In my January 22 blog, I reviewed the book Unsolved: True Canadian Cold Cases by Robert J. Hoshowsky. At that time, I briefly recounted the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of eight-year-old Nicole Morin from an apartment building in Etobicoke, Ontario on July 30, 1985. If you know me or have read my novel Cat & Cat, then you're already familiar with my obsession for missing persons cases. Frankly, they haunt me. Always have, ever since I read my first collection of unsolved mysteries, C.B. Colby's Strangely Enough when I was, coincidentally, eight years old. (More on this very influential book in a later blog. Promise.)
Over the last thirty-odd years, I've made it more than a habit to follow every mysterious disappearance that crosses my path. Among the cases I follow - cold and hot - I read every update while continually theorizing about the whos, whats, whys and hows of every case. As such, I've always kind of regarded myself as an unofficial expert when it comes to souls who've gone missing. Imagine my surprise, then, when I cracked open Hoshowsky's book and found an undiscovered country of vanishings and unsolved mysteries I'd never encountered before. Of all these fascinating cases, the disappearance of Nicole Morin is the one that truly grabbed me by the short hairs.
For those of you with Scribd, I wholeheartedly encourage you to read Hoshowsky's entire account, which begins on page 187: https://www.scribd.com/read/230100891/Unsolved-True-Canadian-Cold-Cases . For those who haven't invested in Scribd, I'll do my best to recount the details below:
Tuesday July 30, 1985, is remembered as a hot, sticky, sunny day in an endless succession of hot, sticky, sunny days that hung over Ontario that summer. Nicole Marin's family lived on the 20th floor penthouse of a condominium complex. Late that morning, Nicole prepared to go swimming with one of her friends, Jenny, in a pool located right by the complex. She wore an orange bathing suit and carried a peach towel along with a plastic bag containing her goggles,
a white T-shirt, green, white shorts, a pink hairbrush, and a bottle
of suntan lotion. Shortly before 11:00AM, Jenny buzzed the Marin's apartment via the downstairs intercom, spoke to Nicole and told her she was downstairs waiting. Nicole answered that she'd be right down. She said goodbye to her mother, exited the apartment and presumably walked down the hall towards the elevators. I say presumably because we really don't know what happened after she left the apartment.
What we do know is that Jenny waited approximately fifteen minutes for Nicole and buzzed the apartment again when Nicole didn't appear, Jenny spoke to Jeanette Morin, Nicole's mother, and informed her that Nicole had never come down the elevator to meet her. Jeanette told Jenny not be concerned. that Nicole often liked to ride the elevators up and down and that she'd be there shortly. After waiting about another fifteen minutes - half an hour total - Jenny decided Nicole must have come down the back stairs and left for the pool without her. Jenny left the building, then, and headed to the pool alone. Jeanette,fully believing that Nicole was at the pool with Jenny, never grew concerned about Nicole's whereabouts until she never returned in the afternoon. Police were finally called around 3:00PM that afternoon, and thus began investigating one of the most confounding missing persons in Canadian (make that recent world) history.
Police determined that Nicole had made it down to the lobby. A witness who lived on the building's seventh floor placed her there. This witness was the last person to see Nicole. The only other person who may have seen Nicole was a mysterious and still unidentified woman spotted on the building's 20th floor, the same floor as the Morin's apartment, approximately forty-five minutes before Nicole went missing. Described as mid-thirties, Caucasian,
pretty, thin, with dark brown hair parted on the left, this mystery woman wore a
white or cream-colored blouse with a white and black skirt and light shoes. She was seen standing at the opposite end of
the hallway from the Morin’s penthouse apartment and holding a notepad. And that's it. Literally.
Hoshowsky's detailed account tells about the numerous false leads and dead ends encountered by investigators. For the sake of brevity, however, I'll dispense with all this and refer you to his work for a clearer picture of the investigation's scope and history. For the remainder of this blog, I'm going to look at the facts as relayed above and posit some questions and theories that strike me after careful consideration.
1) I find Jeanette Morin's reaction to Jenny's initial concern puzzling and troubling. A normal kid doesn't ride the elevators for fifteen minutes. If my mom thought I'd left a friend waiting in the lobby for fifteen minutes, she'd sure as hell track me down and find out why. That's odd.
2) Jenny says she waited half an hour down in the lobby. And she only called up to the apartment once? Really? Kids aren't that patient. Especially eight-year-olds. That's definitely out of character.
3) A witness saw Nicole in the lobby. So where was Jenny? She waited there half an hour. If Nicole was in the lobby, as the witness states, then Jenny wasn't.
To my eyes, the whole timetable is off. Reconsidering all the "facts," I find myself questioning whether Jenny was even in the lobby when Nicole headed downstairs. It's more logical to presume that Jenny buzzed Nicole, was told she'd be right down, waited one or two minutes, and then headed to the pool herself without Nicole. Nicole, delayed and dawdling the way kids do, didn't leave the apartment for another five to ten minutes (probably closer to ten). This is when she said goodbye to her mother. She then came downstairs and was seen by the witness. Not finding Jenny in the lobby, Nicole left the building herself to go to the pool. This is when she was abducted.
After fifteen or so minutes at the pool, Jenny grew concerned when Nicole didn't arrive, and that's when she went back to the apartment, buzzed again and spoke to Nicole's mother. Being a kid, Jenny didn't want to say she'd gone off to the pool without Nicole, so she told Jeanette she'd been waiting the whole time. Jeannette wasn't concerned, however, because dawdling Nicole had just said goodbye and left a minute or two earlier - not fifteen minutes. Not seeing her friend now, Jenny probably did wait a few minutes for Nicole, but then just presumed Nicole had left the building some time before Jenny returned to the condominium building and was already at the pool waiting for her. That's when Jenny went back to the pool. As Jenny had just spoken to Nicole's mom about Nicole's habit of riding the elevators, it's not a stretch to think that Jenny believed Jeannette caught Nicole goofing around the complex and brought her back to the apartment for punishment. All this explains the inconsistencies in the timetable.
As for the mystery woman on the 20th floor, if she does exist then I think it's safe to presume she's involved somehow in the disappearance, either as a perpetrator or a witness. The fact that she never came forward after all the publicity is odd unless she has something to hide. Perhaps, she was scouting the building for kids, maybe writing down apartment numbers in the building with kids. Then she went outside in the parking lot in the interim when Jenny went to the pool and Nicole hadn't come downstairs yet. When Nicole did come down, the woman and maybe an accomplice took her on the way to the pool. They were gone, then, by the time Jenny returned looking for her friend.
The above conjectures are based upon the details as I know them. I tried my hardest not to take any kind of poetic license with my theory, like I would if I were writing a story. The reality of crimes are rarely as sensational when the unknowns become known. I'd like to know if any flaws can be found in my reasoning or if I missed anything crucial in my analysis. I not only invite criticism in this case, I welcome it.
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