‘Have you seen Melanie Ethier?’

 

I don’t know Melanie Ethier. We never met, and as far as I know, in our childhoods our path’s never crossed, not even once.

Sam didn’t know her either. But he knew of her long before I ever came to know of her existence.

It wasn’t until I was at least 24, that I saw her smiling face beaming from the billboard along Highway 11. It was my first time going to Kapuskasing with Sam, from the Highway 11 turn off in North Bay.

This entry may only resonate with one person I know on OD, but even she lived far enough from where Melanie disappeared that I’m not sure how much she would know about it, or have heard about it. It seemed to make bigger news in smaller communities. 

I didn’t once hear in my childhood about Melanie’s disappearance.

In 1996, it took less than 10 minutes for her to disappear from a small Northern Ontario town, never to be seen or heard from again. She vanished, if not for that billboard that pleads for information, I would never have even known she existed.

Since that late summer day, when I saw her face for the first time, it’s haunted me. How can someone just vanish? Especially in Canada, isn’t Canada supposed to be safe?

Maybe it’s because my parents moved from India to a small Canadian community to seek protection and safety for their children, a guaranteed safety they didn’t feel we would have in India. But just a few hundred Kilometres from our house, a 15 year old bi-racial young woman disappeared in less than 10 minutes, and I wouldn’t even know about it for another 12 years.

Maybe it’s because my mother’s oldest brother’s son was kidnapped in 1989. Maybe because they knew more about his disappearance. Who took him, why, when… and still to this day, almost 25 years later, my aunt grieves with no closure. No one admitted to his kidnapping, and all she wants is that one answer, that she knows is the most probable truth, but she can’t let go of the hope, until she knows for sure, until she can send him out of this world properly.

I met him, when I was three. He tried to teach me to ride a bike (that was much too big for me), and we flew kites on the roof of my mothers childhood home. I was three, and it was our first family trip to India. The only memories I have ever remembered were of him… and even with age they become fuzzy. 

I try to bring up that memory every now and again, because after years and years, it’s become painfully obvious that there won’t be any new memories we’ll share together. I don’t want to lose that small part of him that I have.

But why Melanie? She was long since gone before I ever knew about her. Maybe she connects me, to that fear my parents had of losing a child in India. Maybe she reminds me that its all too easy to be lost anywhere, no matter the perception of a safe place.

Two different places. One crowded, over populated, viewed as dangerous and small in comparison. One vast, scarcely populated, and viewed as quiet and safe. Two missing kids. Two who vanished, two who were never found.

Unfortunately he wouldn’t be the last to vanish from my life. A family friend of ours went missing on Diwali of 2005, from that same, safe small town that we were born and raised in.

And even after her body was found, months later, some 100km from where she lived, from where her abandoned car was found, with all fingers pointing toward an obvious suspect…. nothing came of it. Now he’s left this world also… and her three children, with neither their mother or their father, will be left to wonder why, and if that gruesome truth is what it is.

Ten Minutes, is all it takes for someone to vanish. Now, 17 years later… there is still no trace of her.

It reminds me how big, and quiet Northern Ontario can be. How the danger looms, in an all of that unoccupied space.

Melanie and I are similar in age, so my big question is, why hadn’t I heard of her disappearance until I was in my mid 20’s? Northern Ontario is so spaced out, that within 4 hours her abductors could have her as far south as Toronto, west to my hometown, North close to Sam’s hometown, and east… into Quebec.

So why in Sudbury didn’t we hear about her? If we did, it was definitely not made a priority. Sometimes I think maybe I did, but my fascination in this area has been there long before I remember. I remember almost any and every major crime reported in the 90’s and since. 

I was 13, I would have heard, and I would have remembered. My mother would have locked me inside. We didn’t lock our doors until Paul Bernardo and Karla Homlka, and when Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy disappeared in St. Catherines, my mother’s over protective nature kicked up into high gear, even though it happened much further from us than Melanie’s disappearing. 

When we were waiting for our flight in Edmonton, I told Sam how since I had re-posted the missing poster for Melanie on facebook, that her mother invited me to join a group on Facebook dedicated to finding her. I told him, I couldn’t tell him why it meant as much to me as it does, considering he’s the one who grew up hearing about her, and seeing her face on billboards. There’s just a big part of me that hopes for an answer in this lifetime. Not just for me, but for her family. The sister who didn’t have her older sister to look up, and be there for her. The aunt her son will never know. The mother, who grieves the loss of a child she can’t accept is truly gone until she finds the answers, until she knows for sure she’s gone.

That has to be it. Her mother, my aunt. Two worlds away, thousands of miles to seperate them, share a common pain, that only mothers in their situation can ever understand. But 24 years later, my aunt will never get the closure she’s prayed for, day after day. 

Today when I woke up, on the facebook group was a woman, who says she’s was held by the same people who took Melanie. Apparently many years before an ex-OPP was under suspicion. But with no evidence, no DNA. no body I guess nothing ever really came of it. 

This woman says that it was a police officer that picked up Melanie and offered her a ride home that night. Instead she ended up where they held this woman. She says the reason nothing has ever come of it, is because the police have been denying her claims for years. She constantly goes to police in Timmins and North Bay and they blow her off once she tries to tell them that it was a police officer that abducted her, and she was held with Melanie.

Now that this information has come out, I know some people will think "That’s a bit far fetched". But, I never heard of Melanie’s disappearance growing up. But what I did hear about when I should have heard about her, was that police in Sudbry were involved with an underage Prostitution ring in our town. Which included underage girls from other parts of Canada, Northern ON especially. Girls of varying ages, varying races, and quite a few Aboriginal girls. The Police Chief at that time resigned. A man I had met numerous times at cultural events in our community. He wasn’t involved but officers in his department were, and he took responsibility and stepped down.

This happened 4 hours from where Melanie was last seen, and this woman with information claims she knows Melanie was alive until late 1997, about a year after she disappeared. She goes on to name police officers by name that were involved, and says it went down in North Bay. She says they made videos of them, and those must be somewhere still. 

It seems too con-incidental now that these two events took place in close proximity and timeline to one another.

I hope it’s true. I can’t see right now why it wouldn’t be. Why someone would make something up that’s so elaborate and specific. I can’t imagine why someone who is a mother herself would play with the emotions and give false hope to a woman, and the family of Melanie trying to find closure on her daughter’s disappearance. 

i hope this is it, I hope this can be solved.

http://www.unsolvedcanada.ca/index.php?topic=221.0