Source presse: Casey Bohun

• Missing child's mom jumps from bridge - by Maureen Gulyas - May 2, 2001
• Girl's disappearance dates back 15 years - by Maureen Gulyas - 2004
• AETV - forum Apr 1, 2006

Missing child's mom jumps from bridge - by Maureen Gulyas - May 2, 2001 Delta Optimist On-line Edition

Barbara Bohun was the mother of a toddler who disappeared 12 years ago

The mother of a girl missing for almost 12 years jumped from the Patullo Bridge Sunday morning, perhaps burying the mystery of Casey Rose Bohun's disappearance forever. Barbara Bohun, 40, was seen sitting on the railing at mid-span at 7:30 a.m. New Westminster police S/Sgt. Casey Dehaas said officers searched the bridge but couldn't find anyone. A few minutes later, witnesses reported seeing someone falling from the bridge into the Fraser River.

Police boarded a Westminster Tug and within half an hour retrieved the body of a female. The suicide of the mother of Casey, who was three when she went missing from her North Delta home in 1989, has renewed interest in the case for Delta police investigators. The file has never been closed.

While nothing new on the case has come to light recently, Delta police said Bohun's suicide is a significant turn of events. "Unfortunately, Barbara Bohun was obviously distraught about something. Whether it has anything to do with Casey Bohun's disappearance, we don't know yet," Det/Sgt. Ian Stabler said.

Police have not confirmed if a suicide note was found, but they are hoping. "We are following it up to see if we can find anything else out as to where Casey would be," said Stabler.

It was a warm August day in 1989 when Delta police officers responded to a call of a missing child. "We started a grid search immediately, street by street," remembers Const. John Horsfall, one of the first officers on the scene. Casey lived with her mother and mother's boyfriend at a home on 94A Street in North Delta. "The indication was she'd been playing on the front steps of the house and that was the last anyone had supposedly seen of her," Horsfall said.

From there the ground search escalated to a full scale air search of the area. They searched for three days but found nothing. It was as if Casey disappeared into thin air. While police were always careful not to name anyone, including the mother, as a suspect, they never ruled her out either. It only deepened the mystery surrounding the little red-haired girl's disappearance.

The only person ruled out as having knowledge of Casey's disappearance was the biological father, who was at one point was accused of abducting his child. That tip came in four years after Casey went missing. Former Delta police homicide detective Bill Jackson was involved in the investigation.

"We eliminated the father as a suspect and his family. He eventually took a polygraph and passed it," recalls Jackson, who is now retired. Jackson and another investigator also reviewed a tip of an alleged sighting of Casey in Kamloops in 1993, but investigators eventually ruled it out. For now, Delta police detectives are talking to the New Westminster police. Stabler called the suicide a "sad state of affairs."

"She's a distraught lady obviously to do something like that. It's very sad, really," Stabler said.

Delta police were told Bohun had been living in Kamloops but recently returned to Vancouver. While it is not confirmed, police said they believe another child of Bohun's was seized by government authorities in Kamloops a month ago.

Girl's disappearance dates back 15 years - by Maureen Gulyas - 2004

In Sgt. Mike Leary's office at Delta police headquarters, a stack of boxes, labeled Casey Bohun, reach the ceiling. Leary was the last investigator - there have been several over the years - to delve into the troubling mystery involving the disappearance of the little girl.

Bohun was just three when she went missing from her North Delta home on Aug. 5, 1989. Next week will mark 15 years since her disappearance, an anniversary of sorts the Delta police would like to end. But that won't happen unless the department receives new information that will lead to a conclusion in the case.

While there have been many theories floated since the little red-head disappeared, police believe she could be living elsewhere in Canada or the United States. "It is possible Casey was abducted and we are seeking national assistance from he public as the 15th anniversary of Casey's disappearance nears," Delta police Const. Paul Eisenzimmer said.

While 15 years have passed, many agencies, including the Delta police that haven't forgotten her. The Doe Network, as in Jane or John Doe, issued a reminder this week that Bohun is still missing. "Around the time of the anniversary I've been trying to contact people, newspapers, trying to remind them of the disappearance," said Elizabeth Myers, a B.C. area director for the network, which is based in Louisiana.

The Doe Network, which also includes missing adults, has successfully concluded 21 cases of missing persons in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe. It is a volunteer group that assists law enforcement agencies in solving cold cases concerning unidentified victims and missing persons. Several theories have emerged over the years into Bohun's disappearance. There have been alleged sightings, one which sent another group of investigators to Kamloops and Kelowna in the early 1990s.

But it wasn't until April of 2001 that the case was picked up once again. On that Sunday morning, Casey's mother, Barbara Bohun, 40, leaped to her death from the Patullo Bridge in New Westminster. Friends say she was distraught over the loss of Casey so many years before and the more recent loss of her other two daughters. Social services took the girls from her over concerns about a disciplining incident. Police say there was no suicide note.

Out of that incident came a chance for police to interview Bohun's boyfriend, the man who lived with her at the time of Casey's disappearance. In recent years, he had moved to Korea where he taught English at a college. The boyfriend attended Barbara Bohun's funeral and it was then police investigators interviewed him. That interview raised new questions and police have so far been unsuccessful in their attempts to re-interview him. He is still in Asia, police said.

It was a warm August day in 1989 when Delta police officers responded to a call of a missing child. Casey Bohun lived with her mother and her mother's boyfriend at a home on 94A Avenue in North Delta. Police were told at the time the couple had returned home the evening before, put Casey to bed and that was the last time they saw her. A ground search escalated into a full-scale air search of the area. They searched for three days but found nothing. It was as if the toddler disappeared into thin air.

Police did not name anyone as a suspect, but say even today the only person they've ruled out is Casey's biological father, Donald Bohun. Former homicide detective Bill Jackson, one of the investigators who became involved in the file in the early 1990s, eliminated Donald as a suspect after he passed a polygraph test.

Delta police say the file is still open. "We'd like to talk to anyone who may have information about Casey's disappearance," said Eisenzimmer.

If you have information, you're asked to call Sgt. Mike Leary at 604-946-4411.

http://www.delta-optimist.com/issues04/081.../081204nn1.html
August 04, 2004 09:34 AM

 

AETV - Forum

Source: AETV - Apr 1, 2006

"profile.jspa?userID=800000284" said:

Michael Dunahee and Casey Bohun are an interesting case and I've always wondered what happened to both, having known them both as a child. While Michael was kidnapped in Victoria, he was originally from Delta, where his father lived at the time of the abduction. In fact, they lived in the same area of Delta as Casey, who had disappeared 20 months before Michael did. The similarities were striking - both pre-schoolers (one 3, the other 4), both 3 feet tall, both wore similar haircuts, both taken from somewhere that should have been safe, both never heard from or seen again.

Casey disappeared from her home. Sources are very contradictory as to what happened that night, when/where she was last seen and by whom. Some say that the parents were out all night and she was left with a babysitter, who last her when tucking her into bed. Other sources say that one of the parents tucked her in, then left and the baby-sitter stayed in the house but never saw her. Some sources say that no she was seen in bed that morning at 5:30 by one of the parents. Others say that she was tucked in (doesn't mention time) by one of the parents and that she was seen playing outside on the lawn by the other. All that is really known is that she should have been in bed, but was outside playing (toys were found).

Michael was taken from a Victoria school park while his mother was in the park.

No one has heard from Casey again. But recently, a picture from a European prostitution ring has been analysed, with a 90% match to Casey. 90% if pretty close but why not 100%? What's different? It's not age, because it was done by facial struture, which grows with you, you just fill it out differently with age. And smuggled into Europe??? No one knows for sure and the police over there have been criticized for not being active enough on the case (another Canadian girl is believed to be being held by the same ring).

No one has heard from Michael since. There have been all sorts of theories out there. Some say it was a satanic cult. Others say he's been sighted in the US. An Internet psychic says he didn't live past 5.

All that is known is that a few fatal flaws were made. The friends of these children, at least the friends in Delta, were never contacted, never questioned. And now the friends have no peace. We need to know what happened to our friends, as the stories, the hope, it haunts us.

Please if you know anything more than what I have above on either case, please we need to know. Even if its small and you think it's insignicant. It might not be.