Help Us Find These People
They’ve vanished—and the chances of locating them rise dramatically if you join the search

BY DANETTE DOOLEY

Every year, thousands of people go missing in Canada. Some of these cases have happy endings: A daughter living on her own forgets to tell her parents she’s visiting an out-of-province friend for a week. A son extends his vacation and doesn’t let his family know he’s changed his plans.

But there are also heart-wrenching cases where people have vanished without a trace; where parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers wake up each day not knowing what’s happened to their loved ones. Are they hurt? Are they dead or alive?

This story profiles four such cases. If you have information that may help in locating these missing persons, please contact the police department in your area.

Adam, Trevor and Mitchell O’Brien, Torbay, Nfld.
Diana O’brien feels closest to her boys when she’s dreaming, and able to hold, hug and comfort them. Reality sets in when she wakes to three empty bedrooms.

Diana’s world turned upside down on November 9, 1996, when her ex-husband, Gary O’Brien, allegedly abducted 14-year-old Adam, 11-year-old Trevor and four-year-old Mitchell.

She remembers the beautiful fall day as if it were yesterday. Gary had visitation with the children on Saturdays. He called that morning to say he would be late picking them up. Diana told Gary that Mitchell wasn’t feeling well and that she thought it best he stay home with her. Gary became angry and insisted she have Mitchell ready when he got there around noon.

Gary picked the boys up at their mother’s apartment in Mount Pearl, Nfld., then called that night at around 8:30. He told Diana the children were not coming home and that the family house in nearby Torbay was rigged to explode.

“I asked to speak with the children, and he told me ‘later,’” Diana says. “I screamed at him…and the phone went dead.”

Diana called the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. When police went to the family home, they defused a propane-rigged bomb they say could have levelled the neighbourhood. A nationwide hunt for Gary and the boys began. Gary is listed on Interpol’s web site for abduction and attempted murder.

Diana believes the planting of the explosive was Gary’s way of enabling an escape. “He knew I would phone the police and that they’d rush to the house,” she says.

Since the disappearance, the story has been featured nationally as well as on America’s Most Wanted. Over 200 sightings have been received from across Canada and the United States. Police say some of the tips came from people who knew Gary and knew what the children looked like.

But “we’ve had nothing where we can say, categorically, ‘That’s them,’” says Staff Sgt. Robert Johnston of the major crimes unit.

One year after the O’Briens went missing, the waters off a cliff near Torbay were searched. Cars are sometimes driven over the 90-metre drop there into the ocean. The search located an engine assembly from a 1989 Ford Tempo.

The serial number matched that of Gary’s car. Because there’s no indication anyone was in the car at the time it plunged over the cliff, police still consider the case an active file.

Diana believes that, like rigging the house to explode, Gary got rid of the car to mislead police. She is adamant that the boys are missing, not murdered. She describes her ex-husband as a good father who would never physically harm his children.

“I live for the day when my boys will come back,” she says. “That’s the day I’ll feel complete again.”

Kimberly McAndrew, Halifax
On August 12, 1989, 19-year-old Kimberly McAndrew punched the clock at 4:21 p.m., walked out the back door of the Canadian Tire store on Quinpool Road in Halifax and vanished.

A happy, well-adjusted Dalhousie University undergrad, Kimberly was working for the summer as a cashier at the store. Her sister, her sister’s boyfriend and Kimberly’s boyfriend were to pick her up when she finished work at five.

But it was a quiet day at the store, and Kimberly’s supervisor told her that she could punch out early. It wouldn’t have been unusual for Kimberly to walk home on such a beautiful afternoon. The store was about a 15-minute walk from the apartment where she lived with her two sisters.

When they left to pick her up, Kimberly’s sister and friends drove the same route to the store that she would have taken had she walked home. There was no sign of her.

Intelligent, outgoing, well liked at work, Kimberly was her usual upbeat self the day she went missing. Her father, Cyril, a retired RCMP officer, says that she longed to get the silver braces removed from her teeth. She would never have missed the appointment with her dentist that was to have taken place three days after she disappeared.

Former Halifax police Const. Dave MacDonald, who worked on the case, says he thinks of Kimberly often. “I was an officer for 30 years, the last 12 in the major crimes unit, and never has a case haunted me like this one,” he says.

Sgt. Dave Worrell took over the case in 1999, shortly before MacDonald retired. He says police have received hundreds of tips, investigated alleged sightings, conducted hundreds of interviews and administered several polygraph tests. “There is at least one person out there who knows what happened,” he says. “This case is very much ongoing.”

For Cyril McAndrew, coping with his daughter’s disappearance is as difficult today as it was more than 12 years ago. “Kimberly was abducted—there’s no other explanation. Her bank account was never touched, and her clothes weren’t taken from her home.”

Cyril and his wife, Audrey, live for the day someone finds the strength to tell the truth. And they still have hope. “Miracles happen,” Audrey says.

Lynn Mullarkey, St. Catharines
Lynn Mullarkey was reported missing from this small southeastern Ontario city on June 20, 2001. Since then, police have had several confirmed sightings of the 31-year-old single mother who may be struggling with mental-health problems.

By the time she reached her 18th birthday, Lynn was a wife and mother. Caring for her daughter was her main priority, and after her marriage ended four years ago, Lynn remained the child’s main caregiver.

In 1998 she decided to work towards something she hadn’t achieved as a teenager: her high-school diploma. Four days a week, Lynn attended school in Cowansville, Que. One day a week she worked as a home-support worker. “With her family allowance and child support, she was able to keep going,” says her mother.

Lynn achieved her dream of graduating from high school in December 2000. Soon after the holidays, she went on what was supposed to be a short trip to Bowmanville, Ont., with her daughter. Family and friends became concerned when her 12-year-old didn’t return to school in January.

In February 2001 Lynn’s mother contacted police in Calgary—where Lynn had recently been spotted. About four months later, the police and Family & Children’s Services Niagara were told that Lynn and her daughter were missing and in St. Catharines, staying at a shelter. When police and child-care officials showed up, they determined that Lynn was in a poor state of mind. Police took her to a local hospital, but Lynn walked out a week later, and her daughter was put in foster care. Lynn was next seen in Oshawa, where police again took her to a hospital. But she walked out hours after being brought in. On June 24, police spotted Lynn in the Halton area, near Toronto. Again she moved on before police were able to act.

On July 6 police had information that Lynn was staying in a guest house in Toronto. By the time officers arrived, she was gone.

Originally from Knowlton, Que., Lynn is five foot two and 128 pounds, with short, straight black hair and brown eyes. Lynn is an active Jehovah’s Witness. Police believe she may have contacted that organization for assistance or is currently living with a Witness family. The group has been “extremely co-operative” in trying to locate her, says Det. Const. Nadine Wallace of the Niagara Regional Police Service.

Lynn’s mother has made several trips from Quebec to Ontario looking for her daughter. Though distance separates grandmother and granddaughter, who is now 13 and living with her father, they keep in touch by phone. Lynn’s mother has done her best to help the teenager come to terms with her mother’s disappearance.

“I told her, ‘You have to remember that Mommy loves you. She’s just not thinking clearly.’” Lynn’s mother stresses that her main concern is for her daughter’s safety. “I want her to know that people love her, that help is available if she needs it.”

Olimpia Mikszan, Abbotsford, B.C.
Olimpia Mikszan, 18, was last seen on June 21, 1996, outside her rental suite. Having just completed high school with honours, the talented art student was disappointed she was not accepted into the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver.

Olimpia had recently told friends she was going on a hitchhiking trip across Canada and that she might go backpacking elsewhere in British Columbia.

Police say she left nearly all her belongings at her residence. Her wallet with about $130 cash, a blue backpack and her Canadian citizenship papers were the only things missing.

Olimpia loved jewellery. She may be wearing a delicate gold-coloured chain of small white pearls, spaced about 40 millimetres apart, and a ring made of 14-karat reddish-coloured gold with a coral stone. The ring was given to Olimpia at her First Communion at the age of nine. Most of her jewellery was left behind in her apartment.

Olimpia, who was born in Poland and immigrated to Canada with her family in 1990, speaks accented English. Her most striking feature is her long, naturally curly, chestnut hair.

According to Det. Sherryl Yaciansky of the Abbotsford police, Olimpia’s personal information has been flagged nationwide with police departments, Canada Customs, missing persons’ registries and other government agencies. Police are at a loss to explain what happened to her.

Though she’d been living on her own for about a year prior to her disappearance, Olimpia often visited her family for dinners and to take her two younger sisters on outings.

Her mother describes Olimpia as caring, well mannered and clean living, a loving daughter and an “independent soul.”

“The younger children always ask about their sister. She’s still in our hearts, and we love her very much.”