Nicole Morin - sources

• 20 Years and Still No Answers. Her dad’s lonely vigil - By BRIAN GRAY, TORONTO SUN
• The missing - Nicole Morin - By Ellee Seymour
• Nicole Louise Morin - websleuth forum
• Police have no leads in search for girl, by Dale Brazao, Toronto Star, Aug 6 - 1985

 

20 Years and Still No Answers. Her dad’s lonely vigil

By BRIAN GRAY, TORONTO SUN
Sat, July 30, 2005

TWENTY YEARS and not a trace of Nicole Morin.

The little girl with the toothy grin went off to swim with a friend on July 30, 1985, and was never seen again. Not a clue, not a shred of evidence, not an answer for Art Morin on what happened to his 8-year-old daughter. “She vaporized,” said Art, now 66, from his Etobicoke apartment. It’s as good an explanation as anybody can provide him.

“It’s been a long time,” he said yesterday, dredging up memories of his little girl, accompanied by a few tears. “When she disappeared I really thought we would have an answer by now but there really are no surefire answers.”

At 11 a.m. that morning Nicole said goodbye to her mom, Jeanette, in their penthouse apartment on The West Mall and told her she was going to meet a friend for a swim at the apartment complex’s pool.

She got on the elevator and vanished. A police search team went door to door. Hundreds of volunteers scoured the neighbourhood and nearby fields. They all turned up nothing.

“It has to have been someone in her building,” Toronto Police Supt. Tony Warr said this week. “The chances of a stranger being on that elevator are very slim.”

When Nicole disappeared Warr was a sergeant with five years under his belt in the homicide squad.

“I can remember talking to her distraught mother in Nicole’s bedroom,” he said. “I can still remember there was a poster on the wall.”

Warr and his partner, then-Staff Sgt. Jim Jones, spent weeks on the case working out of the basement of 22 Division looking for something to illuminate Nicole’s whereabouts.

Nicole’s vanishing was one of a series of mysterious disappearances of girls.

Christine Jessop, 9, went missing from her Queensville home the October before Nicole vanished. Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan, also 9, was snatched away in January 1983 and Alison Parrot disappeared July 1986. All turned up dead, their bodies found. All except Nicole.

The police and the Morins went through every scenario they could think “until we were blue in the face,” said Art, who has been divorced from Jeanette since 1989.

 

‘SHE WASN’T FORGOTTEN’

“I don’t want to be dwelling on these things,” he said. “I find bringing all these memories back doesn’t do much good.”

But he still keeps a box of what he calls “the most personal things,” full of notes and schoolwork and Father’s Day cards.

“Hey, what if she walks in the door?” he asked, his mood becoming more upbeat. “What if someone has taken her and she decides she wants to return? If Nicole should ever return I want to be able to show her she wasn’t forgotten.”

Not knowing what happened to a missing child makes it almost impossible to ever heal the gaping hole in parents’ hearts, said Jan Barr, a case manager with Child Find Ontario.

“Without resolution it remains as raw as the day it happened,” Barr said.

Nicole isn’t the oldest case in Child Find’s files but it’s one of the most baffling. Her picture still runs regularly along with an age-enhanced photo done in 2000 to indicate what Nicole might look like at age 24.

“Typically there’s more evidence when a child goes missing,” Barr said. “That’s what makes this one so unusual; there was nothing.”

Art said he knows there’s at least one person out there who knows what happened to his little girl.

And he’s certain that person has told others.

What he can’t understand — and what still angers him — is why no one ever said anything to the police or the family.

It’s a problem of the spirit, Art said, and it’s a problem that is getting worse with every passing year.

He watched as other children have gone missing — Kayla Klaudusz, Andrea Atkinson and more recently Holly Jones and Cecilia Zhang — and he feels despair with every single one.

“We’ve learned that diligence is required on the part of all parents,” Art said.

“There are people out there who don’t give a hoot for your child’s life because they have no moral scruples.”

The police learned greatly from Nicole’s disappearance and in child abduction cases since, Warr said, such as the importance of staying focused on the crime area and being on top of things instantly. (Warr and the homicide squad were not called until a week after Nicole vanished.)

“These things (abductions) only take seconds,” Warr said.

http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2…153215-sun.html (http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2005/07/30/1153215-sun.html)

The missing - Nicole Morin - By Ellee Seymour

Nicole Morin totally vanished 22 years ago aged eight while walking to an elevator in her Toronto apartment block to meet a friend who was waiting for her in the downstairs lobby. She never arrived.

Her unsolved disappearance marked a turning point for similar police investigations as it took a week before homicide were alerted. How much crucial forensic and witness evidence was lost in that time?

On July 30th, 1985, Nicole had left her mother’s penthouse apartment  at 10:30am and went to the lobby of the 20 storey apartment building to pick up the mail; they lived on the top floor. She then returned to the apartment and got ready to go swimming with a playmate.

Before leaving the apartment, Nicole had spoken to a friend through the building’s intercom and promised to be right down. The playmate waited about 15 minutes before buzzing the apartment again to find out why Nicole hadn’t arrived. The two girls had arranged to meet in the lobby and go to a supervised swimming pool at the rear of the building.

About 11:00am had Nicole said goodbye to her mother and left the apartment. No-one has seen her since she closed the apartment door and walked into the hallway.

There are lots of interesting comments on this websleuth forum about how the abductor must have been someone in the apartment block who slipped through the police net. One of the comments mentions a website which says Nicole was recognised on a Dutch paedophile ring’s CD-Rom.

Nicole’s case was one of a series of mysterious disappearances of young girls around that time. Christine Jessop, nine, went missing from her home the October before Nicole vanished. Sharin Morningstar Keenan, also nine, was abducted in January 1983, and Alison Parrot disappeared July 1986 aged 11. All turned up dead, their bodies found, except Nicole’s. Other girls have also gone missing. The Morins spent many years and much money on private investigators.

Nicole’s father Art gave a very poignant newspaper interview to the Toronto Sun in 2005 to mark the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, distraught that there was still no explanation. He keeps a box of  mementoes, including her school work and his Father’s Day cards. You can read the full interview in the comments. The picture on the right uses age progression techniques to show how Nicole would look today.

In memory of those who are still missing.

Bucke Bleichert says:

In 1987, Nicole’s father theorized that someone from his church took her and she knew about it and even cooperated. Two months before she vanished, she wrote a note in school saying she was going “to disappear”. A slender blond woman holding a notebook was seen at the end of the hall 40 minutes before the disappearance. Nicole did get on the elevator and was seen in the lobby and outside the building, but she took so long, her friend didn’t wait for her. Did she really have other plans? One Toronto Star archived article I read on-line said she WAVED goodbye to her mother when she left to go to the pool behind the building….

I’m trying to find out which church Art Morin went to back in the 80s. Reporter Cal Millar only described it as “fundamentalist”. Perhaps someone decided to place Nicole in another environment because of her parents’ court battles over money….They were separated and Art said he was paying for everything and had nothing left to live on….(ref. Toronto Star, Cal MIllar, July 30, 1987, A21)

(...)

The building descriptions make no mention of a pool in the building. If the swimming pool was outside or part of another building, I have to point out...The high temp for the day was in the mid '40s (according to the Weather Almanac). Was there a pool in the building in the '80s which was removed? She was reported to be wearing only her swimsuit, and carrying a towel and beach blanket. ?

The account which I have mentions only that the girls planned to go to the pool. No mention as to where the pool was. Here is the description of Nicole which was published in a 1994 book:

"When she disappeared, Nicole was four feet four inches tall, weighed 60 pounds, had a medium complexion, petite build, and slightly protruding uneven teeth, with a center gap. She was last seen wearing a salmon-colored one-piece bathing suit."

Source: http://elleeseymour.com/2007/05/21/the-missing-nicole-morin/

Nicole Louise Morin - websleuth forum

Missing since July 30, 1985 from Toronto, Ontario Canada
Classification: Non-Family Abduction

Vital Statistics Date Of Birth: April 1, 1977
Age at Time of Disappearance: 8 years old
Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 4'0; 51 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: White female. Brown hair; brown eyes.
Marks, Scars: Morin has a birthmark on the right side of her forehead and protruding ears. She has pierced ears.
Clothing: She was wearing a peach, one pieced bathing suit with colored stripes on the front, a green headband, red canvas shoes, and was carrying a peach colored blanket and a purple beach towel.
Dentals: Gap between her front teeth.

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On July 30th, Nicole left her mother’s penthouse apartment in The West Mall, in Toronto's Etobicoke area, and vanished. There has been no trace of the 8 year old girl who was likely abducted moments after leaving the apartment in the Highway 427 and Rathburn Road area.

At 10:30am Nicole had gone to the lobby of the twenty story apartment building to pick up the mail. She returned to the apartment and got ready to go swimming with a playmate. Before leaving the apartment Nicole had spoken to a friend through the building's intercom and promised to be right down. The playmate waited about 15 minutes before buzzing the apartment again to find out why Nicole hadn't arrived. The two girls had arranged to meet in the lobby and go to a supervised swimming pool at the rear of the building.

About 11:00am Nicole said goodbye to her mother and left the apartment. No one has seen the girl since she closed the apartment door and walked into the penthouse hallway.

Richard said:

Nicole's parents, Art and Jeanette Morin were separated at the time of Nichole's disappearance. She lived with her mother in an apartment on the 20th floor of the the West Mall condo. That day, Nicole planned to go swimming with a friend and was to meet her in the lobby. She left the apartment some time before 11 o'clock.

Nobody actually saw her enter the elevator.

At about eleven o'clock, the friend called up to the apartment and asked Jeanette, "Isn't Nicole coming down?" Her thought was "Well, she must be on her way."

Jeanette Morin said in an interview once, "It was around three o'clock in the afternoon when I realized something was going on. I just became in a daze. I kept saying, 'Oh, she's got to be with somebody playing and she forgot.' Around six o'clock, I couldn't put up with it any more. I called the cops."

Police came to believe that it was a crime of opportunity by a predator who happened to be in the building at that time.

The Morins spent many years and much money on private investigators trying to find their daughter, but she has never been seen since leaving her apartment home that day in 1985.

(...)

Toronto is a very large city, but there are a number of unsolved disappearances of children on the books, and there was a very well known and particularly grusome and well remembered murder of a little 9 year-old girl which occurred there in 1983.

On January 31, 1983, Sharin Morningstar Keenan was abducted from Jean Sibelius park (in Toronto) by one Dennis Melvyn Howe, a drifter and convict on parole, who was living under one of his many aliases in Toronto. Howe raped and strangled Sharin and stuffed her body into a refrigerator before disappearing himself. He has yet to be apprehended. There is a separate thread on him in this forum.

On July 25, 1986, 11 year-old Alison Parrott met with a self proclaimed photographer who claimed that he wanted to photograph her for a track magazine. She was to meet him near Varsity Stadium (in Toronto) on the corner of Bedford and Bloor. Her body was found two days later in Kingsmill Park. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered. The murder was never solved.

(...)

Nicole's parents, Art and Jeanette Morin were separated at the time of Nichole's disappearance. She lived with her mother in an apartment on the 20th floor of the the West Mall condo. That day, Nicole planned to go swimming with a friend and was to meet her in the lobby. She left the apartment some time before 11 o'clock.

Nobody actually saw her enter the elevator.

At about eleven o'clock, the friend called up to the apartment and asked Jeanette, "Isn't Nicole coming down?" Her thought was "Well, she must be on her way."

Jeanette Morin said in an interview once, "It was around three o'clock in the afternoon whin I realized something was going on. I just became in a daze. I kept saying, 'Oh,she's got to be with somebody playing and she forgot.' Around six o'clock, I couldn't put up with it any more. I called the cops."

Police came to believe that it was a crime of opportunity by a predator who happened to be in the building at that time.

The Morins spent many years and much money on private investigators trying to find their daughter, but she has never been seen since leaving her apartment home that day in 1985.

Cyberlaw:

From 1985 to present, quite a few building have elminated pools as an amenity to apartments due to the time frame of opening and cost.

In an effort to keep costs down, building smply leave the pool empty.

In Canada we use the metric system. So if someone was to check the historical weather for 1985, they would have to realize that 40 is not Farenheit, but Celcius. 40C is quite hot, actuallly very hot.

The Princess foundation is quite positive that Nicole was seen in films that were discovered by their agency. They apparently have identified a few other kids as well. But the problem with face recognition programs, is that you have to have the face in a very similar position as a picture to do a comparison.

I still truly believe that Nicole was kidnapped for devious means for the European market.

I don't even want to imagine the horror and abuse she went through if she did.

There was a document on the Princess website that literally disgusted me to the point of being sick to my stomach. It listed the first name of children, ages and what "acts" a sicko could engage in and the price.

Literally made me almost throw up...........

KarlK:

I couldnt get the link to work to the website about Nicole being spotted on the cdrom. Does anyone have any links to this and whether it was ever looked into more thoroughly?

From what I could gather that link used to point to the website of a Belgian anti-pedophile group called Princess De Croy Foundation which appears to be better known under its French name Fondation Princesse De Croy. Apparently the website had ridiculed certain high-ranking Belgian officials whom they felt did nothing about or refused to admit the existence of pedophile rings in Belgium. The insulted officials had Belgian authorities shut the site down. The Foundation moved the site to another server but so far only the French section has been completely rebuilt There seems to be a lot of content there but apart from being able to identify the language as French my rusty high school French is of little help.

English page: http://pedocriminalite.0catch.com/anglais.htm

RIGHT of ANSWER:

None of the websites of the private foundation has ever been destroyed by Belgian authorities, but without judgment, thus illegally. The "pedocriminalite.0catch.com" that used to be reached by www.kindergarten.be, is no more possible to access, due to hacking. The actual site of the foundation's partners is www.droitfondamental.eu.

http://websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32372

Police have no leads in search for girl, by Dale Brazao, Toronto Star, Aug 6 - 1985

Police have no new leads in the search for 8 year old Nicole Morin who vanished without a trace from her Etobicoke home a week ago today. The massive round-the-clock hunt has been scaled down to repeated searches of the West Mall condominium complex where she lived. All cars leaving the complex continue to be checked.

Police were to decide today whether to close down the command post in the lobby of the apartment building and lead the investigation from 22 Division on Bloor St., where a hotline is being staffed around the clock. Even a reward of $50,000 posted by Nicole's parents has failed to produce any useful evidence as to her whereabouts.

Nicole vanished last Tuesday, after failing to meet a playmate in the lobby of the condominium complex where she lived with her mother. She was to go swimming with a girlfriend at a pool behind the complex.

"There are no new developments to report," Nicole's father Arthur Morin said yesterday. "We've had no ransom demands and no one has come forth with any information." Police, while welcoming the reward posted for her safe return, doubeted whether it would help them find the girl.

"From my own experience, rewards are certainly nice but I've never ever known one that was claimed in a case like this," said Staff Seargeant Herman Lowe, a co-ordinator of the search.

"What we're down to now is what we call old-fashon police work--knocking on doors, double-checking our information, following up on every tip that comes in," said Lowe.

Police, he added, are using a computer to compile and cross-check the hundreds of pieces of information they've received in the past week. Despite the intensive effort, police admit they are no closer to finding Nicole than they were when they first began the search.

False Clue

What appeared to be the most solid clue-the discovery of a green headband in a field near Bradford-proved false after Jeannette Morin said it did not belong to her daughter. Nicole was wearing a bathing suit, a green headband and red shoes, and was carrying a peach-colored blanket.

Police are again concentrating their investigation in the massive 20-storey condominium complex from where Nicole disapeared, Lowe told a news conference yesterday. Police, he said, have discounted reports that she was seen in the lobby and in the playground the day she went missing.

"The little girl Nicole left her apartment, the door closed and she hasn't been seen since," Lowe said.

When asked why police were again searching the building, Lowe replied, "Somewhere there is evidence...and to me the evidence lies in this building."

Police have searched every apartment in the two buildings. If tenants or owners couldn't be reached, the doors to their apartments were forcibly opened. In at least 10 instances, police gained entry by drilling the locks on the doors. In once case, a crowbar was used to pry a door off its hinges.