Police have issued a public warning after two escorts died, within two weeks of each other, in the same apartment complex in New Westminster, B.C.
Jill Lyons, 45, and Karen Nabors, 48, were found dead in their separate apartments on Aug. 12 and Aug. 25 respectively, police said.
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Dr. Kate Shannon, director of the gender and sexual health initiative at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, said sex workers who ply their trade online, as Lyons and Nabors are believed to have done, have some protection because they can negotiate transactions from a safe environment.
However, because most aspects of sex work are illegal, workers can only do so much to protect themselves from a potentially abusive client.
“So sex workers can’t work with other sex workers, sex workers don’t have access to the same safety and security protections, so that might mean a bookkeeper or someone helping screen clients. They also don’t have access to bodyguards or security,” Shannon told CTV News Channel.