The North Bay City Police wrapped up a year-long media campaign on Monday.
The campaign, was to try to re-ignite memories of all the missing persons investigations under the North Bay Police Service.
On Monday, five of the 14 missing persons cases were addressed.
See that story here: https://www.baytoday.ca/local-news/police-bring-more-attention-to-missing-persons-cases-440334
See information on the 14 here: http://www.northbaypolice.ca/community/unsolved-investigations
Detective Constable Dave Wilson has been involved with a number of the missing persons files.
He insists no case is ever closed until it’s solved.
“The term cold case comes from the Hollywood movies or an American term but none of these cases are ever closed, they always remain open, and that’s why we continually ask the public to please submit any information they have because we will continue to follow it up,” stated Wilson.
Some of the open cases go back as far as the last 1960’s and early 1970’s, when technology was far from where its at today.
“Some of these cases occurred even before the inception of the internet, new police data bases that are available, new linkages that maybe viable or at least contacts say within the health care field, Service Ontario field something like that,” admitted Wilson.
“So we are able to go back and ensure all of these cases, that all those things were looked at. Something as simple as a new police information portal that wasn’t available until the late 1990’s and early 2000’s and a lot of these cases were prior to that period so we are able to see if any of these people had police contact for all the police agencies that submit to this police information portal and we are able to see if they had any contact with any HC’s out west which now gives us a starting point to look into these cases.”
And Wilson along with many other police agencies in the country, are hopeful for more progression on the DNA database, which could help tie together many unsolved cases across the country.
“We have been waiting on it for a very long time,” stated Wilson.
“It is in the works from my understanding. It will be operated through the RCMP. Right now we are doing it on a case by case basis like I mentioned the OPP Resolve initiative which is dedicated to doing that and that’s who we are relying on in order to do so but as of right now we are doing it the old school way and hopefully once the database is in place it is only going to enhance our cases that much more.”
And more technology may also bring more hope for those missing persons families who are just simply looking for some answers to how and why their loved one disappeared.
