Criminology - Nick and Lisa Masee

Episode Date: May 9, 2021

Nick and Lisa Masee were living what appeared to those around them to be a great life in Vancouver, Canada. But, even though they brought in a substantial income, they were deeply in debt. In 1994, the two began acting strangely in ways that were noticeable to those around them. In August of that year, they disappeared and have never been heard from or located. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious disappearance of Nick and Lisa Masee. Some of the details of their actions before they disappeared are troubling. This is a case that many people have speculated on over the years. Those speculations run the gamut from the Masees being killed over a business deal to them running off and setting up new lives somewhere in the world. Hear the facts for yourself and try to answer the burning question: What happened to Nick and Lisa Masee? You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. So, everyone, and welcome to episode 158 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, what's going on with you? Not much. I'm enjoying the outdoors, doing some swimming, relaxing a little bit, trying to find some time to get out and do some stuff now that things are opening up.

How about you? Yeah. My wife and I have been going out to eat a little bit more, which is great. And just things trying to feel like you're doing some things that you used to do. It's a really good feeling. And I'm sure everybody listening is experiencing some of the same things. You know, just kind of getting back to a little bit of normalcy. It's amazing more what a difference it makes psychologically just on everything.

It just makes you feel so much better. Yeah, I think for everyone's health, it just, it does wonders to just get some fresh air, go do stuff, have some activity. I hope over this crazy last year that we've had that we've been able to help people get through that time, though, with some of these episodes and get their minds off other things. Yeah, and I know we have. You and I both get a bunch of messages that make us feel great. You know, people talking about how we have done that.

And, you know, that, it always makes me feel really good inside. We've got some great support this week. So let's give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Courtney Isabel, James Ward, Nicola Hamill, Kylie Wright, Matt Burtone, Edward Henke, Natasha Nicholson, and Marion Christopherson. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. We can't thank you enough for that.

And I recognize some of those names from social media. So it's great that they just to support us on Patreon, too. We thank you for that. If anyone else would like to help support the show, they can go to patreon.com slash criminology. Okay, buddy, it's time to get into this episode. And today we're headed back to Western Canada, to Vancouver in British Columbia.

Vancouver is the most expensive city to live in throughout all of Canada. And with good reason, It's been named one of the top five cities in the world for livability and quality of life. In 1991, there were just over 171,000 residents. But then by the time of the next census in 1996, there was just over 514,000. Clearly, Vancouver was and still is a desirable place to live. North Vancouver has about 53,000 residents. The city of North Vancouver is separated from the rest of Vancouver by the Burrard Inlet,

a shallow coastal fjord. There are multiple universities nearby, and it's one of the most diverse cities in Canada, ethnically and linguistically. In this episode, we're talking about two foreign-born people who found each other in Vancouver. Nick and Lisa Masay. Nick and Lisa met at a hair salon in 1984 where Lisa was employed. She would cut Nick's hair. The couple fell in love and soon married, starting a seemingly successful life together,

a life that was going well until one day in August 1994 when they simply vanished. Lisa Mouian Ho was born on August 11, 1955 in China. At the time she vanished, Lisa had black hair and brown eyes and stood 5'6, weighing 130 pounds. She spoke English and Mandarin. Lisa was younger than Nick, and despite being married before, she had no children. As we mentioned, Lisa was a hairdresser when she met Nick, a profession she seemed to love and never stopped doing. Nicholas Girard Jacques Masset Sr., or Nick as he was known to most,

was born on January 12, 1939, in Holland. When Nick vanished, he had graying blonde hair and blue eyes. He was 5'7 and 160 pounds. He spoke English and Dutch. Nick had two grown children from a previous marriage, Tanya and Nick Jr. Nick Sr. worked as a private account manager for the Bank of Montreal, before retiring after 35 years. Nick had once been president of the Netherlands Businessmen's and Professionals Association. He was also master of ceremonies at multiple Westminster Quay center-class welcome events.

Despite both Nick and Lisa working steadily and staying busy, the pair often traveled together. They went to Hawaii, the Netherlands, and the Cayman Islands. They had no children together. In January 1994, Nick retired from the Bank of Montreal. Nick and Lisa spent February at their timeshare in Maui, Hawaii, something that they did every year. They appeared to live a lavish kind of jet-setting lifestyle, but they did so on a budget.

And obviously more of a lot of people have time shares. It's a little bit of a less expensive way to have something that you can use on a somewhat regular basis, definitely less expensive than buying a second home somewhere. When the couple got back from Hawaii, Nick started a new job. So he didn't stay retired for very long. He began working as a stock promoter for turbodine technologies. In April of 1994, Nick and Lisa took a spur of the moment trip to the Cayman Islands

where they set up a bank account using $50,000 worth of stock. They also met with an attorney and had a lot of. new wills drawn up, Nick called his daughter Tanya, who at the time was living in Holland, to inform her that she wouldn't be receiving a birthday phone call from him on April 23rd. And this was something that Tanya would later say was very out of character for her father. She thought it was extremely odd. Nick didn't explain why he wouldn't be able to call her. and didn't tell her where he was or what he was doing at the time.

Neither Nick nor Lisa had told any of their family or friends about this trip until after they had already returned. It wasn't until later that details began to emerge about this trip to the Cayman Islands. It was also after Nick and Lisa returned when Nick's family noticed that he was being much more secretive than he normally was. On August 10th, 1994, Nick and Lisa had 6.30 p.m. reservations for four at the Polynesian restaurant Trader Vicks, located at the Bayshore Inn in Coal Harbor. The purpose of this visit was for Nick to discuss a $10 million deal with an unknown investor from California. This investor was supposed to send a limousine to pick up the massays from their North Vancouver home and take them to Trader Vicks, about a 20-minute drive. At the restaurant,

the two men would talk business over dinner. Friends had invited Nick and Lisa to watch the Symphony of Fire fireworks display nearby in Vancouver's English Bay that evening, but they declined, stating that they had plans at Trader Vicks. The Maseys never showed up to Trader Vicks and no one called to cancel their reservation. There has never been a record found of any limo rental sent to the Masei home in Vancouver for the day they were supposed to take one. And there's no doubt more friends and family. They see this blow off of this reservation by the Masees.

as extremely uncharacteristic. They insist that Nick would have called the restaurant to cancel if he knew that they were not going to be able to make it that night. Even the staff at Trader Vicks felt that it was odd. Nick was a regular. It was his favorite restaurant. And he never no-showed a reservation before. He called every time.

He couldn't make one. staff was so familiar with him that the person who took the reservation was able to confirm later that it was definitely Nick himself who had called to book a table. Interestingly, a witness would later say that they saw Nick and Lisa that night from 6.30 to 10.30 p.m. But that they saw the massays next door to Trader Vicks at the Weston Bay Shores Garden Lounge. The witness said Nick was wearing a track suit and that he and Lisa were sharing a bottle of wine. It seems odd that Nick and Lisa would be at the Bayshore the night they had a reservation at Trader Vicks next door. It's also odd that for an important multi-million dollar business deal, Nick would be wearing a track suit as reported by the witness. It's very possible that the witness did see Nick and Lisa sharing wine at the Bayshore, but it's important to consider that this witness may have mistaken the date.

And that's something that I think we talk about in quite a few cases. You know, for me, morph, my memory is not great. And I'm very candid about that. My wife will tell you that. So depending on when I'm asked about something, if you ask me to go back two, three, four weeks and think about a particular night, I'm not sure that I can be 100% accurate. in my recollection of times, dates, things like that.

Now, I might remember weeks ago or a month ago that I saw so and so, but it's very likely that I won't be 100% sure on the exact night. And I think that can happen to a lot of people. I also think it's possible for some people to get stuck in their minds that they're sure. it was a certain date, a certain time, a certain night, but be mistaken about that. Which in this type of situation, when, you know, the police are involved and they're doing an investigation, that's not good. To be so certain when it turns out you're wrong, you're really throwing kind of a monkey wrench into things. Yeah, I'm right there with you.

I have a hard time remembering dates. going back, I might be able to pull out a credit card receipt to say, yes, I definitely was here on this date, but just going off the top of my head, that would be tough. It's sort of like in the movies when the police asked the person, where were you on the night of January 13th, 1999, the people always have some kind of answer, and I think that's a little bit of TV magic, because I think in real life that doesn't happen that often. No, because I couldn't tell you where I was this January, let alone going back five, 10 years. Yeah, I'm with you on that. But you mentioned pulling out a credit card receipt. And I think that's where, you know, the investigation has to go.

If someone comes forward and says, I saw someone on this night, well, then the police have to work to try to verify that it was that night. And those type of things are part of that process. Some people online who are familiar with the Vancouver area have noted how heavy traffic would be during this Symphony of Fire. It was one of Vancouver's largest festivals. The multi-day fireworks competition boasts about 1.4 million visitors each year. The Weston Bayshore was directly across the island part of Vancouver from the English Bay where the Symphony of Fire was held. About two miles across this tiny part of Vancouver full of hotels would have been absolutely gridlocked. Skeptics that believe that the eyewitness was mistaken on the date they saw the couple,

wonder how Lisa could have made it from her work or even home to the Weston Bayshore in time to be seen sharing a bottle of wine with Nick at 6.30 p.m. Apparently Lisa was known to often take the bus to or from work, if she had to bus home from work, it would have made it much harder for her and Nick to have made it to the Weston Bayshore by 630, especially with that symphony of fire traffic. So I think a lot of people more, if they look at this and say that it bolsters the theory that the witness was mistaken about the date of their sighting. And I think there's a couple of things to break down here,

morph about what we've we've talked about. So you have this couple, apparently going to a restaurant where Nick is going to be discussing a multi-million dollar business deal. I think we said it was a $10 million deal, yet it was known that Lisa routinely took the bus. Okay. That's not out of the realm of possibility. There are a lot of people that actually have money that take the bus, but you do have to ask the question. Does that seem odd? Yeah, and it may just be that they're thrifty. They could still have money, but just want to take the easiest route if that was a bus for her and maybe not have to drive through traffic because I think in big cities, that's an issue for a lot of people. They don't like driving through that traffic. So it may be something as simple as

that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an important point to bring up. I don't know what it means. You know, Sam Walmart was one of the richest men probably in the world. He drove around in a very, very old pickup truck because he wanted to. You know, the guy could have had a thousand brand new pickup trucks, but he wanted to drive around in an old pickup truck. It's what he did. You know, famously, people like Warren Buffett have all. You know, the money in the world, yet they are extremely frugal. And I think I read one story where when he goes to McDonald's in the morning, he orders the same thing, you know, like coffee and an egg McMuffin or some type of sandwich.

The guy could have private chefs, you know, standing in line at his house to make him whatever he wanted. But that's what he wants. He wants a coffee and a sandwich at McDonald's for three bucks or whatever it is. So I don't want to make too much out of it, but I wanted to bring it up because there does seem to be something that could suggest that, okay, something doesn't seem right. We've got a couple who, by all accounts, led a somewhat lavish lifestyle. We're talking about a $10 million deal here, but then it comes out that Lisa routinely took the bus. Just something to point out.

The next day was August 11th following the mystery. dinner reservation. It was also Lisa Masey's 39th birthday. At around 10 a.m., Nick's phone was used to make two phone calls. But it wasn't Nick using his phone. It was Lisa. She called her workplace, Yikoi Harris Salon, but no one answered. Lisa left the message at the salon saying that she had to go to court and couldn't come in for a few days. She mentioned that she would be back on Tuesday, August 16th. After that call, she then called Nick's workplace, Turbodyne Technologies. She informed Nick's superior, Leon Noek, that they would be going on a trip and wouldn't be back until August 16th. So again, more for me, something else to analyze.

First of all, I thought it was strange that she used Nick's phone to make both phone calls. For some reason, that just jumped out as a little bit strange to me. But then secondly, and I think even more strangely, is the fact that she gave two different stories to two different people, right? One story to her hair salon and a completely different story to Nick's new workplace. Now, both stories kind of used the same timeline, this Tuesday, August 16th date. but why two different stories? Why I'm going to court for the hair salon and then we're going on a trip for Nick's workplace.

It definitely seems like there's something going on that's being set up or being carried out in the background and for whatever reason they want these two different sets of people to have two different ideas about what happened. Morif, the only thing that I could really think of was that the story told to the, the salon by Lisa really only had to do with her, right? She's going to court. But when she's calling Nick's job, well, now that has to be something that involves Nick. Is that the reason why

there's two different stories? That's the only thing I could think of. And maybe it's something as simple as he has more flexibility to just on a whim say, hey, I'm going on a vacation and I'll be back in a few days. And maybe at her job, she didn't have that flexibility. So she had to come up with the story that maybe sounded more official something she had to do and couldn't get out of. Well, and we just talked about this company that Nick had started working at Turbodyne. In June, just a couple of months before Nick vanished, a strange call came into the company. Someone called to talk about business with Nick, but they didn't know his name. Instead, this man asked for Harry Moll's banker. The person at Turbodyne who took the call was a man

by the name of John Woods. And just weeks later, he received another call from the same person who again asked for Harry Moll's banker. This time, the caller stated that he represented a group of Chicago investors. It's never been determined who this caller was. Now, Harry Mall was Nick's predecessor and he created the Pine Ridge Capital Group, which had been involved in a scandal. In 1992, the business went under and millions of dollars went missing. The company relaunched as turbodon by that time Mall had left the country and relocated to the Cayman Islands. This has led to speculation that perhaps the massays could have been planning to do something very similar. It could explain why they had wills drawn up in the Caymans and set up a business and bank account

there as well. On August 15th, Lisa's sister Loretta received a call from their mother. She was worried because she had been unable to reach Lisa for a week. The next day Loretta went to Nick and Lisa's North Vancouver home. She found the front door unlocked and the security system unarmed. Loretta felt that this was completely out of character for the couple. Nick's car, a white convertible Chrysler LeBaron, was parked in the driveway. It too was unlocked. The Massey's 17-year-old cat, Spider, was still in the home and appeared to have been unfed for

quite some time. When Nick's children found out about this, they were very alarmed by the news. They knew that Nick absolutely loved Spider and would have never left her that way. As Loretta continued to look around, she found two plastic zip ties near the entrance of the home. Both Nick and Lisa's passports were inside. Now, there was no sign of a struggle and nothing appeared to be missing. Later on, the zip ties found in the Massey home were DNA tested, but nothing came from that. Police were at a loss. As to what happened to the couple, they looked into the Massey's background. They looked into their private lives, but investigators found no indication that Nick and Lisa lived any kind of high-risk lifestyle or engaged in any type of dangerous

behaviors. Nick Mesey Jr. hired private investigator Ozzie Caban in late 1994. Caban was a high-profile private investigator in British Columbia, and many true crime fans will recognize his name from the Cindy James case. For those of you who may not know or remember Cindy's case, she died a mysterious death in June 1989, after claiming that she had been the target of an unknown stalker or harasser for years. Before her death, Cindy hired her. asked Ozzy to try and figure out who was tormenting her. After Ozzy started investigating the Messe case, he came to the conclusion that Nick and Lisa likely had something or someone to run from.

According to Caban, he traveled to the Cayman Islands in 1994, and during that trip, he found a bank account that belonged to the Messees that had $100,000 in it. The funds were deposited through a third party, and the source of the information has never been revealed by Ozzy. Ozzie also claimed that he found evidence that Nick registered a company during this trip, a company that three years later was closed automatically on March 27, 1997, presumably for lack of activity and payment of fees associated with it. Ozzie didn't share anything about the name of this company Nick started,

or what kind of company it was. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood. in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology

allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. If you love chilling mysteries, unsolved cases, and a touch of mom-style humor,

moms and mysteries is the podcast you've been searching for. Hey guys, I'm Mandy. And I'm Melissa. Join us every Tuesday for Moms and Mysteries, your gateway to gripping, well-researched true crime stories. Each week, we deep dive into a variety of mind-boggling cases as we shed light on everything from heist to whodontes, where you're a go-to podcast for Mysteries with a motherly touch. Subscribe now to Moms and Mysteries wherever you get your podcast.

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Limits apply. Terms and conditions apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for details. Back in Canada, Ozzy Caban learned that Nick attended a funeral for businessman Glenn Hyatt at 2 p.m. On August 9th, 1994, according to a witness from the funeral, Nick was noted to be distraught, and he mentioned that he was going to leave town. This funeral occurred the day before. The mysterious California investor had called Nick to ask if they could each bring their wives, requiring Nick to change the Trader Vicks reservation for that night to four people. Nick also had to reschedule their dinner meeting to 8 p.m. At around 4.30 p.m. the same day of the funeral, one of Nick's colleagues, Don Schwery,

had a heart attack and passed away. Now, this fact that Don died from a heart attack on the funeral, the day of the funeral may be a coincidence, but it's interesting. From the standpoint that it was Don and Nick who were brokering a $110 million deal in which Nick's role would be the banker. On August 6th, just three days before his fatal heart attack, Don spoke to journalist Terry Gould about the deal. Apparently Don always carried a briefcase. And in that briefcase where all of the documents relating to the deal. It's been reported that by 7 p.m., less than three hours after Don Schwery died,

people who knew him were asking where his briefcase was. So to me more of just another kind of strange, possibly strange, interesting thing about this case. I mean, you know, as we go through this, it almost seems like this is the plot of a movie. right you have this assorted cast of characters you've got some very strangely timed deaths and then you have this briefcase right and as with a movie we're walking through it trying to figure out how it all relates does it all relate and what does it all really mean yeah like you mentioned this does sound like something out of a movie and you've got this mysterious briefcase in a lot of movies. People are carrying briefcases and they hold vast secrets sometimes and you have to wonder what

was in there. It was certainly evident that people were wondering what was in Don's briefcase. And unfortunately, we don't have any more information about what was found or if the briefcase itself was accounted for. Ozzy Caban carefully reviewed the Massé's finances. And according to his findings, they were $500,000 in debt between loans, their mortgage, and their credit cards. Their credit card debt alone was reported to be $70,000. Lisa Messeh worked as a hairstyle six days a week and also took private clients in her home. Nick was a private banker who made about $85,000 each year. Well, and that's something more if that really jumped out at me in the beginning.

The fact that Nick retired after 35 years and you know he was making a good salary. We just said $85,000 a year. Okay, that's a really great salary today. It was even a better salary in the late 80s, early 90s. That was a lot of money. But I think this also highlights the disparity that you often find. not just in these types of cases, but I think with people in just everyday ordinary life, there are people that live way above their means.

And so they have this kind of air that they're, maybe they're making even more money than what they're making because they're spending more than what they're making, right? They're living a lavish lifestyle that their regular income, which may be very significant, doesn't actually support. They're living above their means. And that makes me wonder if Lisa was maybe working six days a week, not because she liked busting her butt six days a week,

but because maybe they just needed the money. Yeah, you could be right about that. Normally when we talk about, you know, people taking extra shifts, you know, working their tail off. It's because, all right, they've got to do that in order to, make ends meet. This seems to me more of like a couple who could easily make ends meet. The problem is they're not living within their budget, which is from what I can tell, pretty substantial. Again, we don't know the exact details of the relationship, the finances,

everything, but I think it's a pretty easy leap to make. You got 70,000. in credit card debt and you didn't lose your job, you didn't, you know, have a catastrophic medical situation financially, it kind of seems as though you just racked up bills buying stuff that was outside of your means. I don't know how else to say. Ozzie Caban also was interested in a possible link between Nick and a friend of his named Fred Hoffman. Fred Seabelt Hoffman, also a Dutch-born Vancouver resident, was an accountant and investment counselor. Hoffman was charged with 31 counts of theft and 30 counts of fraud after Bill conglients to the tune of $10 million. He disappeared sometime around April 26, 1991,

while traveling to the Netherlands. It's presumed that Hoffman fled to some unknown location with his stolen money to live out his days. Ozzy felt that Nick, and Fred were close and that it's possible that Nick followed Fred. However, Nick Messey, Jr., claims that his father had actually lost money to Fred Hoffman when Fred disappeared and stated that the two weren't all that close. They just knew each other because they were both Dutch and part of Vancouver's Dutch community. Corporal Gordree of the North Vancouver RCMP has explained publicly that Nick Massey is one person that would have been able to disappear due to his means. In many cases, authorities assume a missing person has met with foul play because that missing

person may not have the resources, money, or skills to disappear and to live off the grid somewhere else by choice. However, Nick Masset has been described as sophisticated and Savvy. It's also been reported that both Nick and Lisa had multiple passports. Police believe that the Mass A's had money stashed somewhere. It's likely that the Cayman Island bank account wasn't their only secret account. Nick Massa understood banking around the world. And he and Lisa had both lived in different countries before. So if someone could pull off disappearing and starting a new life. I think authorities looked at it as though Nick and Lisa Massey likely could.

It's worth going back and reevaluating some of the early clues in this case. One of them being the two phone calls made by Lisa Masay on our birthday, August 11th, following the missed dinner reservation. It's unknown whether Lisa made those calls under duress or of her own free will. She and Nick may have been taken prisoner by someone, forced to make those calls. The only two calls she made were to inform people at both of their jobs that they would be gone for a few days. No calls of any kind of family or friends. Is it possible they didn't call family members or friends because someone they were close to might have known something was off with Lisa's voice, something that a boss or coworker may have missed? We also don't

know why Lisa used Nick's phone to make these calls instead of our own, and why Nick didn't call his own job to report his upcoming absence. You could theorize that someone could have been holding Nick as leverage to have Lisa make those phone calls, or Nick may have already come to some kind of harm. The calls pinged off a cell tower on Bowen Island, which would point to Lisa making the calls from West Vancouver, and that was pretty far from their home. It's even possible that they were on a boat. Lisa could have been on the Sunshine Coast northwest of Vancouver, or the highway to Squamish. Nick's co-worker Leon Noak called the cell phone back at around 1030 a.m.

As well as the Masse's home number, and there was no answer in either instance. While authorities in the past haven't ruled out the possibility that the Masse's disappearance was of their own making, they also seem to believe that there is a real possibility that their case may be connected to organized crime and that the Masses are likely no longer alive. Investigators have not expanded on the organized crime angle. The issue for police is that they just don't really have all that much to go on. And if they're right, they don't know how the murders were carried out or where. They also don't seem to have a real motive on why anyone would harm the Massaise,

whether that person was connected to organized crime or not. Nick Masset was well known for keeping his mouth shut. and being discreet about some of the secrets he knew about. While this may seem to indicate that Nick knew of some shady dealings, he was never known to divulge info about them. Tanya noticed that her father's demeanor changed around January 1994, the same month he retired from his longtime job as a banker. Nick had apparently been an open book his entire life with his kids,

and suddenly his secretive behavior, was very out of character. He was particularly secretive about his work life and seemed fearful of his safety. Ozzie Caban claims he spoke to other witnesses that stated that Nick and Lisa were actively making plans to skip town before their disappearance. Caban wouldn't identify the witnesses, and he and Nick Messade, Jr. have had a following up in the years since Ozzy worked on the case. Nick Messy Jr. doesn't believe that his father and stepmother are still alive, and believes that his dad wasn't ruthless or brave enough to fake his own death. Another rumor uncovered by Ozzy Caban is that Nick Masey guaranteed a gambling debt for

one of his clients. And it was a biker gang who murdered Nick and Lisa over this debt. There may be a small bit of truth to this rumor because some of Nick's clients at the bank noted that he often did invest in or back their business dealing. The issue is that, while Nick may have helped guarantee a debt for a client at some point in time, there's no evidence that this played any part in his disappearance. The branch of the bank that Nick Masey worked in was pretty exclusive. It was the private banking branch of the Bank of Montreal and many big

and powerful names in the Vancouver Stock Exchange were Nick's clients. Over the years, multiple journalists have talked about how difficult it has been to get anyone involved in the Vancouver Stock Exchange scene to comment on the disappearances of Nick and Lisa Messe. In 2001, Nick's children, along with her step-a, Loretta, filed to have Nick and Lisa Messe pronounced legally dead in British Columbia's Supreme Court. In these filings, Nick Jr. stated, quote, I am convinced that there is no explanation other than that my father is dead. None of the Mase's bank accounts have had any activity since they disappeared. And Morif, I always think that that would be an extremely tough decision to make,

to have a loved one who has disappeared be declared legally dead. You know, there are some things that come along with that declaration. obviously there's the estate, the life insurance. A lot of things officially can't happen until someone is declared legally dead. But at the same time, I think for many people to have to make that decision, it must feel as though at some level you're giving up on these people. I guess my point is it would be an extremely difficult decision to make. Yeah, I think to do that, you're really closing the chapter on someone's life or lives in this case, and you're saying, okay, I know that I'm never going to see them again. They're never coming home. So that's, as you mentioned, that's got to be very

difficult. And maybe I don't know what Nick Jr. was thinking and his family was thinking when they decided to do this, but since there was no use on the bank accounts, to me, that rules out any possibility that Nick and Lease were out there because I'm sure they would want to access this money and they would set up that money to be able to use. So maybe Nick Jr.'s thinking along the same lines, hey, they've got this money out here and it's not being touched in these accounts. That tells me that they're no longer with us. Or does it? You know, we may talk about some theories here in a minute, but there was no activity on the bank accounts that were known up. So if you were going to try to disappear completely, what better way to do that than to not touch

your bank accounts, clearly showing others that you haven't just run away. You're dead, right? Just like you said, that's kind of what that points to. But what if you had, already set up some secret bank accounts and you had funneled enough money into those to where you didn't have to touch these other bank accounts. That seems like the way to do it, actually. That's to my way of thinking. Yeah, that is a good point because then you have this untouched bank account sitting here that is a good way to throw people off and say, okay, they're not using this account. They must be dead. So maybe you're absolutely right. Well, for one thing, the, as soon as you use that bank account, number one, you're giving away location. But I think even bigger than that,

you're telling law enforcement, your family, you're telling the whole world that you're on the run. You don't want to see them anymore. You don't want to be involved in their lives rather than, hey, we're missing. No one knows what happened to us. I don't know. It's just something to think about. So speaking of rumors and theories surrounding this case, one main theory that is often speculated about is that Nick and Lisa are possibly in witness protection. This scenario is often thrown out as a theory in missing person cases, a lot of times without any shred of evidence to back it up. And there's nothing here. In this case, to back up that theory either. It's hard to believe that Canadian law enforcement agencies would not share with each other that missing people being searched for by one agency had been hidden by another. The biggest problem with the witness protection theory here is that in Canada, there was no witness protection program in 1994.

The Witness Protection Program Act did not receive official approval until June 1996, two years after. after Nick and Lisa were reported missing. And it's the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that runs the Canadian Witness Protection Program, the same agency that has been searching for the massays for the better part of three decades. Now, I think conspiracy theorists would argue more that even if the RCMP knows that these people

were in the Witness Protection Program, they'd still at some level, have to continue with the, I'll call it a ruse of searching for Nick and Lisa, wouldn't they? Wouldn't you just be giving it away if you shut everything down and never talked about it? I don't know. Something kind of popped into my head there. Yeah, because it's pretty obvious that if you suddenly hide these people or involved in hiding these people in a witness protection program, and then you, as you mentioned,

you stopped looking for them. it's going to draw attention and people are going to ask why aren't you looking for them anymore and then you've got to come up with some kind of reason. One other theory that people look to when trying to figure out this case involves a court case that Nick was supposed to be involved in. He was scheduled to testify as a witness in a trial that involved one of his former tennis partners who was accused of stealing $100,000. Nick was only a minor witness and wasn't supposed to play any large role in the upcoming trial,

according to police. So it seems unlikely that the couple would meet with foul play over that. Other people have theorized that the massays for whatever reason, fake their deaths, or at least organize their disappearances. They point to the secret of plans, an activity that preceded them vanishing. For example, the secret trip to the Cayman Islands jumps out, as it's well known for money laundering and privacy regarding banks. Of course, it's not illegal to disappear, but there are things that don't add up about

the mass a's just vanishing on their own. I think when you kind of go down the path of that theory, there are a number of questions that come up. Why would they leave their passports at home if they were going to live a life on the run? Not having passports would definitely make it hard. for them to travel internationally if they ever needed to. Now, I think when you're talking about these passports, again, I will talk about them in the same way that I talked about the bank accounts.

If you are going to disappear, but you want others to believe that you met with foul play or that you didn't just voluntarily run off, what better way than to leave your passports behind? just like not touching your bank accounts, while at the same time, they could have easily had some fake passports that they used to travel to wherever they were going. We also have to ask if Nick and Lisa disappeared voluntarily, why didn't they make arrangements for their beloved cat, Spider? They didn't have to hire a pet sitter or give the cat away,

but it seems that they could have done something to make sure Spider was fed and watered during the several days before Loretta. I entered their home. Lastly, about Nick's children, would he really be that cold to just walk away from them, leaving them to wonder what happened? So to me, morph, all good questions. You can talk all you want about people needing to get away for whatever reason. You know, if that's the theory, the path that you want to go down, that Nick and or Lisa were involved in something they shouldn't have been, or they were afraid of somebody and they had to get away. Okay. We can speculate on that. But to me, the one thing that people don't do is when you have a pet that you

dearly love, you don't just walk away from that pet. Now, you might have to leave them behind, but as you said, you're going to make some arrangements, whether that's an automatic feeder. I don't know. To me, that tells me more about this case, probably. than anything else we've talked about. Because you and I both know how we feel about, you know, our pets and how our listeners feel about their pets, their family members. I mean, that's how people look at them. And from all accounts, this is how Nick felt about Spider.

I just can't see walking away voluntarily without at least setting up something. to make sure that the cat would be okay until someone found her. To your point, that seems to, for me, to lead towards them going away, not because they wanted to, but because there was foul play involved. And then you mentioned pets being like kids to many of us. You know, I still want to turn to the actual children here, Nick's children. Would he walk away from them, leaving them to wonder what happened for the rest of their lives

to him. Again, maybe he was going through something that he, you know, for peace of mind, for safety, he just decided he wanted to walk away and cut all ties from friends and family. And Nick and Lisa hatched this plan to do that. But I think to most of us, we can't comprehend doing that to our children. No, I think it's hard, but I will say this, people have done it. There have been many cases where people have voluntarily vanished, the difference between Spider and Nick's children is that, you know, spider can't tell anyone what you're doing, right? If you go to your children and say, this is what we're doing, we're leaving, there's a chance that they would tell authorities. They would be so worried, they would tell someone. The cat can't do that. And that's

why I said to me, that tells me more than anything. Not that someone loves the cat more than their children. I'm not saying that. It's just a different set of circumstances because cats can't talk. Yeah. And I guess to your point that his children could take care of themselves or spider couldn't. That's another great point. So I don't know more if, you know, very interesting when you take a look at this case and you go through all the known details, but you also go through the speculations and some of the things that are rumored to be or rumored to have happened. I'm kind of with you. To me, everything is kind of pointing to the most likely thing that happened being that they met with some type of foul play. Now, was that due to some kind of underhand?

or illegal business dealing or business dealing gone wrong or I don't know. I don't know what that would have been. It's not to say that it's out of the realm of possibility for them to be somewhere living off a bunch of money that they were able to hide. That's possible. But given what we know, to me, it doesn't seem to be the most likely outcome. Yeah, I really find myself on the fence with this one because on one hand, the mention of Cayman Islands, this mysterious planning, and every TV show from movie,

when someone wants to hide money, you hear him go into the Cayman Islands. So it sounds kind of nefarious that there's some plan being hatched there. And then we mentioned when they came back from there, Nick's family noticed that he was different. He was acting shady or secretive. So that timing is interesting. But then, you know, that leads me to think, hey, maybe they plan this whole thing. But a couple of things, you find those loose zip ties in their home. Nothing else besides that really seems like a crime may have been committed.

So maybe it was something as simple as them tying something up. But you have to wonder that. But I go back to what we just talked about. Spider, if they did hatch this plan, I really think, as much as it seems as Nick loved his cat, that he would have made some kind of plans for the safety of that cat until someone was able to find him and to just abandon spider. And that seems out of character for everything that we know about Nick. Yeah, I think this is what makes these type of cases so fascinating.

You can go down a number of different roads. You can go down a number of different rabbit holes. You can also, more if I think, pretty easily make the case for, a number of different outcomes because there was a lot of strange activity. I mean, when we started talking about the Cayman Islands, the first thing that popped into my head was the movie The Firm or the book The Firm, you know, one of my favorite books and a really good movie as well. It just, you're right. When you think Cayman Islands, you think TV shows, movies, that's where people go to set up something that they don't want other people to know about, right?

It's kind of the feeling that you get from hearing the words Cayman Islands. But this is one of those cases where people have to listen to the facts and and listen to the speculation and kind of play detective and make up their own mind as to what they believe happened. Because we don't have the definitive answer. Yeah, there's just no smoking gun here that was uncovered by the police or by Ozzy Caban. While he did find some business dealings and stuff there, there's no confirmed threat of something violent happening to Nick and Lisa. And there's no evidence of huge embezzlement where they knew they were going to be facing charges and they fled,

taking a bunch of money with them like some of the other people we talked about in this episode. So I think we're all left to sort of come to our own conclusions as to what happened. If they're alive today, Nick Mase would be 81 years old, Lisa would be 65, if they did fake their own disappearance. There is still hope that they are out there unharmed, living their lives. But if they are dead, as their family members fear, they just want to know the truth about what happened to Nick and Lisa. If you have any information about the disappearance of Nick and Lisa Massey, please call the North Vancouver RCMP at 604-985-1311. Thanks goes out to Sunny Landon for writing and research assistants in this episode. As always, if you love the show and haven't done so yet, please take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating.

Keep telling your friends, family, strangers. just turn to that person next to you on the bus and say, hey, check out criminology. If you want to find us on social media or on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod, you can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, which is Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans. So more if that is it for our episode on Nick and Lisa Masay, to me, a very interesting kind of haunting mystery because like with a lot of the unsolved that we do, we just don't know. We can speculate all day.

We can come up with theory after theory as many people have, but we just don't know exactly what happened. But we'll be back with everyone next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care of everyone.