Criminology - Nicole Morin

Episode Date: March 19, 2023

In 1985, 8-year-old Nicole Morin mysteriously vanished from her apartment building in Toronto. She was set to meet a friend in the lobby to go to the pool but never made it. The friend talked to Nicole on the intercom system and waited for her to come down. After a period of time, she buzzed Nicole's apartment, asking her mother where she was. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious disappearance of Nicole Morin. The police went to all 400+ units of the building and entered if no one was home in an attempt to find Nicole. They pieced together what few details they could of her day, but no one they talked to had heard or seen anything unusual. It became, at the time, the largest police search in Toronto history. 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. Everyone and welcome to episode 249 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morford, man. How you doing? I'm doing good. I'm doing better than I did yesterday. We're recording one day later than normal because I had a migraine yesterday. So feeling good today and ready to jump into this case. Yeah, I'm lucky. That's one thing that I do not suffer from is my.

migraines, but I do know people that do, and man, they are debilitating, can be for some people. Yeah, it'll definitely sidetrack you for a day and throw you off your schedule, but knock on what I'm feeling good today and ready to go. All right. Well, let's get into it. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Dee Gibson and Erica Vannever. So great new support.

We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much to everyone that takes the time and support the show. It means a lot to us. And if you'd like to support criminology, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. So quick and to the point, let's jump into this week's case. And in this episode, we're discussing the case of an eight-year-old named Nicole Moran who vanished mysteriously in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1985. We've covered cases of missing people before and cases of missing kids.

But what makes Nicole's case a little different? is she didn't disappear while on her way to school or while walking to a friend's house or even in a store. She vanished in the apartment building where she lived without a trace. And to this day, her disappearance remains unsolved. This is a case that we've wanted to do for a while. But there really has not been a lot of material or details about this case out there over the years, especially newer information. It's that lack of information or details.

adds to the intrigue of Nicole's case. There aren't many cases where someone completely disappeared in a populated area so close to home within such a tight time frame. In many cases like that, there are instances of very young children, infants or babies, who may have been taken by an abductor, and it didn't stand out because witnesses might think it was a parent carrying their child away, and those very young children couldn't speak up for themselves. But in Nicole's case, we're talking about an eight-year-old girl. She could walk, talk, and she could scream or fight and run. And again, we're not talking about an isolated playground, bus stop, or a quiet street.

We're talking about the building that she lived in with lots of neighbors and tenants. She disappeared from what seemed like a safe space, and no one saw or heard anything. In 1985, 8-year-old Nicole Louise Moran was living with her mother, Jeanette, in an apartment building in Etobico, a borough of Toronto in Canada. the building was called 627 the West Mall. This was a nice upscale apartment building that even had its own pool in the rear of the property. Nicole and Jeanette lived in a penthouse style apartment on the top floor of the 21-story building. Jeanette had separated from Nicole's father, Arthur Moran.

At the time, he was living in the nearby city of Mississauga. Nicole was in the third grade and went to Wellsworth Junior School in July. Wellsworth and other schools in the area were on their summer vacation, like many kids do every summer. Nicole was using the warm days off to play outside and soak up the sun by the pool. On July 30th, Nicole and her friend Jen planned to go swimming together, and Jen was coming to the apartment complex to meet her. That morning at around 10.30, Nicole made a quick trip down to the building's lobby to collect the mail and headed back up to her apartment to get ready to go swimming. She arrived back to her apartment with no issues.

Nicole's apartment had an intercom system to communicate with visitors in the lobby. When Nicole's friend Jen arrived to meet her to go swimming, she buzzed up to Nicole's apartment. Nicole answered and spoke to Jen and said she would be down in a few minutes and would meet her in the lobby. At around 11 a.m., Nicole left the apartment in her bathing suit, carrying a towel on a change of clothes, a hairbrush, and some sunscreen. She said goodbye to her mom, and everything seemed normal. Jen waited for Nicole for 15 minutes, but never saw her. She decided to call back up to Nicole's apartment on the intercom to see what the holdup was. At 11.15 a.m., the intercom buzzed again, and Nicole's mom answered this time.

Jen asked Jeanette if Nicole was going to head down soon. At first, Jeanette just thought her daughter was taking her time and would be in the lobby at any second. then she thought that maybe Nicole had decided to head right to the pool located at the back of the complex. So there weren't really many places to go between the apartment and the pool. You needed a key to get entry into the pool area and only residents had the key. So Nicole could have gone to the pool without Jen, but Jen couldn't get to the pool without Nicole. And this is where the lack of details in this case comes into play because we really don't know a lot about what happened after. after the conversation between Nicole's mom, Jean, and her friend Jen.

We don't know if Jen decided to just leave, or if she ever called back to Nicole's apartment again. What we do know was that eventually, Jeanette called police door report Nicole is missing at 6 p.m. There are a couple online mentions of a young boy telling Jeanette at 3 p.m. that Nicole wasn't at the pool. This was a boy that Jeanette was babysitting as she ran some kind of child care business out of her apartment. There's a gap where we just don't have a lot to go on from 11 a.m. when Nicole left her apartment, To 3 p.m. when this boy told Jeanette, Nicole wasn't at the pool. And to 6 p.m. when her mom reported Nicole missing. Because of the responsibility of the childcare business and children she had with her, apparently Jeanette couldn't just walk out of her apartment to search for her daughter. So, you know, to me, more of in any missing person's case, there is that point where, and most often it's a parent or parents, start to become worried. You know, they feel as though something isn't right. They're given

information that, you know, kind of puts them on that track. Here in this case, Jeanette starts to get that information, but at the same time, you know, she is watching children inside her apartment. She's in a tough spot. She can't just leave these children unattended to go walk around the apartment complex to look for Nicole. What do you do? Yeah, that's got to be a real impossible situation to be in to have the urge to go look for your kid who you think may be missing. But here you have other young children that you just can't leave. So I totally get that. What's frustrating to me is we just really don't know when that sense of urgency kicked in. Was she worried about Nicole ever since her friend didn't see her? Did she just assume that she made it down to the lobby and she was out

swimming, having a good time? We really don't know when the sense of urgency kicked in. or if it was at 3 o'clock when this boy that she was supposedly babysitting said, hey, she's not at the pool. Maybe that's when she really got worried. Yeah. And it can be tough in many cases because it's not as though in all situations. Every minute of the day is documented, filled with details. And, you know, I also often think about getting a piece of information.

and what does it mean to someone in that exact moment? You know, I'm sure during the summer, Nicole was allowed to go to the pool. It sounds like this was probably a pretty frequent occurrence. So it's not as though, you know, every time you get some little nugget of information, the alarm bells go off for everyone right away. Now, we know that this is a missing person's case. So, you know, we're kind of telling the story in that context, but take away that context and analyze the information. And it becomes much different to me.

Now, at some point, the alarm bells do go off, but it's not always clear exactly when that moment is. What we do know is that authorities took Nicole's disappearance seriously. They arrived at the apartment and searched it, questioning residents. and seeking witnesses that may have seen Nicole. From there, they set up roadblocks in the neighborhood and drove around the area using loudspeakers to inform the public of Nicole's description. She was described as four feet tall, weighing 51 pounds. And having brown eyes and brown hair,

she had a birthmark on the right side of her forehead. They described what she was last seen wearing, a peach-colored one-piece bathing suit, red shoes, and a green headband. She was carrying a plastic bag, holding a hairbrush, sun tan lotion, a purple towel,

a peach colored blanket, a white t-shirt, and green and white shorts. Investigators went door-to-door in the building, knocking on the doors of all 429 units, taking no chances. If a resident didn't answer their door, authorities searched the unit by using a crowbar

or drilling the locks. And I think some people may think that's a bit overzealous or overreaching, But given the circumstances, urgency seemed obvious. Toronto Star Crime Reporter Cal Malar, later told Toronto.com, there weren't concerns about we're violating people's rights or anything like that. One woman living in the building recognized Nicole from a photo that the police showed her and said that she had seen Nicole take the elevator down to the lobby.

Nicole's friend, Jen, said that she never saw Nicole enter the lobby. So this is really one of the most mysterious parts in Nicole's case. there have been some mentions online that after the witness saw Nicole get on the elevator, that the elevator made a stop at a floor, then went back up to the penthouse level, and then finally returned to the lobby empty. We don't know if this is accurate or if it is how police could piece these details together. It's also been reported in some places that police may have dismissed this witness's claim of seeing Nicole get on the elevator.

But I want to go back to this sense of urgency on the part of the authorities, because, you know, driving around with loudspeakers, canvassing the neighborhood, talking to witnesses, that's all, you know, somewhat fairly normal. We see that in a number of cases. What we don't see in a lot of cases is the police entering units if people are not home. You know, that that's something that kind of really caught my attention. Yeah, definitely doesn't seem like something that would happen. here in the United States due to the laws that we have, but again, neither of us being Canadians, it may be a little different there. And I think in all situations, ideally, the police would love

to be able to say, okay, we think this girl could be in this building someplace and we're going to search every apartment. But, you know, from a resident standpoint, as far as our rights, it does seem like a reach, an overreach. But there's been cases before. And I can't think of the name of the little girl that was abducted. and murdered, but she was in the perpetrator's closet when police came to his door to look for her. They were canvassing all the neighborhood trailers in this trailer park, and they knocked on this guy's door, and he talked to them, and they left, and she was in his closet at that very moment. So had they just gone into this guy's trailer and looked around, they may have saved this girl,

but that didn't happen. So I could see why police would want to do this. And, you know, obviously we want these abducted children to be found safe. But from a legal standpoint, in people's rights, I could see the argument against it. Well, this was also 1985. So like you said, we're not Canadian. We don't know, you know, all of the laws in Canada. And they may have changed since this point in time.

As far as that elevator's movements, There could be a big clue there. If these details are accurate, if Nicole had already entered the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby, it should have continued to go down no matter what. Even if someone on a lower floor had wanted to go up to the penthouse level,

the elevator would have gone down to the lobby before heading back up. If the elevator really did go to a floor between the penthouse and the lobby and then return to the lobby, it opens up possibilities of something happening to Nicole on the elevator or on that floor where the elevator may have stopped. If Nicole never got a chance to hit a button inside the elevator, then someone on a lower floor

would have been able to enter and go up because it wasn't reacting to a command. If she had already pressed the button for the lobby, it likely would have taken some kind of manual override, whether with a key, code, or emergency stop to change its direction. Now, obviously we're not elevator experts or technicians, but most elevators don't change course. Once up or down direction has been chosen, until the elevator gets to that desired level. Although police felt that the witness citing of Nicole boarding the elevator was important, another neighbor had information which police were also very interested in. This witness recalled seeing a woman in the hallway on the 20th floor, about 45 minutes before Nicole disappeared.

the woman who didn't look familiar to the witness was described as blonde and holding a notebook. But other than that, nothing else stood out to the witness. Police sought this notebook carrying blonde woman out and hoped to idea. They never did. And she never came forward. And you know, in many cases, there is a person seen by a witness that police search for. And in many of these unsolved cases, that person is never located. never identified.

And, you know, the thought that that goes through my head when we talk about that type of information is how meaningful to the case is that person? You know, this could have been the woman who was just holding a notebook. She wasn't involved. She didn't have any knowledge of Nicole or the case at all. Or she could have been involved, could know everything about this case. But we have no idea because police never identified her. They never found her.

They never talked to her. And she could have also just been a potential witness. That might also be why they wanted to talk to her because maybe she could have mentioned, hey, I did see this little girl in pool attire. And she was accompanied by someone. That would be a big clue. So even if she wasn't necessarily a suspect, she could be an important witness. Yeah, that's a great point.

I kind of left out that option. no doubt it's it's part of the mystery in any case where you know you have someone who is seen and you really just don't know what part if any that person plays in the case because police never get a chance to talk to them and you think in a high profile case like this that them looking for this woman would have been out there enough that she might have heard that they were looking for her and come forward voluntarily and And she didn't. So maybe she just didn't know that they were looking for her.

But I think most of us, if we were there and were innocent and more involved anyway, and we knew that the police were looking for us, we would just come forward. But, you know, one way or another, she didn't. So whether it's just because she didn't know they were looking for her or she was trying to avoid coming forward, we just don't know. On July 31st, the day after Nicole vanished, the search for her intensified, it became the largest police search in Toronto history. Horses, helicopters, dogs, marine units, and foot patrols were searching the area for Nicole.

The buildings, basement, maintenance areas, underground parking garage, and storage units were searched. Over 900 nearby residents volunteered to help search. A 20-member task force spent 25,000 man hours chasing down tips. 6,000 people were questioned. in just the span of two months. It really seems as if no stone was left unturned. Toronto crime stoppers, which had recently formed, immediately put forth a $1,000 reward for Nicole's safe return.

They also created a video reenactment to help jog the memory of any possible witnesses. Nicole's friend, Jen, who had been waiting for her in the lobby, played Nicole in the reenactment. Then a possible clue was found. A green headband was found in a field near Bradford, about an hour north of a Tobico. It seemed like a huge break in the case. Apparently the person who found it immediately thought of the description of Nicole in the news,

and remembered she was wearing a green headband. Police recovered the headband. There were conflicting reports as to whether Jeanette thought the headband could belong to her daughter. Some reports said that she didn't think it was Nicole's, But in a quote from an August 1985 article in the North Bay Nugget, Jeanette was quoted as saying, It was the same size and color as Nicole's. I can't rule out that it doesn't belong to Nicole.

So in the end, we don't really know if this headband was Nicole's or not, and hopefully police held on to it as possible evidence. In July 1986, one year after Nicole's disappearance, the building she went missing from was re-canvassed, in an effort to find a new witness or a new piece. of information, but nothing new came from it. Residents of Nicole's building and her community were left to wonder what happened to the eight-year-old. People wondered if Nicole could have been abducted. And if so, was her abductor living among them? Others considered the possibility that maybe

Nicole ran away. But, you know, how many eight-year-olds really ever run away? During the search for Nicole, it was revealed that she had kept a diary and in it, she had written something that may have an important connection to her disappearance. About two months before she vanished in May 1985, there was an entry that included, I am going to disappear. Nicole's father, Art, was the one who found the entry in her diary. He told the Toronto Star in 2001, as a parent, can I forget that? It's my daughter. She wrote it. I can't dismiss it. Was this entry by Nicole proof that she had an idea of what was going to happen to her or were these the ramblings of an eight-year-old's imagination? Both police and the community were stumped. And as time passed, discussion of the missing little girl dwindled down. And so we've covered a number of missing children's cases during our time as podcasters, morphine. And this question of young children running away comes up quite a bit. You know, a lot of these cases are treated much differently today than they would have

been in the 80s. And I think that's probably true whether you're talking about the United States or Canada or, you know, other parts of the world. But that question would or even could an eight-year-old run away and disappear on their own. comes up quite a bit. My first thought is always, it's possible for anyone to kind of run away. But how possible is it for an eight-year-old to subsist, to live? That's the part that always throws me.

Children run away. That's happened throughout history. What I doubt very seriously is that any eight-year-old could live on their own and never resurface under, you know, their identity. I, you know, we're not talking about a hardened criminal who has an escape plan here and has the resources to, to get new identities and, and you live on the run. I mean, it just seems far-fetched to me. Yeah, and I think far more young kids like eight, like this eight-year-old might say, I'm mad at you, I'm going to run away. I think I did that a thousand times to my parents, but never went through with it. I think most kids wouldn't,

or they might go outside and stand outside and, you know, look back to see if mom and dad are watching and then come back. But most of them don't leave. So I think the reality here is that it's most likely, even if she was planning on running away, she wouldn't have. But we have to go back to this diary entry because I think it's important. Those words, I'm going to disappear. What does that mean? Does that show that she has? had some kind of plan and that she was going to go through with disappearing. Did she have help? Could someone have been planning this with her?

Those are all things that the police have to consider. Or is this just, as we mentioned, the imagination of this little girl in this diary and it really isn't related to her disappearance at all? Yeah, the I am going to disappear is very strange in light of the fact that she did disappear. we don't have a lot of context around what else came, you know, before or after that statement in the diary. So context there is important. We don't have that. But one thing that you brought up is an eight year old could disappear if they had help.

If there was a plan to leave with an adult, that could, that could happen. But, you know, we're just speculating here. We're just kind of talking about what does this mean or what could it possibly mean. 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.

and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Police never gave up on Nicole's case and kept working it with the hope she was still alive someplace. Desperate for answers, police went as far as to travel to Quebec, Canada, to interview Art Moran's former brother-in-law to see if he had any answers. This brother-in-law had been convicted of murdering Art's sister in 1961 and was out of prison by the time Nicole went missing. Police thought if he could commit murder, maybe kidnapping wasn't out of the question, but after questioning him and verifying an alibi, he was rolled out as having anything to do with Nicole's disappearance. In 2001, an age-progressed image of Nicole

was released, showing what she might look like in her mid-20s. In 2007, Nicole's mother, Jeanette, passed away after suffering a heart attack. In 2013, Jeanette's son, Nicole's older half-brother, passed away. This was the son that Jeanette had from a previous relationship before she married Art. What's interesting about this half-brother of Nicole's, who was much older than she was, was that he had been taken away from Jeanette by his father and showed back up after 15 years away. Now, we don't know all the details about this, but some people find it interesting that not one, but two of Jeanette's kids vanished. Art confirmed it was true to the Toronto City. he knew saying, so why shouldn't I believe that the same thing could happen with Nicole?

He hoped she too would return someday. He added, I just remain hopeful that whatever happens, then Nicole is okay and one day we will reconnect. Probably if she's alive, she's got that hope too. By 2010, it appeared Art Morin seemed to be losing that hope in a 2010 interview. He told the Toronto Star, I couldn't imagine that it would be 25 years and she's still missing. When Nicole disappeared, I honestly believed we would be able to find her. I really grieve for these families of these missing children that we talk about. There's got to be so much hope along with the worry in the beginning that, yes, they're missing, but we're going to get them back.

will be reunited. And then, you know, in every case, you have what must be a roller coaster of emotions with the family hanging on to every little tidbit of information that either comes out in the news or that is provided by the police. And then what happens as time goes by? You don't give up hope, but in the back of people's minds, I always think that there has to be a little bit of doubt. And that doubt gets larger and larger, the more time passes.

I've heard people say who have lost a child to say a murder, that as tough as it was, as awful as it was, that they couldn't imagine what parents go through who have missing children because they can deal with their grief of a murder child. they can not move on, but deal with it at least, having an answer, even if it's not a good answer. They have some kind of resolution, whereas the parents of missing children never get that resolution. There's never an answer.

They have to go on wondering what happened where their child is. So it just seems like an impossible situation to be in for a parent. And you've heard that statement, right? the not knowing is the worst part. In 2013, there was a renewed hope, not directly related to Nicole's case, but in a case that her friends and family were paying attention to. In Cleveland, Ohio, three young women who had been kidnapped were able to escape the home that had been their prison.

They had been missing for a very long time. Michelle Knight had been abducted almost 11 years before they escape. She was 21 years old at the time she was abducted and a struggling young single mother. so many who knew her thought she voluntarily ran off. Amanda Berry, who was 16 years old when she was taken, and Gina De Jesus, who was 14 when she disappeared, had family searching, waiting, and hoping the entire time they were gone. For Gina's family, it was a long nine years,

for Amanda's an entire decade. After TV psychic Sylvia Brown told Amanda's mother that she had been killed, she completely lost hope. She took down remaining photos of a. Amanda in her home and finally began to give away her belongings. She died of heart failure just 16 months later. The news from Ohio reached Art Morin in Canada. Of the miraculous Ohio case, Art told the Toronto Star,

if you have a choice, then keep your hope. I was very, very happy that in this case, finally these young women could be freed from their captivity. At the time, Nicole had been missing for 28 years. This is just proof that. there is a possibility that Nicole was being held for whatever reason. This is what Art said to the paper. For Art, the hope came with a helping of pain.

She's 36, if she's still a lot. And he stated, I hope my daughter would never have to suffer for such a long time. He added, I would just really hope she would never have gone through this kind of thing. In 2014, a new video reenactment of Nicole's disappearance from her building was released to the public. Authorities at that time also clarified that they were uncertain whether Nicole ever made it down to the lobby or not. That same year, 2014, police acting on a fresh tip in Nicole's case, conducted a two-day search in the woods just north of Barry in Ontario. The search failed to yield any evidence. After they came up empty-handed, Toronto police inspector Jerry Cashman told CBC News.

Sadly, the investigation goes on. We're still searching for Nicole Morin. In 2019, an age progression sketch was released of Nicole, depicting what she may look like as an adult in her 40s. In July 2022, volunteers with Please Bring Me Home, Search to Park near the apartment building Nicole disappeared from, two cadaver dogs from Black Tracks K9 Corporation were involved in the search of the park. please bring me home central Canada director Brett Robinson described this overgrown area in an interview with Toronto Star News as really hard to get to. In that search, the dogs alerted to the scent of human remains. The search was based on a tip from 2020. In that tip, a woman claimed she had seen Nicole with a man the day she disappeared.

If remains were found in that search, which it doesn't seem like there were, they must not have belonged to Nicole, because in late February 23, Nicole's case was still considered open, and she hadn't been found. Toronto Police Detective Stella Harris confirmed this to the Toronto City news, saying, if Nicole is not alive and the worst has happened to her, it really hinges on finding her remains. Detective Harris considers the case solvable if someone can find Nicole's remains. Detective Karras added, We need to find her remains, and then whatever evidence that can glean, then I think we have a very good chance of solving it. Other officers seem to agree.

Constable Nicole Sutton, who at the time of the statement in 2021, was the lead investigator on Nicole's case, told the Toronto Sun, the answers are out there. It's just getting that missing little piece to connect some other bits of information that we have. The key in solving this case lies within the detail surrounding Nicole's disappearance.

that fateful day in 1985. As we mentioned, those details are few and far between. We know bits and pieces, but not much of the story, let alone the complete story. We don't know if Nicole was already wearing her swimsuit when she went to check the mail shortly before she was supposed to meet her friend Jen. But if she was, someone could have noticed her attire and realized that she would be heading to the pool. She was alone checking the mail, so it's not unreasonable to think that she would also be alone when she went to go swimming. If someone had noticed her or had already been stalking her, they wouldn't necessarily have to have waited for her to come back down to the lobby. The mailboxes likely had the unit numbers very clearly right on the front when Nicole

checked her mail. She may have revealed her floor and unit number. She would have also revealed her plan to come down to the pool alone to anyone who was within earshot of the intercom in the lobby that her friend used, someone could have heard their conversation and headed right to the elevator to wait for her, even if it was a phone-style intercom. Hearing the friend's end of the conversation would have probably still made it pretty obvious that she was talking to a girl her age who would be coming down to meet her soon. It's not known whether or not those who were in the lobby would have been able to tell what floor or unit someone was calling on the intercom the way they would have been able to see the unit number on the mailboxes. If this kind of scenario played out, then it's very likely that a resident of the apartment building may have been involved in Nicole's disappearance.

To be able to move about the building without calling attention to themselves and potentially whisked Nicole away into the privacy of. of their apartment. But as we mentioned, police went to every apartment in the building. When someone didn't answer the door, they entered the apartment by force. Is it possible that they somehow could have missed Nicole in one of those apartments? Or is it possible that by the time they did these searches, Nicole had been moved outside of the apartment building altogether? There are two similar cases in Parrish, France, that makes some people wonder if they could be

connected to Nicole's case, or is preying on a child in their apartment building easier than we may think. On April 8, 1986, an eight-year-old girl identified only as Sarah was on the elevator in her apartment building. A man who was also in the elevator said that he was a police officer and was then able to take her into the basement where he assaulted her and then strangled her. She survived the attack, but the next month, an 11-year-old girl named Cecile was found in the basement of her apartment building, she had been assaulted and strangled. The DNA would later be matched to DNA left at the scene of three killings and two sexual assaults between 1987 and 1994. In October 2021, a man identified as Francois Rove, a 59-year-old retired police officer,

was confirmed to be the source of that DNA. He took his own life after he learned that police were on to him. So obviously, this was a very bad guy. And, on top of that a retired police officer, which is even more scary. And I think this is something that we see quite often. You know, as we're researching cases, there are possible connections that pop up. This is one of them. There are some people who wonder if Francois could have possibly been in Canada, maybe be involved in, you know, abductions or murders there.

but we see this so often. You know, while researching one case, okay, here's another bad person doing very bad things. Is there a connection? Is there not a connection? That part we don't know. But it's one of the scary aspects of researching true crime, possible links, other people who pop up in a case and they're just nasty, nasty people. Yeah, I think one thing we've seen plenty of is that.

a lot of these bad offenders share a lot of the same habits and traits and search for the same kind of victims, you know, they have a certain way they go about it. So it, just because these cases share some similarities with the apartment building aspect doesn't mean they're definitely connected. No, not at all. I mean, some people have tried to say that there could be a connection, and I'm not saying there couldn't be. Obviously, it's, we're talking different countries and, but I think to your point, so many of these predators use a similar playbook for the lack of a better term, right?

They're targeting people who they believe to be vulnerable. In this case, you know, younger children because they believe it will be easier to carry out what they want to do. These individuals won't be able to fight back as much. Or they're attracted to young children. I mean, whatever the case may be. Unfortunately, we see it all too often. If we're picturing a stranger, dragging Nicole kicking and screaming out of the elevator, it's hard to imagine that no one heard or saw anything at all. But if you start to think about someone tricking a child, it becomes a little easier to see how it could happen silently. It seems that all it takes is someone identifying as a police officer and then maybe a

child lets their guard down or perhaps it was someone saying that they needed help with something or someone Nicole recognized or trusted. I think we've seen in some cases morph where a perpetrator pretends to be, you know, acquainted with a child's parents, mother or father or, you know, they say I'm a friend of your mom. Something's happened. She's asked me to take you somewhere. There could be something like that as well. If Nicole was abducted by someone who was not a resident that knew that Nicole was often alone on the elevator and on her way to meet another child. It was just someone who very quickly took a chance on a spontaneous opportunity and got lucky that they were not noticed. Perhaps one detail points to someone in the building that was stalking Nicole, taking advantage of their last chance to grab her without being seen.

Because it turns up that the day after Nicole went missing, a surveillance system was due to be installed in the apartment building. Acting Detective Sergeant Stephen Smith told the Toronto City News the next day there were going to be cameras installed in the building. The day Nicole disappeared was the last day that the building would have no security cameras. Detective Sergeant Smith added, did people know that? Maybe. In 2005, Toronto Police Superintendent Tony Warve voiced his suspicion to the Toronto son. It has to be someone in her building. He went on to explain that the chances of a stranger being on that elevator

are very slim. So a couple of things there, this revelation that security cameras were due to be installed the very next day. It's very interesting to me. The detective sergeant asked a question. Did people know that? And I would say they probably did. I'm sure there was some type of an announcement. There could have even been, you know, a flyer in the lobby, a notice sent out to residence, something like that. And then you have this police superintendent theorizing that it had to have been someone in the building. And I understand where that theory comes from.

It does seem to me that more likely than not, it would be someone in the building rather than just some stranger who entered this apartment building looking for an opportunity. I don't think you can rule out the second option, but I do understand why the authorities would lean more towards it being someone who lived in the building. They would know the layout. They would know the routines of, you know, the apartment building on a day to day basis. They would also have their own apartment somewhere in that building, as you mentioned more, to possibly hide Nicole for a period of time. Yeah, I think that timing of that security system is very interesting.

Is that a red herring? Is it just a coincidence that this happened the day before those cameras were to be installed? It could be. But at the same time, it shows that somebody may have been stalking Nicole, and this was premeditated, and they said, okay, this is my last chance because I'm not going to be able to get away with this. once the security cameras are up there. So, yeah, it seems like a really big clue in this case.

Well, I will say this. If it is a coincidence, it's one heck of a coincidence. So it could be, but I wouldn't bet money on it. I really wouldn't. If Nicole was abducted by a resident in her building, then the question becomes who? How closely did police examine each resident in their histories? Did any of the residents have records of abduction?

or crimes against children before Nicole vanished or in the decade since, do they still have a list of those residents and have police followed up on them to seek out potential suspects? Also, when some people didn't answer the door on the day police came knocking and were not home, do they have alibis as to where they were? Maybe they weren't home because they were at work or shopping. But at worst, perhaps they were away because they had transported Nicole out of the building and taken her someplace else. This could have easily been done by a large duffel bag or suitcase without really drawing

attention of witnesses. And I go back to the timing of this surveillance system. This is where this becomes so interesting. Had this been a day later, police. may have been able to answer some of these questions. In researching this case, it was clear that so many people blame Jeanette for letting Nicole be so independent, and many others actually suspect that Nicole never left the apartment that day, and Jeanette knows exactly what happened to her daughter. There are a limited number

of possibilities that day. Nicole either made it to the lobby and her friend somehow missed her. She was taken from the elevator on a different floor. She was taken before she got onto the elevator, where she never really left her apartment. It turns out there were other children in Nicole's apartment the day she disappeared. Jeanette, as we mentioned earlier, was running a daycare out of the apartment, which again may be the reason that Jeanette didn't realize how much time had passed between Nicole leaving and her friend calling up to the unit and later being concerned Nicole was missing.

It was one of the children she was caring for that actually told Jeanette that Nicole wasn't at the pool or the playground around 3 p.m. She was unable to leave the apartment to search herself until all the children were picked up. This is why the police were not called until 6 p.m. seven hours after Nicole was last seen. While it's easy to understand why Jeanette couldn't race out to search for Nicole with these kids in tow that she was responsible for, other people ask, then why not call someone else to relieve you or to look for Nicole? Why not call Nicole's dad or a building manager? Anyone that may have helped the search start sooner. It was reported that Jeanette began caring for children again, just one week after

disappearance. While it's shocking to some that parents would leave their children in a building where a child vanished, it's also suspicious to some that Jeanette was able to even think about caring for children when her own child was missing. Others, though, have defended Jeanette, saying that the penthouse apartment in that nice building could not have come cheap. And perhaps Jeanette had no choice, but to keep on providing child care in order to pay the bills. Whatever happened to Nicole Morn, whoever was responsible, it changed atobico. Nicole's friend Melissa told Toronto.com, the innocence was kind of shattered or ripped the way from the community at the time.

There was a societal shift that came about. Nicole's disappearance changed everything. The trust we once had and perhaps the complacency that had built up from being in a great neighborhood and a great building was gone. Nicole's dad, Art Morn, told the Toronto son, there is evil lurking in our society continually. It doesn't always happen to someone else. Sometimes it comes home. So there's two different things being said here.

And, you know, the first one we see in almost every case. It seems as though, you know, a tragedy shakes the foundation of a community. And it really changes it. You know, a lot of times, you hear this same statement, you know, the loss of innocence, right? People don't act the same way after this type of event that they did before, whether it's the fact that everyone starts locking their doors where they didn't before in a small community or its parents not letting their children go go out and play. You know, these are things that happen. They are the by-prone. They are the by-prone.

of a tragedy such as this, a disappearance, a murder, whatever it is that happens, it does seem to change communities, if not forever, for a long time. Now, does that complacency come back? Maybe. But maybe not. And then this statement by Art Moore, there is evil lurking in our society continually. I couldn't agree with that more. It's a sad statement, but I think it's spot on.

Now, that doesn't mean that I believe that everybody out there is evil and everyone is looking to do bad things. But I do believe there are bad people out there who are continually looking for an opportunity to do something bad. And I think as a society, we're very reactive. You know, you mentioned that complacency. it takes something terrible like this to put everyone on alert and remind us to take precautions to do things to protect ourselves, our family, which is a real shame that it takes something like a little girl going missing for people to double check to see what's going on with their kids and protect them. And the real scary thing here is that this happened right in her building that it was a place she was familiar with. She wasn't out after dark. She wasn't, you know, alone.

There were residents all over the place. So that's what's really frightening in this case, that it doesn't seem like there was anything particularly putting her at risk. Yet this happened. And to this date, no one has a clue as to how it happened, who was responsible or where she might be. It's rumored that at one point, Art Morin suspected someone from his church had abducted Nicole. But we don't know all the details around that.

Or if any churchgoers were looked at by police, some people have accused Art himself of playing some role in the abduction of his daughter. They said that he was under a great burden of bills and expenses when Nicole vanished. It seems that at some points, Jeanette and Art both suspected each other of being involved. They had been separated for about two years when Nicole went missing and we're in the middle of settling that or figuring out or likely battling for custody of Nicole. After Nicole's disappearance, Art briefly moved back in with Jeanette, but it didn't last long. Their divorce was finalized in 1989. For what it's worth, authorities have publicly cleared both of Nicole's parents and maintain

that she did make it out of her apartment that day. It is their belief that she was abducted by someone. And I always think more of, this is just another terrible part of these abduction cases where, whether it's people online or it's the authorities who suspect one or more of the parents, okay, you're grieving because your child is missing. And then on top of that, people are pointing the finger at you. that cannot be an easy situation at all. And a lot of times later on, the police come out and say, no, we're publicly clearing them.

But how much damage is done by the time that that happens? Yeah. And to be fair, I think we have to point out that most abductions of children are not at hands of strangers. They are by someone they know often a family member. So I think a lot of people suspecting the parents is natural based on the the data, but obviously the police in this case felt that it just wasn't accurate, that they had no involvement. It's been reported that in 2004, images were found in the files of a Dutch pedophile

ring and matched to Nicole's face using biometrical analysis by a Belgian organization. This isn't a 100% verification that Nicole is the child in one of these images, but if it is her, it doesn't mean that Nicole was kidnapped for the ring or taken to the Netherlands. It just means that wherever she ended up, pictures were taken of her ordeal, and later ended up in the hands of a group of pedophiles that got busted. It's just one possible clue in the frustrating and still unsolved case of Nicole Morin. One of Nicole's childhood friends, Melissa Alaschuk, is now a detective, constable, with the Toronto Police Service. She lived in the same apartment building and spent a lot of time together with Nicole. She told Toronto.com, Nicole and I would walk to school together every day.

There was never a dull moment between us. We would make our own fun, using our imaginations and play outside. Melissa also said that they used to go swimming all the time in the pool, the same pool that Nicole was headed to when she vanished. Of that, Melissa told the Hamilton News, I wasn't there the day that she went missing, but the circumstances behind it were all too familiar to me. She said reflecting on what could have been her.

if she had been alone that day and not Nicole. Like authorities, Melissa is waiting for the last bit of evidence that can answer the almost 40-year-old question. What happened to Nicole Mourne? As far as we know, Art Morn, now in his 80s, still lives somewhere in the greater Toronto area. Detective Karras told Toronto City News. He only wants to be contacted if police have solid information for him, which I hope one day soon will be able to do.

In order to move on from the pain of the loss and uncertainty, Art Moran told the Toronto son that he did eventually get rid of most of Nicole's belongings, but kept the box of the most personal things, saying if Nicole should ever return, I want to be able to show her she wasn't forgotten. There is still a $100,000 reward for the safe return of Nicole Moran. There's still hope that Nicole is out there somewhere alive. If she is, she would be 46 years old.

She could have children of her own. If you have any information about the disappearance of Nicole Morin, please call the Toronto Police at 416-808-2205 or the missing persons unit at 416-808-7411. You can also send an email to find Nicole at Torontopolice.on.ca. So morph as we wrap up this case, there is a lot of mystery surrounding the disappearance of Nicole Moran. And a lot of that mystery stems from the fact that there are so many unanswered questions. There is a real lack of detail when it comes to, you know, timelines, what the police know. And that's not unusual in unsolved cases. The police don't just let the public in on everything.

And they have valid reasons for not doing that. So we can really only theorize and ask questions and consider the possibilities. You know, was Nicole abducted by a resident of the building, maybe held for a period of time in that person's apartment, and then whisked away somewhere before all of the apartments were served? or was it a stranger who somehow entered the apartment building, saw this little girl alone, and took the opportunity to abduct her and managed to get her out of the apartment building using some type of ruse, which meant that, you know, she really wasn't putting up a fight

where other people in the apartment building would have noticed that something wrong was happening. Now, obviously, we can't answer those questions, but those are the, you know, just some of the questions to ponder in this case. Yeah, I think what's really frustrating about this case is there are not a lot of answers. There's a lot more questions. And anytime you have that in a case, then it leads to a lot of speculation theories. And when police hold back, stuff that they have to hold back, you know, it allows for people to go on with different theories and possibilities and discussions about what may have happened. But unfortunately, there's just really no proof in any one direction to go on.

I do think the timing of the security system set to be installed intrigues me. You can really make the case that a resident would have known that and would have known that that day was really their last opportunity. if this is a person who had been planning this and had specifically targeted Nicole Moran ahead of time, maybe that revelation about the security system caused them to, you know, move it up to that day or make sure it was that day. It had to happen that day or it would never happen. But the other thing about the security system is if this had occurred after, it had been installed. You know, how much more information would the police have? You know,

we mentioned the possibility of Nicole being transported out of the building. She was a very small girl. It could have happened in a duffel bag or in some type of suitcase, but police could have looked for that on the security system and then followed up with anyone who was seen, you know, carrying a duffel bag or rolling a suitcase or anything like that. But they just didn't have that type of information to go off of. One thing we really didn't touch on, and I think this could be an important clue, is the lack of things that were found, you know, at least as far as we know, she was carrying a lot of stuff.

She had lotion, sunscreen, towels, the things we mentioned, none of that stuff was. found. You would think that carrying all this stuff, if someone just snatched her and grabbed her, some of this stuff may have fallen. And it would be very possible that it would be found. You think an abductor wouldn't take the time to pick up everything she dropped and bring it with them. So you would expect to find some of this stuff someplace along the elevator, her path, the hallway, somewhere where this might have happened. The fact they didn't leads me to think that maybe she calmly went with someone either into their apartment carrying her stuff or out of the building, whatever the case is.

I think she carried that stuff with her calmly, and it wasn't an incident where she was snatched and grabbed. So I think that's a big clue. Yeah, I think it is too. I kind of believe that this wasn't a kicking and screaming scenario because someone most likely would have seen that or heard that and reported it. So I'm with you. I think this was someone that either she knew and felt comfortable going with,

knew on some level, maybe not a close acquaintance, but somebody in the building with whom she was familiar with, or someone she was not familiar with, but used one of these ruses that we've heard about in so many cases. right? Your mom is hurt. Your dad is hurt. I need to take you to the hospital or take you to them. You know, something along those lines where she was scared, but felt like she needed to go with this person because she believed what they were telling her. Again, all speculation. That's really all we can do at this point.

And it's just so frustrating. It's one of the more frustrating missing persons cases I think I've covered. that here you have that 15-minute window from when she leaves her apartment to where her friend is waiting down the lobby, and she never makes it down to the lobby, as far as we know. So somewhere in between, that answer has to lie. And to this date, it just hasn't been found. But that's it for our episode on Nicole Moran. If you love the show, and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, give us a rating. You can leave a review as well.

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You can also join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.