Missing persons cases present an unusual problem for police—it’s not a crime to disappear. And without concrete evidence of a crime or reasonable indication a person has been abducted or harmed (evidence of foul play), police can’t get a search warrant. And without a search warrant they don’t have the opportunity to gather potentially helpful information. 

Last year an American Sheriff in Seattle was quoted as saying, “It’s a very, very small percentage of missing persons cases where it turns out that a crime has been committed. That doesn’t mean we’re not investigating them vigorously, but it has to happen in context.”

These days authorities can use advanced cell technology—something not available in 1989 when Cindy disappeared—(if someone has a mobile phone with a built-in GPS device) to help locate missing persons, but an officer has to assert that the missing person may be in immediate danger before the cell phone provider will release any information that helps officers get a rough location of the customer.

In my sister’s, Cindy James, case, the police stopped searching for her body after May 29, 1989, only four days after she had disappeared. When that bit of news was revealed at the 1990 inquest, I had been stunned—As a grieving sister I had expected they would have searched longer. However, R.C.M.P. had put out a bulletin asking for public assistance to locate her, had checked the nearby airport to see if Cindy left, and had used a hovercraft to search along dikes in case she had drowned or her body had been disposed of there. But unfortunately they did not check in vacant lots and abandoned houses—a place where Cindy’s hog-tied body was eventually found.

Although blood had been found on the driver’s side door handle of her car after she disappeared and she’d had a history of harassment, on June 6, 1989, the Vancouver Sun newspaper stated, “Richmond R.C.M.P. S. Sgt. Ron DeRoon said there has been no trace of the woman since she went missing. He added there is nothing to suggest foul play.” Given Cindy’s history of harassment and wanting to believe Cindy wouldn’t just disappear without saying goodbye, I did not understand how the police could say that. I growled in frustration.

In retrospect, did they think the blood on her car door was normal? Or did they assume she had staged it and gone somewhere to commit suicide?

Later I would learn how ten days before her disappearance and with the help of a friend, Cindy had written a letter to the R.C.M.P. expressing her dissatisfaction with their methods of investigation. (Perhaps I’ll share that letter in an upcoming Blog post.)

Now, if your family member or friend goes missing, there are places you can turn to for help. One Internet site features missing persons in Saskatchewan—but a person has to have been missing for more than six months. Alberta also has a missing persons site—In fact you can find several Canadian missing persons websites. Even Australia has a website for providing information about the ways you can search for a missing person, as does the UK.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James