that family had moved four months prior. the main person they eluded to wasn t even in the area. and there was nothing else to support that. joness ruled out. as suspects in the disappearance of wendy. wendy s husband is left. he created this suspicion himself when he illegally cashed her unemployment insurance checks and his gambling habit almost bankrupted the family. led to the terrible fights. just months before wendy disappeared. but, he agreed to take a lie detecter test. now the results were in. the operator came back and told dennis he found him to be truthful. you heard right. truthful. letting him go as a suspect had to be difficult. did it seem to you at the time, this is this can t be? i remember having a thought
it was a blow. that he d gone that low. and when i tried to question him about it, he just you know, he says, hey, he says, my kids are gone, my wife s gone. don t have much left. but anna had a sense, she said, a nagging feeling that it wasn t just grief that kept denis from being the strong, dedicated father she had known. was it possible, she wondered, that it was guilt? i thought i thought he was hiding something. what would he know? i don t know. he said, i have gone through my story, if you need to hear it go see the police, ask them to tell you the story. he was fed up, he was over? he said, i m done, i m not talking about it anymore. i understand about being fed up. i couldn t imagine how it would feel to be the one investigated. but i also believe in truth. if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to hide. but when anna kept pushing, her dad snapped back that he was
alive. everything else i did was just mechanical motion. my emotion went into finding her. and she began to believe she was quite alone. though the rcmp had let the case go cold. they always promised me it wasn t, they promised they were still looking. but then nobody would be working on it. and finally, i was tired of this file shuffle. i went to the media to say, don t forget. this was a person in your community. don t forget. she came in carrying this folder of news clippings and possible leads that were connected to her mother. i d talked to many families of many disappeared people over the years. and i could see the light in that, in her eyes that way, that this was one of those people who was not going to let this go. but anna s father, denis, it seemed had given up. not only on ever finding his wife again, but on himself. he was changing over the years in front of my eyes.
i looked out of the window, and his van wasn t there. and then the panic set in. i rang the police, and they came round and took a statement. around about 4pm on 22 april, i looked out the window and two policemen got out the car and the way they walked in, i knew what they were going to say. annie s husband, luke, had taken his own life. she had no idea why until police handed back his telephone. gosh, i can t even describe the shock. i saw betting activity that must have consumed him from morning till night. it just escalated. it became uncontrollable. and i knew i knew why he d done it. the gambling commission estimate there are around 350,000 problem gamblers here in the uk.
a widow who lost her husband to a gambling addiction is urging the government to stop online betting companies from giving away free bonuses which allow you to bet without depositing any money. luke ashton took his own life in april after he started gambling again while on furlough during lockdown. jayne mccubbin has been speaking to his wife, annie. i looked out of the window and his van wasn t there. and then the panic set in. i rang the police and they came round and took a statement. around about four o clock on the 22nd of april, i looked out the window and two policemen got out the car and the way they walked in, i knew what they were going to say. annie s husband luke