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.

*5 August 2019, Police update age enhanced image of Nicole who disappeared 34 years ago.

In memory of those who are still missing.