calgary.
They met and drove through the night but got a call late Monday that their sister had been killed, likely by a grizzly. When they arrived at the trailhead Tuesday morning, ready to join the search for Reed, her remains had also been found. The search was now a tragic recovery effort.
The killings of Jennifer Balcarras, 48, and her daughter happened only 3 to 4 kilometers (1.8 to 2.4 miles) from where a grizzly attacked a group of schoolchildren and teachers last year as they walked on a trail. Eleven were injured, two of them critically, in the Nov. 20, 2025, attack. Jeff Tyre, an inspector with the Conservation Officer Service, said that aggressive bear was never captured, but officials were able to collect its DNA.
Officials have set new traps in the hopes of catching the bear involved in last weekend's attack and to learn whether it was the same bear from a year ago. They also are not sure whether more than one bear was involved. Terry Webber, chief administrative officer for the Nuxalk Nation, said the killings were triggering for the families who were traumatized by last year's attack.
"Our community is still healing," he said, adding that they've imposed a curfew and are providing mental health services for the community. "Our priority is to ensure they're safe and ensure our community is supported." The delay in finding the remains of the two women was complicated by difficult terrain, even though it was close to the trailhead, and the grizzly bear's behavior. Searchers found Jenny Balcarras first, then her daughter.
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