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In June 1988, 23-year-old Philip Fraser was excited to begin a new chapter in his life. After recently enrolling in a college in Olympia, Washington to study pre-med, he left his family’s home in Anchorage, Alaska for the long road trip to Washington when he suddenly vanished. After his remains were recovered, witness accounts painted the horrifying picture of a hitchhiker who Philip was last seen driving away with. Despite the passage of nearly four decades as well as many credible witnesses who spent time with the killer & provided investigators with a clear description of the man, this highly dangerous person has never been identified.
Philip Innes Fraser was born on January 3, 1965 to parents Robert & Shirley, both prominent doctors in Anchorage, Alaska. Dr. Robert Fraser served as the Director of Tuberculosis Control for the State of Alaska Department of Public Health while Dr. Shirley Fraser was a neurologist. Philip was raised alongside his two brothers within the vast beauty of Alaska & the Fraser family had a love of the outdoors. He was musically talented & became an accomplished violinist at a young age & he also had a love of literature.
When Philip graduated from West Anchorage High School in 1982 he dreamed of following in his parent’s footsteps & becoming a doctor. He enrolled in a pre-med program at Robert’s alma mater, Western Maryland College in Westminster, Maryland, but after a year of being so incredibly far from his home in a place that was over 4,000 miles away, he started growing restless & decided he wanted to return to Alaska.
According to a high school friend, Philip was very opinionated & idealistic, someone who danced to the beat of his own drum. He was a bit of a rebel, but not the type that fought with his parents or took up smoking; rather, he wanted to follow in his parent’s footsteps, but it would have to be on his own terms.
After leaving Maryland, Philip reevaluated his plans for school & decided to enroll at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, a school situated an hour & 15 minutes southwest of Seattle over 2,000 miles from home.
On Tuesday, June 14, 1988, Philip packed all of his belongings into his 1983 black Volkswagen Jetta to make the long haul to Washington State, a drive that would have taken about 42 hours. Because the journey was so extensive, he planned to take his time & stop off to camp along the way. Sadly as he said his goodbyes & walked from the house to his car, it would be the last time his family ever saw Philip.
He began his trip on the Alaska Highway which cuts through the rugged frontier of Alaska into Canada’s Yukon Territory, a road that ribbons through what feels like never ending mountain valleys & wilderness.
Unfortunately, the journey wasn’t as smooth as Philip had hoped & shortly after he left Anchorage he began experiencing issues with his car. When he spoke with his parents on the night that he left, he explained that he’d only gotten about five hours from home when he noticed something was wrong with his car. He told them he was planning to camp not far outside of Tok, Alaska & he would resume his trip in the morning. Sadly, this was the last time they ever heard from their son.
These car troubles put Philip two days behind schedule but he was able to continue driving & three days later, on Friday, June 17, 1988, he finally crossed the border from Alaska into the Yukon territory of Canada near Beaver Creek. During this process, the two handguns he brought with him were confiscated by border patrol agents.
According to Craig Gates who was a corporal with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) at the time Philip crossed the border, he later indicated that Philip had declared that he had two firearms of his own, but since at the time it was illegal for an American to enter the country with any sort of firearm, both weapons were seized & became property of the Canadian government.
Little did Philip know that as he was cleared to continue on his journey through Canada, he would never make it through British Columbia & back over the border of America into Washington State.
Despite the fact that Canada & the United States are similar in size with Canada being slightly larger, Canada is far more rugged, vast & sparsely populated (Canada is approximately 9,984,670 square km while the U.S. is 9,833,517 square km, making the U.S. 98.49% the size of Canada). In 2024, Canada was said to have 41.29 million residents in comparison to the nearly 348 million in the United States reported in 2025. This makes the population of the U.S. 843% larger than that of Canada. To give perspective, there are about the same amount of people living in California as there are in the entire country of Canada (39.5 million in California vs. 41.29 in Canada).
Investigators later learned that Philip stopped to camp in the early morning hours of Saturday morning, June 18 near Dease Lake in northern British Columbia. It’s likely that he slept until noon or slightly later & got ready to continue along Highway 37 for about an hour until he stopped off at a cafe.
That Saturday afternoon, a dark colored pickup truck with a light stripe along the side pulled into the parking lot of the 40 Mile Flat Cafe, an establishment owned by Gaye Frocklage. The cafe no longer exists, but was likely in 40 Mile Flats, British Columbia which is a little less than an hour’s drive south of where Philip camped at Dease Lake & a little over 700 miles south of the border checkpoint that Philip crossed the previous day. The person who dropped the man off didn’t come into the cafe.
While Gaye & her daughter Tina worked that day, they reluctantly served the hitchhiker a meal. He was the only customer in the cafe at the time & the man had an unsettling presence that made both women feel exceptionally uneasy. He was unkempt with rotted teeth & a strong unpleasant body odor. Because something seemed off with him, at one point Tina voiced concern that he may have escaped from a mental institute. Gaye was meant to leave around this time while Tina was working until close, but she refused to go until the man left. While Tina served the man his food, Gaye made sure to stay close by.
As the man began finishing up, he paid for his food with Canadian money & the women felt a sense of relief as he began getting himself ready to leave. At this same time, Gaye was passing a side window & noticed a small black car pull up to the side of the cafe. It was later determined that the vehicle was Philip Fraser’s. She saw that the young man appeared to be looking for something inside his car that he had misplaced.
Tina noticed a customer pull up to the gas pumps & as she left the cafe to assist them, she passed Philip in the parking lot & they said hello to one another.
When the man left the cafe, Tina & Gaye watched as he approached Philip’s car & the two spoke, likely to ask Philip for a ride. It appeared that Philip initially refused so the man began walking in the direction of the road. Gaye then noticed that Philip drove in the same direction & as he passed the hitchhiker, the man began running along Philip’s car, pulled the passenger side door open & Philip allowed him to enter & they drove off together.
According to Gaye, as her daughter watched this interaction, she felt a sixth sense as she turned to her mom & said, He’s going to live to regret this day he picked this man up. She got the strong feeling that the man was capable of anything.
Sadly, it turned out that Tina’s sense had been correct & this was the last time Philip Fraser was ever seen alive.
Eight hours after Gaye & Tina watched the men away from the diner, a stranded motorist flagged down Eddie & Pauline Olson 200 miles south of the cafe. As they stopped, the man explained that he was having car trouble & Eddie noticed that he seemed really nervous. At the time, they didn’t think anything of it & only assumed he was nervous that because it was late & the area was remote, he was fearful he would be stuck out there.
Eddie & Pauline were very generous & after they towed his car to their house, they allowed the stranger to spend the night in the basement of their home in Kitwanga, a village within the Gitwanga Indian Reserve in British Columbia. The man slept on one of the couches that just so happened to be right next to the gun case where Eddie kept about 12-15 guns.
The next morning on Sunday, when the Olsons woke up, the man introduced himself as Philip Fraser. He told them that both of his parents were physicians in Anchoarage & he was planning to study medicine at a college in Washington State.
As they continued to chat, the man who they came to know as Philip asked Eddie if he would be willing to buy his black Jetta in exchange for a plane ticket to Seattle. Since the car was only 5 years old, Eddie agreed, but explained that it would have to wait until Monday so the purchase could go through customs. The stranger told him that he couldn’t wait that long because he needed to be in Seattle by then, a drive that would take about 15 hours.
The Olsons thought it was strange when the man took out two wallets & began to behave in a way they described as secretive. It seemed like he was trying to hide something & they started to have a bad feeling about him. He insisted they take $20 American dollars for helping him & he left to address the repairs for his car. It turned out that the Jetta only needed a new fan belt & the man was back on the road within an hour.
Twelve hours after he left the Olsons’ house, Philip Fraser’s car was found 300 miles (486 km) southeast of Kitwanga at a bay within the Car Pool car wash in Prince George, British Columbia near Highway 16. The car had been burned, but no one at the scene witnessed anything or knew who the vehicle belonged to while the license plates were missing.
According to the RCMP, the car was completely charred both inside & out, but according to Corporal Gates, nothing of significance was found inside. Despite the fact that before Philip left his home in Anchorage, he packed his car with all of his belongings, none of his items have ever been found.
Highway 16 in British Columbia is a 450 mile (719 km) stretch of remote highway that runs east to west from Prince George to Prince Rupert. The highway is notorious & has been dubbed the Highway of Tears due to the series of disappearances & murders of women & girls that date back four decades. According to the RCMP, since 1969 there have been at least eighteen victims with a large number of the cases still unsolved, while locals believe the number is as high as 43 or more.
Because of the road’s dark history, the Prince George RCMP immediately suspected that the car had either been stolen or the owner had suffered foul play as they joined forces with the Prince Rupert RCMP detachment’s regional General Investigation Section (GIS).
Looking up the VIN number on the burned Jetta led investigators to identify the owner as 23-year-old Philip Fraser who lived on the 1100 block of W. 12th Avenue with his parents. When they ran the plates registered to the car, they saw that it hadn’t been reported as stolen. When authorities within Anchorage were notified, a patrol car arrived at the Fraser home for a welfare check.
When Robert & Shirley opened their door to the officer at midnight, they learned that their son’s car was found abandoned & torched & they instantly believed that something terrible had happened. At the same time, they tried to maintain hope that their son was somehow still okay.
When they last heard from their son five days earlier, they were told he was camping near Tok, Alaska while he tried to figure out what was wrong with his car. Being only 1988, Philip didn’t have a cell phone & wouldn’t have been able to be in close contact with his parents so they weren’t alarmed when they hadn’t heard from him in days.
As the authorities pieced Philip’s journey together, they learned that this young man had set out alone to camp within the wilderness as he leisurely made his way down to Washington for school. Since his car was burned & abandoned with all of his belongings missing, they knew without a doubt that something was very wrong. In his heart, Robert Fraser also realized this while he continued to think & hope for alternative reasons.
The extensive search for Philip went on for nearly six weeks until July 27, 1988 when a man stopped his car to stretch his legs & walk his dog at a gravel turnaround off of Highway 37. This road is known as the Glacier Highway & is 70 miles from the Olson’s home. When the dog began pulling toward some thick shrubs, the man was horrified to come upon human remains. Because investigators were very well aware of Philip’s missing person’s case, they assumed the body was his which they quickly confirmed using dental records.
Robert & Shirley were understandably devastated & felt that with the loss of their beloved son, they’d lost a piece of themselves. Robert felt angry & bitter & could only wonder what sort of a sick person could harm another who was so full of life.
Based on his body’s extensive state of decomposition, it’s likely Philip was killed right around the same time he was last seen on Saturday, June 18, 39 days earlier. It was determined that he’d been shot to death with a handgun & left at the gravel turnaround.
As the investigation into Philip’s murder continued, investigators found themselves at the 40 Mile Flat Cafe in Beaver Creek where they spoke with Tina & Gaye about the man who stopped in & ate before he approached Philip’s car, got inside & drove away.
Multiple witnesses came forward, this included Eddie & Pauline Olson; each person discussed the fact that the man was assuming Philip’s identity & using his back story as his own. One witness indicated that the man told them he’d been visiting relatives in Tok, Alaska while another said he worked for a fish-processing plant there.
Authorities believe that the man learned as much as he could about Philip before he murdered him, likely chatting as they drove in his Jetta so that he could eventually assume his identity. Investigators have come to believe that the man is familiar with the areas of both Toronto & Seattle & may have continued to pose as Philip for some time. He may have still had his credit cards, checkbook, passport & birth certificate, none of which have ever been found.
Witnesses described the man as caucasian in his early to mid-20s, about 5’9”, 230# with brown hair & brown eyes. He had a large belly that hung over his belt & some said that he waddled when he walked, had stubble on his face & seemed to be developmentally delayed. He constantly bit his fingernails, chain smoked American cigarette brands & when he smoked, he cupped his right hand around the cigarette holding it with his index finger & thumb like a joint.
Various sketches were created & released to the public based on witnesses who worked with a sketch artist.
As Philip’s story was publicized it included photos of him, his black Jetta as well as the composite sketch of the suspect, investigators hoped that witnesses might come forward to potentially assist in tracking down the man responsible for his murder. Investigators spent weeks stopping along establishments from the cafe to Prince George where Philip’s car was ultimately found.
Some sources indicate that Philip’s body was found near Stewart, British Columbia which is 200 miles (322 km) south of the 40 Mile Flat Cafe which would mean that Philip & the hitchhiker drove together for about 4 hours & 15 minutes before he was murdered.
From Stewart, where the man left Philip’s remains, he drove 2.5 hours to where Eddie & Pauline Olson lived in Kitwanga & another five hours the following morning via Highway 16 to Prince George where Philip’s burned car was found abandoned.
The man who killed Philip was clearly a highly dangerous person who so easily took the life of an innocent young man & investigators knew that If he wasn’t caught, he was very capable of taking more lives. It’s also possible that Philip’s murder hadn’t been his first.
As the years passed, Philip’s case grew cold & some speculated that Canadian serial killer Michael McGray could have been responsible. However, the RCMP ruled him out as a suspect. Sadly, Philip’s father Robert passed away in 2014 never living to see his son’s killer brought to justice.
Unless the man is captured, we’ll never know the circumstances that led to Philip’s death. Did the hitchhiker take control of Philip at gunpoint earlier in the trip & order him to drive to that location? Did Philip sense that he was in danger?
Philips’s story is a sat & haunting case of a young man who traveled along an extensively vast, isolated area of wilderness with a dangerous man who he was trying to help. The Fraser family tragically lost their son & brother while Philip lost his life far too soon. He was robbed of a bright future that included becoming a doctor. 2025 marks the passage of 37 years since Philip was murdered yet his case remains cold.
References:
- HubPages: The unsettling murder of Philip Fraser: Killed by a hitchhiker
- Unsolved Mysteries: Philip Innes Fraser
- American Crime Journal: An interrupted journey
- Deep Lore: The murder of Philip Fraser
- Wikipedia: Highway of Tears
- My Life Elsewhere: Country size comparison: United States compared to Canada
- Worldometer: United States population (live)
