down to my bones Good evening, everyone, and
welcome back to a wonderful episode of The Bone
Club. With us tonight, I have Jenna, who was
with us last week. Were you with us last week,
Jenna, or were you gone? I was celebrating Canadian
Thanksgiving. Yeah, you were celebrating Canadian
Thanksgiving, so you were out. But this time,
Stephanie's gone. She's traveling around. And
Jenna is with us today. We also have with us
a rather sharp left turn from normal. We have
two individuals with us, both Brett Robinson
and Nick Olderive from Please Bring Me Home,
neither of which are anthropologists. They work
with an organization that brings attention to
and helps search for Canadians, Canada's missing
persons, long missing persons. So Brett and Nick,
welcome to the Bone Club. Thanks for having us
here. Yeah, thanks for inviting us in. So I guess
where I want to get started, normally we ask
our guests what got them into forensic anthropology,
but I guess for you both, what got y 'all interested
in this? searching for missing persons, and organizing
Please Bring Me Home. I'll start. So I'm Nick
Oldreave, and I'm the executive director and
co -founder. And it was really started simply
put. uh to cause commotion around historical
missing persons in the hopes that they could
be located and uh you know that kind of graduated
to organizing searches and um you know it the
amount of pictures of bones i've taken and sent
to you ashley it's kind of remarkable that i
still cannot even tell you anything about what
i'm looking at when i send you pictures of bones
um but uh yeah it's it's always been this more
can certainly be done and the family should not
feel like there is nothing happening on their
missing family members disappearance there should
always be something happening it should always
be treated like it happened yesterday And my
name is Brett Robinson. I'm Director of Case
Analysis for Please Bring Me Home. So I oversee
our investigative team, which is generally acting
as a sounding board for our 20 -something investigators
that we have spread across Canada. I'm a business
person by trade, but academically, I lean more
towards investigations work. I have master's
degrees in profiling and behavior analysis and
counseling psychology. I'm a registered psychotherapist
and a private investigator as well. I joined
Please Bring Me Home when I was four. and a half
years ago, I think now, mainly because my mom
had seen Nick on W5. And I was starting to investigate
some cases on my own. My mom saw the program
referred me over to please bring me home. I had
an interview and joined as an investigator. At
the time I closed the oldest case we had closed,
which was 14 years, I think at that point, a
gentleman disappeared 14 years ago, and I found
him alive and well in Toronto, which was the
best possible ending and I was hooked on doing
missing persons cases initially for me it was
it was a thrill to try and find these people
but then I began speaking with the families and
when you see the pain the trauma the fear that
they have then it became something a little deeper
for me at that point and i became a real advocate
for those families uh to draw attention as nick
said to the cases to push those cases forward
as much as we can work with police work with
the public work with the families and hopefully
bring the best possible conclusions that we can
for these families so what got you about i mean
nick what got you interested even just in the
very beginning of hey, this is something I want
to do? You know, I've been asked that so many
times, and it boils down to curiosity. And this
is called the bone club, and I'm a bonehead.
I get attached to an idea, and I become curious
about it. That's kind of how it started. I became
curious about Lisa Moss, who I'm missing in July
of 1988. local to where I grew up. And, you know,
I just, I had a soft spot for it. So it started
with putting an ad in the paper, just, you know,
with Lisa's father's blessing that if someone
knows something, just say something. And it wasn't
even to come to us. It was to go to police. But
what happened was people started to come to us
instead of police. So we said, okay, well, let's
open up an anonymous website for Lisa. We built
a website overnight. And started to get tips
in and then W5 happened and more families wanted
help and more people wanted to join. And that's
kind of how it turned into what it is now. It
was never the intention to be this nationwide
organization where you have all these members
and are assisting all these families. It started
off with a curiosity for Lisa Moss and then it
just really blew up because. no one should you
know be told no if they're a family member seeking
help for their missing loved one ever so we we
mold it into what is needed i think is at the
end of the day and that's kind of where you know
more things um change and please bring home grows
and we become better every day I still 10 years
down the line almost 10 years down the line and
learning something new every day about investigating
a historical missing persons case searching for
somebody you know rewriting some policies or
procedures like you and I talked about a couple
months ago like it's there's always more to be
done that's for sure um if if I was say a a family
member who my a someone in my family's been missing
and i i contacted you what is that process and
procedure for you guys yeah so you have from
first to last yeah so i'll get you up to the
investigative side and then i'll let brett take
it from there so uh the family member so you
fill out an intake online it used to just be
three questions now it's like 20 questions and
we get a lot of information on the missing person
we have an intake officer who then reaches out
to the family member who filled out the intake
and asks an additional 20 questions over the
phone these may be a little bit harder You don't
want the family to have to fill out these questions
online. You want to be the one asking them and
them telling you and you typing it in. And these
are some more difficult questions to type in
for family members. So they fill that out. And
then, you know, we, Brett, myself, and another
director offer our thoughts and observations
based on the intake we read. It gets filed and
then it gets put up on our social media and on
our website. And then ideally it gets assigned
to an investigation team member and then Brett
can take it from there. Yeah. And one thing to
keep in mind is we have, you know, over a hundred
cases and we have, you know, just over 20 investigators.
So not every case can be actively investigated.
Sometimes they are in an extremely difficult
to reach location. that requires a physical search
and we don't have the human power to be able
to do that. But the cases that are assigned to
investigators that we begin investigating, it's
really up to the investigator to determine the
path that we're going to take. You know, with
a missing person, really the person could have
ran away. They could have passed away in an unknown
location. due to misadventure, drug overdose,
suicide, things like that. They could have been
the victim of foul play. And so determining which
way we're going to go is... critically important
for the investigator to make that decision. Myself,
as I said, I'm a sounding board, so the investigators
will reach out to me to help determine that direction
they're going to go in. I've had the privilege
of looking across over 100 cases, and I've seen
what has worked in certain cases, so I can ideally
recirculate those. pieces of information back
to the investigator to help inform the direction
that they go in. And one of the hardest things
is maintaining objectivity. We all get attached
to, you know, what we think is going to be the
thing that leads us to solve this case, particularly
when you first start. And that's myself included.
The first search I went on. I was going to find
the person and probably every other person that
ever disappeared. I was going to find them all
in one search. And guess what? That didn't happen.
And for the most part, it takes. many, many searches
to be able to find anything. And by finding,
I also mean eliminating areas, which is a critical
piece of information for us. But overall, I work
with the investigators to determine the investigative
direction. And then is it going to require a
physical search? We have a director of search
who helps plan that out. So if we are going to
search a certain geographical region, we have
to set the boundaries on that, organize a team
to do that. Are we going to use a cadaver dog
team? or search and rescue a dog, for instance,
or we're going to do a grid search. All of these
different things go into planning, but it starts
with the investigation. One of the most critical
pieces of investigation is the ability to pick
up our cell phone and call people. Critical.
And over the years, we've learned that investigators
that are comfortable doing that and being told.
to not call back and maybe sometimes still calling
back that's a critical piece because the vast
majority of other than a person disappearing
in a wilderness area the vast majority of cases
that we've closed are come through through tips
through people giving us information and the
ability to solicit those tips is important for
us not just for the actual person that we're
calling but because they then talk and tell people
in their community that i spoke with someone
from please bring me home and that can drum up
memories it can drum up a willingness to speak
with us and we spend a lot of time on the phones
speaking with people monitoring blogs responding
to tips uh that flow in through our websites
and other places so all of that blends together
in the investigative efforts that we put forward,
as well as connecting with police. Police is
generally a one -way channel of information in
that we give police information and not necessarily
a lot comes back to us. But we understand that,
that that's the nature of it. And our investigators
are all taught to make contact with the detective
that's in charge of the case right away. When
you start that investigative process, I know,
and you mentioned that discussing with police
is a one -way street. but is there a way to look
at records talk talk to them see what has been
done in the past so that you sort of know you
know what's been eliminated what hasn't been
eliminated um you you have some sort of foundation
to go on And when talking with, you know, the
people in the community and getting that information
from people within the community is, does Please
Bring Me Home have a way of sort of sifting through?
in essence, a level of credibility within that
information. Right. Well, I would say our credibility
with police has been growing over the years.
Nick, myself, and another director presented
at the Center of Forensic Sciences to the OPP's
working group of missing persons police units.
I believe there was 25 different police units
that were there. There were over 50 police officers.
And we presented there at the time we had closed,
I believe it was 24 cases up until that time.
Our current number, I believe, is 38. And that's
something that police forces can't deny. Now,
many, many police that we work with are fantastic,
love working with us. Police are very, very open
with us with what they can be. So when we're
working with police, they are far more likely
to be open about where an area has been searched.
You know, if we search, you know, east of the
river, let's say hypothetically, and that information
is typically police are more willing to speak
with us about it. Obviously, in other cases,
no, they're not going to tell us hold back information
that they may have on a homicide. That's not
going to come up. Obviously, but in terms of
physical searches, we find that police, particularly
with police forces that we've worked with, understand
that we do have some strong capabilities. We
do conduct really effective searches and we can
help eliminate areas that they either don't have
the resource to search or can't necessarily get
permission to search. Again, we have a far lower
threshold to engage on a search than what. Police
would. So we can just discuss it amongst ourselves
and agree, yeah, we're going to search this area.
Police might need to jump through a lot more
hoops than us within their chain of command to
actually execute something like that. And they
appreciate that we're going to go do it and they
know any evidence we find is going to be handed
over to them. right away now police can't ask
us to do anything that would be a liability issue
that would essentially be deputizing us and they
can't ask us hey please bring me home can you
search this area however they can be you know
are generally grateful that we are out in the
field on physical searches and um they they respect
our professionalism when we're doing interviews
and such police ultimately in a um If there's
any type of foul play suspected in any of these
disappearances, they want to present a prosecutable
case. They want to hand over the evidence to
the Crown Attorney here in Canada and they want
to get a conviction. And in that regard, the
efforts we put in, they are more nervous about
because they worry that we're going to trample
over somehow some part of the investigation.
For the best of my knowledge, that's never happened.
And we have advanced dozens and dozens of cases
for prosecution. But in the sense of looking
for a missing person out in the, let's say, in
a geographical region, police tend to be very
open with us about the areas that have been searched.
And we're grateful for that. That allows a type
of unofficial teamwork. It's not official teamwork,
but it is unofficial teamwork. Yeah. And on that.
You know, I always like to refer back to Eric
Spencer, who went missing from Thornbury, Ontario
and was last seen in Honey Harbour, Ontario.
That's the very first time that the Ontario Provincial
Police gave us access to previous search maps.
And we were able to look at that and come up
with a reasonable degree of possibility. that
we could locate eric if we followed one type
of um strategy and we certainly did we ended
up finding him after 90 minutes of searching
by sticking with the strategy we came up with
because we saw this map so that has been a basis
of argument um when we're going to other detachments
asking for uh the police searches like look it
worked here Why wouldn't we do that here? Even
if it's possibly foul play, just let us know
where you searched. If they're not going to give
us the maps, we can talk about Jack and Lily
Sullivan briefly, but we're going to go up and
do a search for the two missing kids up in Nova
Scotia this upcoming weekend. you know that although
they didn't share us maps we've had very good
communication with the rcmp where they've been
able to give us information on what was cleared
and when it was cleared and they've also released
some of that information to the public and it's
been fantastic from a search planning perspective
where we want to focus our strategy on and i
would compare it a lot to the strategy we're
focusing on when it came to eric spencer so do
you have or And maybe this is something you might
be able to get in the future, hopefully. A relationship
with medical examiner's offices, coroner's offices
to – when you begin searching for a missing person,
to inquire if there are any sort of – Unidentified
individuals that have been – that are on the
books in a given timeframe for what you're looking
for. So maybe this might be where we can also
look. Was there an unidentified that was brought
in? And just look there and also – start doing
other investigative areas as well or is that
an area that is still walled off well we wouldn't
say it's walled off nick would you say yeah i
wouldn't say it's walled off i think it really
um there's kind of a two -parter there because
you know in the initial investigation there's
a few steps that really need that the investigator
really needs to accomplish. And one of those
steps is looking at the identified remains data,
like looking at the what is up there for identified
remains. Could it match with your missing person?
That's something that they need to do really
in the beginning. And some of the other steps
include talking to other family members, communicating
with law enforcement before you even really get
out there and start your investigation. These
are things that need to happen. The other part
is when we're searching an area, are there other
missing, are there other people who've gone missing
around this area that we need to consider as
well? You know, are we really just looking for
someone who went missing three months ago who
had a pink backpack and was wearing a winter
coat? But should we really truly be focusing
on also older remains that could be in those
woods? So there's kind of a two -parter with
that. in terms of communicating with coroner's
offices it's been touch and go sometimes they're
they're great with um uh communicating back and
forth with them other times not it'd be great
if we could have some type of policy uh uh around
where we can ask these questions they can give
us information um again in the effort to just
locate the missing people i wouldn't say it's
walled off though yeah i i think it it really
just depends who you get on the phone sometimes
i can't remember the name of that guy out in
bc brett um the last name oscar reyes um and
a lot of that why that ended up being so successful
in the end it was a search team that was recommended
by law enforcement but some of that was through
the communication that Carrie, one of our directors,
had with the coroner's office there and relayed
to law enforcement. And, you know, I can't remember
all the details, but I mean, that was one of
those moments where it's like, see, if we all
do work together and we take away as much of
the red tape as we can, it's more apt to be more
successful. We're not here to hinder anything.
We're only here to assist without police asking
us to assist. And who, so you work with police
and, you know, you try to work with coroners
as best you can. But I understand that your teams
are built up of primarily volunteers. So what
are some of those, what are the skills that your
volunteers are bringing in? Who are you looking
for when you're bringing these teams together
to kind of like build these search teams or build
these investigation teams? Yeah, for the investigation
side, it's not one particular type of person
or one particular walk of life. Now, obviously,
if someone is retired law enforcement or something
like that, that's useful, particularly if they
have connections within law enforcement. But
we've met people who are retired law enforcement
that would have the requisite skills that you
would think, and this work doesn't go well for
them. So we really look for people who can...
make contact with other people and are comfortable
speaking on the phone that have the resilience
to be told, I don't want to talk to you and then
to call back. That's huge to be able to do that.
Some people only want to do research behind a
keyboard. And while that's great, you know, we
see documentaries where, you know, mysteries
are solved through behind a keyboard. But in
reality, that generally doesn't happen. You need
to have the ability to reach out and communicate
with people to maintain objectivity. That's huge.
I mean, you have to aggressively explore multiple
investigative avenues that are diametrically
opposed or mutually exclusive. Only one of those
things happened or maybe none of them happened.
And I would say most importantly is resilience.
You know, cold case work is like being on a raft
in the middle of the ocean and you're going to
start paddling and you don't actually know if
you're making progress towards where you're going
because you don't know the direction. that you're
supposed to go in. So it can be very, very difficult
work requires a lot of resilience. And you're
generally going to meet with, you know, from
an investigation side, you're going to be a lot
of failure along the way. And you have to be
able to handle that. And that that's critical.
But people from police for me home come from
all walks of life. You know, all genders, all
walks of life, all ages, there is no one particular,
you know, archetype. that we're looking for to
be a good investigator. It's more like they have
certain traits about them, but those traits don't
come from one, you know, demographic or walk
of life or something like that. It can be from
anywhere in society, which is great. Well, 100%,
it's just, and, you know, the three people who
started Please Bring Me Home, I went to school
for social service worker, and I worked primarily
in traumatic brain injuries, rehabilitation.
and uh you know matthew's a journalist and melissa
is a hairdresser but it's it is that so it's
that foundation of resiliency and then when more
people applied people like brett and other directors
and they had that same level of resiliency and
we don't focus terribly much on uh on you know
of course it's important but it it's not like
we see someone who says they haven't worked for
10 years or whatever and we're like oh we don't
want that it's quite an interview process now
it's you got to fill out five questions like
it has really gone it's really changed over the
years i think when brett applied it was probably
three questions and a coffee and then we were
We're off and running. Off and running. Here's
the case. Have fun. And that works for some people.
But we've certainly found now that, you know,
you answer five questions through email. You
just got to answer our questions. We're initially
looking at how much care to be put into that.
You know, is it are things misspelt like so much?
Was it three o 'clock in the morning? You know,
was certain questions at this stage, did they
repeat themselves? We're looking at that. And
then, okay. Did they answer with three words?
I mean, not really. I mean, think about if you
applied for a job, like a non -volunteer job.
I mean, would you actually just fire in a couple
of word answers? Probably not, right? So why
for us are they, you know, if someone writes
in extremely casual. responses is that really
the type of person we want i would say no and
i would say we have a 100 track record of those
people uh in the past not working out for us
yeah and so now we if we're like okay I like
this person. I like what they've said. Let's
get them to stage two. Stage two is a little
bit more intensive. You get 22 more questions
sent to you. You also need to give us your please
check your resume and some references. Show us
that you're really serious about this. And then
if we get all that in, then we do an interview
over Zoom. um with with two directors and then
if we like you after that then we offer it to
you and then we really get in depth with that
person this is what you expected to come with
us and then we're trying we love we've liked
your first answers we've liked your stage two
we've liked your stage three now we're selling
ourselves to you this is what we do and this
is why we want you um they've already done the
hard works and now it's our turn and then we
run them through an orientation The first month
is a little bit of hand -holding when they come
in to make sure. It's not really just giving
a case anymore and introducing them to family.
It's really having this solid support system
from the three main directors. And then once
they're ready, okay, now if you have anything
further, Brett is your guy. You go to him if
you're stuck, if it's excelling, Brett's your
guy. And then because he, like he says, he oversees
all the cases. Myself, Kerry, and Brett are able
to, but Brett has seen more in depth what has
worked on cases and what has not. And that's
why that direction from him is so vital to the
other team members. So you have these investigators.
Without doing your physical searches, though,
How do you, you have more than just investigators.
There's more than just the, those investigators
involved in doing physical searches. There's
more than just investigators involved in that
team. How are they brought into the fold? Yeah,
it's, we haven't, we have consultants. So, you
know, there is one gentleman who assists us and,
Uh, it's people you meet as you go out and does
this, please bring me home growth process. So,
you know, there is a person who I would go to
and say, Hey, I really want to put a freedom
of information request out for, for this case,
anything on this case. Can you help me fill that
out? There's one where, you know, this person
went missing and we just did this actually. So
this person went missing in October, 1985. Can
you try and track down some aerial photos? from
as close to a rate before they went missing and
as close to rate after they went missing. And
then a year after they went missing and they
can, they can go find that stuff. I cannot. So,
you know, that's a consultant there, you know,
Dr. Arnfield, um, is someone that, uh, that we
communicate to with a variety of our cases. Hey,
what do you think about this? Or this is what
I'm running into. Or, um, do you think these
cases can be connected from like a suspectology?
criminology standpoint um you know forensic we'll
never have anyone on a search that finds any
bone unless it's definitely an animal skull nine
times out of ten we we we take pictures and we
send those off to you like a forensic anthropologist
to review um We have retired members of Search
and Rescue who were master searchers with the
OVP that will say, here's where we're thinking
of searching and here's why, what do you think?
So there is a lot that goes into, we always say
it's never just as simple as looking for a missing
person. There's so much that goes into the thought
process and building the case to get to the search
area. Why do you want to search there? What makes
you want to search there? You really have to
talk our search director into, she's never heard
about it before. Why do you want to search there?
Sell it to me. And then we build the team to
go out and do it. And then also, do you have,
particularly on a little bit larger sites, do
you bring in, say, just volunteers from that
follow your website? Can they come and assist
if there's a larger search? Is it just you guys
and some cadaver dogs on occasion? Does that
take place? Well, if it's a search with cadaver
dogs, it's typically just like the investigator
and the block tracks team, at least in Ontario,
that we use. We use a number of other teams in
other places, but we try and keep it to as few
people as possible. So the dogs, the dog handlers,
perhaps an investigator or two, and that's it.
Whereas if it's going to be a grid search. Obviously,
it could be large. Nick has ran, I think, the
largest we've had where we had multiple teams
of 10 to 20 people each out there. It was quite
an operation that we've had. One of my bigger
regrets, but yes. One of the issues with a grid
search is you'd be surprised how hard it is to
walk in a straight line in the woods. at only
a few feet apart or let's say up to six to eight
feet apart, depending on what type of search
that we're doing. You know, I've personally walked
behind the line just trying to keep a group of
10 or 12 people going straight and they don't.
And we, you know, we end up leaving gaps and
we have to. backtrack and then start over again
to eliminate that area properly so you know ideally
you'd rather have eight to ten people all of
whom have done many searches are trained whether
they're you know off -duty police officers which
we get a lot of off -duty firefighters but people
who can walk a line having a 50 person line is
not useful because they're not going to walk
in a straight line you're not going to eliminate
the area you have you would rather do you have
10 people that are really good at what they do
and just go five times you know over that that
same distance it'll probably take you less time
actually 100 it does it 100 does been there done
that yeah we had 200 people do a search for lois
hannah and the worst feeling is is walking away
from that search that took so long to plan and
organize because 200 people showed up and Then
walking away, not confident that it was properly
cleared. So you have to go back anyway. And at
least, you know, if you're going back with people
that you've built your routine with around the
searching, you trust that you really walk out
of there with that level of trust that it's been
cleared properly. I tell you, we went out to
do a search in Brockville, Ontario. 30 people
were supposed to show up. Three of us drove down
from Old Town. And... Not one person showed up
and it was so, it felt awful that no one from
the community came and we just drove six hours.
But I'll tell you, it was such a good blessing
because the amount that us three were able to
clear in two days was probably more than we would
have been able to accomplish with these 30 people,
27 of which have likely never searched before.
So yeah, it completely benefits. In saying that,
I'm going to devil's advocate myself. Jack and
Lily Sullivan coming up. We can't just depend
on the three of us going down to complete the
areas we want. The difference with this one,
though, I would never do a public search that's
going to be a grid search or a line search. If
I'm going to call on volunteers that are just
walking in ditches off the road or walking alongside
a creek or river, that's different because that's
a lot more difficult to mess up and miss. If
we're just wanting to catch up something that
someone has fallen into the ditch, passed away,
or someone has washed up along a water's edge,
you can send really, you know, you can kind of
take your pick as to who walks that. So other
than that, yeah, the grid searching and the line
searching does not. work from a clearing confidently
perspective um as it does walking ditches or
waterways you know a couple times we've put out
um requests on different searches for the community
to come and you know we've had to be clear like
you must be physically able to walk through the
woods and unfortunately people come that i'm
just like you you just can't make it through
the woods i know that i can see that from you
we've had people come who i mean that they've
got they're on crutches or they have walkers
and i'm like what you can't you don't normally
walk through the woods do you like that we've
had a girl come in heels we've had a guy come
without arms before like no both of his arms
are gone and we're like yes you can like we're
grateful you're here because you can walk through
but if you go down like you you need to have
something you've got to use your hands when you're
searching we had a guy who had a triple bypass
like a few months before and wanted to see if
he could make it and i'm like well You're going
to have to do that on your own time because we're
going to be looking for you out there, right?
So anyway, watching - And Jenna and I are over
here sitting like, yeah, we've experienced this
before. Especially the fact that no one can walk
a straight line. Yes. It's shocking. It's true.
I've said to people, I'm like, if you're walking
on your search and you see yourself going past
people, It means you did it wrong, right? Like
just if everybody's walking in a straight line,
nobody will pass each other, right? By definition,
that's how it works. And yet they're doing a
hard 90 degrees in front of other people. I'm
like, no, you're like, you hate to kick people
out. But sometimes you notice that your neighbor
is no longer your neighbor. Now you've got an
issue. Yes. And like Brett said, it works the
best. Someone has to be designated as walking
behind the line on every search. You have to.
And you're not there to search. You're there
to keep them in line. And overcorrect. It's okay
to overcorrect and sound annoying. I tell people
that every time. I'm going to be annoying. But
we want to do this right. We don't want to have
to come back. Have them behind and walk beside
and behind and beside and behind and beside and
behind. It is amazing. Yeah. So line searches
are something we know well, and that is a skill
that we hopefully acquire in our training. We
teach them. We try. Well, we try to teach them.
So, I mean, that is a skill that, I mean, ideally
you could have 30 trained forensic anthropologists
to come in for that, but it's probably not reasonable.
So at what point would you? In an investigation,
decide, OK, now is the time we need to pull in
the big guns. We got to bring in someone like
Ashley. Well, so I think there is the likelihood
that about this shoe, because if we find a bone
on a search, then OPPR and it's determined human
OPPR or law enforcement are going to come in
and take it over anyway. But with this shoe of
possibly Lisa's. um i would likely come springtime
want to organize something like that we have
been through this bush okay we have not completed
the whole thing it's been it's taken three years
to get to this point where we are maybe a hundred
feet into the bush maybe and that's because we've
gone so painstakingly slow and raked every single
thing in front of us as we go so it's been a
multi -year clear but but now we found a shoe
And it's, you know, we find it, we GPS it, and
we contact law enforcement and say, hey, I want
to back up. This place is the place that forensic
anthropologist Lita Wadimanewik, I think I'm
pronouncing her last name right, recommended
that we clear next. And this is back in 2019.
And she recommended this is the next place we
need to clear based on where her car was found,
based on where the hunters found this shallow
grave a year after. And, you know, all the above.
There's a bunch of stuff. So we began clearing
it, of course. And it's taken so long. But anyhow,
we find the shoe. And the first thing is contact
law enforcement. I said, do you guys want it?
It's just a shoe. Kind of their thing with Lisa
Moss's case right now is call us when you find
a skull like. or it's clearly human call us so
we found a shoe it's a um i can't even tell what
size is but it's very decayed it looks like it's
been chewed on so the first thing we did is as
soon as police said they don't want it we found
a shoe museum in toronto and we communicated
with them and they agreed to look at the shoe
we hand delivered it and um you know they said
it's a size six roughly women definitely women's
and it's a Reebok and then they got back to us
with the three types that it could be so now
Lisa was a size six it's a white shoe it's a
women's shoe it fits it was manufactured between
1985 and 1988 she goes missing in 1988 so so
many things are pointing to that it could be
her shoe but we went back and we did a quick
scouring around to see if we could find the other
shoe that could give us more detail, anything.
And we haven't been able to do so. So to answer
to your question, that would be a prime scenario
where I would want trained forensic anthropology
team to come down and completely clear those
woods, especially location around the shoe. Yeah.
That, that, yeah. And it's hard because that's
one of those. Really, you can't say it is. Can't
say it isn't. Yeah, and, you know, I say, okay,
well, what if it just falls out of somebody's
backpack as they're back there hiking? It's not
a hiking trail. It's the middle of the woods.
I just, yeah, again, that's just it. You go into
it wanting to debunk it, but we can't. No. Yeah.
And on the topic of resiliency and needing resiliency
for this job, I actually did work with Please
Bring Me Home back in 2019, helping Nick look
for Lisa Moss. We went through a big old crevasse
and pulled out just tons and tons of garbage.
And he is still, I can tell, still very passionate,
still gung ho to figure this one out. I'm sure
you have a ton of other cases that have crossed
your desk that are shiny and new and distracting.
you're dead focused on this. And that's really
cool. Yeah, no, thank you for that. It's a, we
all have our case that is going to stick with
us, right? I know Brett has, if not one, two
or three, and I have a few, Lisa Moss is certainly
one that she's the first, you know, case that
I learned the term cold case from reading her
a little bit about her case. I never even heard
it before 2016. And then, you know, it's, it
is one of those. And yeah. you get these new
ones that come across your desk and yes they
do need to have a little bit of your focus because
we also like to work on a preventative measure
from time to time as long as it doesn't take
away from the historical work that we do you
know there's if this person is believed to have
drowned on lake huron via the soggy river we
know we only have a few years to lightly locate
his remains on the shore until they get you know
completely washed out so We don't want that to
come across our desk in five years and they'd
be like, ah, we really should have done something
in years one and two. So there's a lot of cases
like that to come up. And we do have ones as
well that have unfortunately no evidence whatsoever.
That person disappears. Nobody saw, nobody knows
anything. And you talk to everyone. And of course,
some of them might be, you know, 30, 40 years
old. And so you re -interview everyone and there's
just not a single piece of evidence anywhere.
And it makes it very difficult without anything
to jumpstart the case. Is it harder? I know we've
talked a lot about missing persons and the concept
of, you know, people who disappeared, people...
who may have met foul play or some sort of misadventure?
Does it make it harder for those who, I don't
want to say disappeared themselves, but sort
of run away, things like that? And if and when
you do find them, is that even a little bit more
on the difficult side in that, hey, we found
this person. The family has asked us to find
this person. Maybe they don't want a reunion
with the family. That's right. That's a really
good question. In fact, the case that I saw that
the gentleman had disappeared for 14 years, he
had no interest in his family. And so we kept
his location. uh you know completely we didn't
disclose that to the family at all i did let
the family know that we had found him and um
of course they wanted information all that and
i said no you know he has no mental health issues
he has no warrants on him nothing like that i
verified through the police that it was him and
so you know he has right to disappear if he wants
to and so that's something where we uh we maintain
you know the um the secrecy I did let the family
know, though, that we had found him. They were
thrilled. They were overjoyed just the fact that
they knew he was safe and alive and well and
all that. And that's something we have to watch
with these cases, right? People do have a right
to disappear if they want to, right? They've
not done anything wrong. um and uh and we want
to maintain their privacy while also bringing
the case to a close because they they are you
know missing persons uh wanted by the that are
being looked for by the police we do want to
bring these closure to these cases but we definitely
maintain the um privacy of the people who disappeared
in the cases that it has been a runaway Yeah,
that has happened from time to time. With Please
Bring Me Home, you know, Michael Samdas is a
good example. And this is actually not a bad
segue into if we want to talk about Onset for
a moment. But, you know, Michael Samdas, he,
and on this too, we really didn't know. Did he
walk away and pass away? Did he run away? Could
he have been met with foul play? as someone who
works primarily in brain injury rehabilitation
i did he got in an altercation outside of a bar
and then it was like the day after that where
he went missing and i just i always did always
nagged and wondered if he did get a brain injury
and i'll let brett talk a bit about the facial
you know open source stuff because that's his
that's his thing that's i know nothing about
it but i can tell you that an investigation team
member We just decided to run faces through this
open source system and one kicked back and it
was a mugshot out of Florida. Didn't match the
name, but there was just some tiny details in
that face that looked like it could have been
him. And sure as shit, it was him. And this was
what, two years down the line, three years maybe?
Yeah. Oh, no, he disappeared. He disappeared
in 2000 and was it 19? Yeah, like it was a few
years down the line. Up to four years. He had
no recollection of his life in Canada at all.
And I think he sustained a brain injury from
that altercation, but he took off and he made
some very poor choices in the States, by the
way. But he was in jail and we were able to confirm,
connect to the Florida. corrections department
with the Hamilton Police Service and they were
able to compare the fingerprints and it was him.
So that's one of our investigative tools is we
make use of facial recognition software, which
is very useful, particularly when, you know,
there's a very solid chance that the missing
person has run away, right? That is the number
one reason people are classified as missing is
that they ran away. And the difficulty with that
is that you know when you interview a family
if a person in your family ran away you were
probably some sort of contributing factor to
that now i don't mean directly i don't mean you
threatened to kill someone in your family and
they ran away i just mean maybe it's not a happy
home right now there could just purely be a mental
health issue of course but you know people don't
want to open it they don't even want to open
their mind to the possibility that that person
ran away. And in fact, most of the people with
the families that we deal with, when the person
hasn't come back, it's because they were killed
by a serial killer. And that's what the family
believes. They unconsciously deflect generally
anything that they could have contributed to
that. And as I said, if a person has ran away,
there's... There could be some contributing factors
that have no relation to the family, but generally,
you know, the family has contributed to that
runaway. So facial recognition software is a
fantastic tool. One that police are starting
to have, starting to utilize, but it's in Canada,
it's generally deemed as an invasion of privacy
in a lot of different ways. So there's very,
very regulated ways in which they could use that,
but not so for us. So we find people regularly
using facial recognition software. And this is
all open source, by the way. It's not invading
anyone's privacy. It's a picture up on the internet.
Most of the subscription -based softwares do
not search even the social media feeds of people.
So if you have a Facebook feed, it's not even
going through that feed per some agreement that
the software company has with Facebook. So it's,
you know, someone posted on a blog. And then,
you know, it finds it. So really, it's an efficient
way of locating images on the Internet. After
we had found a few people, bits and pieces of
evidence, I decided to run the entire RCMP's
database of 900 and something faces of missing
persons. And I found over 100 pieces of evidence
that I submitted to police. Um, and, and these
weren't just missing persons. They were want
in some cases it was wanted person. So the bolo
list, um, and such in Canada. Um, but you know,
I found that none of those cases were actually
closed despite, you know, quite a bit of evidence
submitted. Not every picture of course would
have been the person, but, um, in many cases,
I think it was definitely them. So I formed a
second group, uh, like a sister group to, um,
to please bring me home called onset investigation,
which is focused on wanted. persons so we've
run the fbi's most wanted list we've run the
bolo list in canada and going kind of department
by department looked at their wanted persons
and we've already located dozens and dozens of
criminals all over the world and that could be
for murder for sexual assault for parental abduction
for just evading a warrant you know or breaking
parole uh it could be for a lot of reasons but
we're really proving that that facial recognition
software is a really useful investigative tool.
We make it standard practice within Please Bring
Me Home. We run all of our cases, the hundred
and something that we have up there, we run them
on a monthly basis, just in case. And this is
once, even when we're sure someone, you know,
fell off the side of a canoe and drowned, we
still run them, just in case that that person
didn't swim to shore and, you know, go live another
life somewhere. We do try and find them. I've
even found people off of the Witness Protection
Program. that I then had to not release for obvious
reasons. So it's an investigative tool that we've
added to our arsenal of techniques that we use,
and it's become automatic procedure for us to
run all of the faces of the missing persons on
the database. Do you use a standard sort of like
published protocol to... We don't really use
the term match in forensics, but to include or
exclude individuals? It's tough. There isn't,
I would say, a specific protocol. But what we
do is we run on multiple platforms. to see if
the platforms agree. Obviously, if they have
a distinguishing feature, they have a mole, they
have an injury, they have something about them
that is a tattoo, obviously, something that is
completely unique to them. But I'll tell you,
in utilizing the software, there are some astounding
lookalikes. I remember... we were told as kids,
everybody has a twin somewhere in the world.
I actually starting to believe that because people
that it must be the person and it's, it's eliminated
is not the person, but you're like, how, how,
and then we've actually found some matches, which
we're not sure about, which turned out to be
the person. So the software is by no means infallible
in any way. It's getting better. Have you searched
for your twin? haven't but i did look for uh
different members of my family and i did find
people who were shockingly fine by my mind yeah
exactly so it it's fascinating stuff and it is
a useful investigative technique for us uh particularly
for we were as i said we run on all the cases
but there a lot of our people have just simply
run over yeah um to to sort of jaunt As we're
coming to a close, John's a little bit to the
right, and then I have one last question after
that. Right before we started recording, there
was a conversation we were having about press
coverage and social media coverage. And I was
wondering, do you notice, particularly in Canada,
I know here in the United States, one of the
things that I find... absolutely infuriating
is when you have a missing persons when you have
a a kidnapped persons a common trait that we
see within the press within social media is if
they are a young blonde female it pops up everywhere
it's the thing that absolutely consumes the news
cycle But everybody else rapidly gets pushed
to the bottom. And I'm wondering with Please
Bring Me Home and particularly in Canada, do
you notice something similar? And I'm thinking
specifically with missing and murdered Indigenous
girls now that you work all across Canada and
you have teams in BC and in Alberta and in the
Plains area. Trying to think of the word there.
Fly over Canada. We do see it. I know that we
at Please Bring Me Home don't do that. We make
sure we give everyone the same attention. And
we're mindful of that. We've done a lot of stuff
on Lisa Moss. And if we're approached on doing
like a documentary or a special on Lisa Moss,
we'll typically try and promote another case
that hasn't gotten the same attention. And that's
important. Everyone deserves the exact same amount
of attention. I think we saw it with Samuel Byrd
recently. I think it was Saskatchewan, if I'm
remembering right. he was evidently found um
and it was believed he was murdered and i'll
tell you that family is an inspiration in that
regard because this was not a young white female
this was a brown um uh you know native uh indigenous
person to saskatchewan and but you could just
see that the the country uh surrounded this family
with so much love and stuff and it was great
and I gotta say though that was like the first
time that I saw something like that in a long
time because before that it was Gabby Petito
and I mean we all know who Gabby Petito is because
it took the media by storm but around that same
time maybe a few months prior there was a there
was a younger native lady that went missing and
I had never heard of her and it's like how is
that possible why is this it's a problem and
a lot of it is what people it's just the way
i think society is unfortunately is that they're
going to click on something that's been already
viewed a million times versus something that's
only been viewed 10. And, you know, thankfully,
we have on the Facebook site, 35 ,000 people
followers on the Please Bring Me Home site who
are fantastic about sharing and posting things
and talking about it, which is huge. That allows
us to give everybody all of our cases kind of
equal airtime, if you will. We typically post
on the anniversary of the person's disappearance
or their birthday or something like that. So
it's a regular cycle where all of our cases are
going out there. But yes, to your question, there's
definitely... in media attention. Now, you know,
of course, there's a chicken and egg thing there.
Is that the fault of the media for putting things
forward or the fault of society for latching
onto certain things? You know, what's coming
before the other and such? So there's definitely,
as Nick said, there are cases that just get so
much attention all the time that we get called
to comment on, that we're filmed on, that we're
in documentaries on, that happens all the time.
And then there are other cases which, you know,
fall by the wayside. nobody pays attention to
them and it's really unfortunate we really latch
on to those cases and try and put them in the
public's eye as much as possible but it is um
definitely a problem uh i would i would imagine
everywhere you know we're speaking from the canadian
perspective but i would think it's uh it's an
issue everywhere and ideally these cases can
be brought to light for everybody to comment
on and for everyone to remember uh you know not
just The memory of the family for the family's
sake to recognize that this trauma that people
have been through is all these families have
been through this trauma, but also because they
might remember something about the case. They
might have talked to somebody. They might have
heard something. And as Nick and I always say,
you know, no tip is silly. We want every tip
to roll in. And again, we do get some ones that
are of less evidentiary value than others, of
course, but we want people to feel comfortable
to call us or to email or contact us anonymously,
which they can do at Please Bring Me Home. And
yeah, so it's a problem and we hope it'll course
correct over time. Sounds good. And one last
question. Are there... sister organizations that
you know of either in the United States or the
United Kingdom or in Europe, Australia, globally,
anywhere. And are you in contact with them? Do
you sort of work with each other to better what
you all do in your respective areas? Or is Please
Bring Me Home sort of an aberration, just this
one -off thing? i let me tell you so brett knows
exactly where i'm going with this because i would
love nothing more than the kumbaya all these
organizations that have the resiliency and the
passion to find missing people to work together
and and i went into that so naively because i'm
like of course people are going to want to work
together but i i have been like gobsmacked over
the amount of issues that we've had trying to
partner with other organizations like us. So
we've just become, we are the only one of its
kind in Canada. We're the only organization that
takes on cases asked by family and, you know,
organizes investigations of it and then does
searches on it. um and then does media exposure
on it there's no other group out there in canada
that does that and is a registered charity a
registered charity i should say that law enforcement
by the way obviously does that but we're the
only other we're the only other um organization
that we're not bound by any like um uh well boundaries
like we can there's no red tape we can knock
on someone's door we can ask permission to do
a search we don't need a thing in writing it's
just do we have the cadaver dog here can we just
go into this we have the gpr machine here can
we go scan your backyard and just get out of
your hair we don't have all the stuff to go through
but you know they're i'm trying to think if if
there's other organizations i mean i'm sure there
is um I think there's other ones that do aspects
of what we do. They'll do an investigation or
they will be like an outdoor search group that
works with police, something like that. But in
terms of a full service agency, I don't believe
there is anything like this, definitely not in
Canada, that works with this. We work with some
really incredible, as we talked about before,
consultants and partners, right? We work with
Highlands Tracking, which is... led by a master
searcher from uh the police who does a brilliant
job in outdoor search we work with black tracks
canine in ontario as part of our cadaver dog
team uh with karen somerville and her team at
west and several other different um search and
rescue teams cadaver dog teams those types of
things and it's been incredibly valuable we work
with a gpr group steve watson who's been brilliant
working with us um so obviously we work with
you ashley you know and so all of these brilliant
consultants that we've had each experts in their
own fields we kind of work with everyone together
and pool everyone's resources to get the best
type of outcome but in terms of the groups out
there that do what we do i don't believe there's
a full service one in canada yeah and i mean
in speaking of search groups oh sarva um was
i don't know if i started still around i know
there is of sarda now which is ontario volunteer
association dog like it's about dogs and early
on we had osarva canine members come out to do
searches for lisa moss and it was fine didn't
need you know they didn't need to jump through
hoops they just came and then you know they said
oh we can only come out when police ask us to
And that's very similar with a lot of search
and rescue groups. They have to be. And even
if we go to police and say, hey, can you please
ask this group, A, can you just release them
to us for this day to let us, you know, use them
for research? They're trained. Or B, could you
just ask them to do it? And their response is,
no, we can't ask them now because you asked us
to ask them. And I'm like, but if it's a podcast
or something like we've heard. canine searches
from osarva or absarda happening through podcasts
and it's not please ask for them so it's like
the the rules aren't consistent so that's why
we end up just creating our own like we found
black tracks we found friends of anthropologists
to take to look at bones all i need to do then
on my end is to get people who can walk through
the woods for hours at a time and be intelligent
enough to know I should take a picture of this
and send it. I need to mark this. I know the
task. I need to do that. And as long as those
things can happen, then we use the consultants
for the other stuff. And lastly, for anybody
that needs to send in a tip that needs to, they
want to know more about your organization. What
is the website for them to go to? What is the
Facebook and the website for them to go to? And
are you actively taking volunteers? Yes, all
the time. All the time. Like, don't be afraid
to join. So the best place, your one -stop shop,
is just to go to pleasebringmehome .com. You're
going to see a recruitment section if you want
to apply. You're going to see a tip section to
send anonymous tips. You're going to see an intake
section if one of your family members are missing.
You can also find us on Facebook under Please
Bring Me Home, Instagram, and X. Our anonymous
tip line, 226 -702 -2728. You can email us at
tips at pleasebringmehome .com, recruitment at
pleasebringmehome .com, intake at pleasebringmehome
.com. But if you want to remain anonymous, Your
tip line, that tip line number I said, or going
on our website and clicking submit tip are the
best ways to ensure your anonymous wishes are
honored. All right. Well, with that, I want to
thank both Nick and Brett for joining us this
wonderful evening. It's been a real pleasure
on my end to both have you here on the Bone Club
and working with you both with Please Bring Me
Home. And Jenna, having you finally back with
us as well. Yeah, glad to be here. And thank
you so much for the work that you do. Just a
blanket statement for humanity and for Canada.
Like, thank you. That's really important. And
it's amazing that you guys care and you put in
so much effort to find these people because they're
loved by someone, right? Thank you guys very
much. And thank you guys for what you do, you
know, accepting the call from us to... uh help
us conclude some of these areas and clear these
searches we truly couldn't do without you guys
either so thank you for having us and thanks
for what you guys do all right well to our get
to our audience thank you all as well for joining
us and uh we will let you know what we're going
to be doing in december as december gets rolling
around so thanks everyone and have a wonderful
evening Hello friends, we here at the Bone Club
understand how difficult it is for students to
break into the field of forensic anthropology.
To help with that cause, we have decided to monetize
in a way by setting up an account with Patreon.
All proceeds will be donated to the anthropology
section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences
to help alleviate the cost of attending an annual
scientific conference for students. If you can,
we have set up four membership tiers with patreon
.com slash the bone club that range from $3 a
month to our patrons of the bones at $15 a month.
We hope some of you can join us in this worthy
endeavor of breaking down the barrier of cost
that keeps many students away from these important
conferences. So if you can, please join us at
patreon .com. Thank you, and may your skeletons
always be complete.