Someone Knows Something - S10 E1: Jackie

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

Jaclyn Ferland-Smith moved to Playa del Coco with her husband Sebastien to find and build a new life. But then Jackie disappears, with no trace found. Jackie's family, with David's help, begins the process of picking up the pieces.Hear episodes early on CBC True Crime on YouTube, or get all episodes early and ad-free by subscribing here.

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N-E-T-H-R-I-S-com. Nethris, much more than just a payroll software. This is a CBC podcast. The following episode contains difficult subject matter, including references to suicide. Please take care while listening. It's okay. This is my stuff here. My door is for a yeah.

Okay, thank you. Hello, doggie. Hello, doggy. In here? Should I take my shoes off? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I usually take one. Okay, here?

It's good? Okay. No, no, I'm just, because I have two perros, and my husband, yeah, it's okay, it's okay. Thank you very much for meeting me here today, and I just wanted to meet you and talk about Jacqueline,

so whenever you're ready. Thank you for reuniting here today, and just I want to know you in person and to talk about Jacqueline. Okay. So my traductor, but no, Spanish. Yeah. Okay. Buenos.

Costa Rica. Tiny, lush, rich in species, but as I've found, people can disappear from anywhere. And there are many here who say they heard something or saw something or know something about a Canadian woman who did just. Just that. Gone with Little Trace. I'm David Ridgeon and this is the 10th season of Someone Knows Something, the Jacqueline Furlin Smith case. Episode 1, Jackie.

Okay. Let's see. I'm the youngest of three girls and so Jackie is the male sister. Sorry. I'm already... You feel fine and then you start talking and all of a sudden it just all comes out. Sorry. All right. Let's start again. Sure.

Yeah, we grew up on a farm and Abbott's furred out in Mount Lehman. I've reached Candace at her home in the Northwestern USA. She and her older sister Jacqueline, or Jackie, as her family and friends call her, grew up in BC's verdant Lower Mainland. Jackie disappeared on August 17, 2021, at the age of 40, and she's never been found. Growing up, we would play outside. I remember playing tag and water balloons and jumping on the trampoline. You know, we did all those outside fun things.

We all played sports, softball. Jackie ran track, played basketball, competitive sports. Jackie, she's really fast, good runner, and she was really dedicated to that. So she took it seriously and watched what she ate. was always really healthy and just motivated to that. Jackie was able to try practicing her healthy lifestyle in this tropical place she chose to move in 2019, several hours away by plane, Costa Rica. What was the first communication you got, or what was the first indication that you got,

that there might be something up down there? Well, my mom called me, and she said that Jackie's missing. and I said, well, what do you mean? You know, like, what does that mean? So my parents went down to Coco, and then I went down probably, I think it had been three weeks since she had gone missing with when I was there. And it was sort of just this feeling of what do we do, you know, especially being a whole different country, different language,

totally different system. How do we find somebody here? What do we do? And how do we help? And you just kind of feel like needle in a haystack. Where do you even start? Well, I kept on thinking that it was possible that maybe she was wandering in the jungle somewhere and ended up perishing there.

But she wouldn't do that. She would never go in the jungle. This is the first call of many I would do with Colleen and Gordon Smith, both on the line here from Abbotsford, BC, a farming couple in their mid-60s who raised cattle on a many-acreed property. I first came across Jackie's case while preparing for a family trip to Costa Rica to look at moths, fish, beetles, and birds, and try to focus on something that is not SKS. Jackie went missing suddenly, a Canadian in paradise, and had an agonizing. families separated by borders and language.

So after digging into some of what was online about Jackie's disappearance, a mixture of what looked like hope and conspiracy peppered with a bit of factuality, I called and Jackie's parents were interested in me taking a closer look. I asked them about the moment when they first heard that something was up. Yeah, I'm just picturing myself on the law and getting a phone call. And Sebastian, he just said, oh, Jackie, uh-uh. Jackie, you know, went out the night before and didn't come back. Sebastian Furland is Jackie's husband, age 48, from Quebec.

You know, right away we wondered, we thought, well, she'd never go out in the dark a night and not take her own car. Colleen and Gordon say it took them several days to get down to Pliadalco. We have a farmer, and so it took us a number of days, like five days to get things organized, that lot of cattle that friends look after it. and flights were, at that time in August, there's not a lot of flights going there. A few days after arriving, they went to see detectives in Santa Cruz, detectives from the OIJ, or OIHota, the Costa Rican version of the FBI. Yeah, I mean, we've got a fair bit of information.

Information that I'll hopefully be able to look at. Once in Costa Rica, Colleen and Gordon stayed with Sebastian at the home he and Jackie built together, while some of the local volunteer and police searches for her were undertaken. Sebastian Furland and Jackie were married for a year before moving to Costa Rica in 2019 together. Before they spent time in different Canadian cities, including Calgary. Sebastian had been a career vehicle technician in the Canadian Armed Forces from 2002 to 2019, and Jackie had trained at Simon Fraser University and Kinesiology. Jackie and Sebastian's relationship started in Canada, but it's their time in Costa Rica I want to know more about.

A glance online shows many accusations and much innuendo swirling around the case and particularly Sebastian. It's obvious that you look at family first, and Sebastian was with Jackie the night she disappeared from what I understand. I do wonder if he'll speak to me. beautiful star-filled night. I think the moon is quarter moon there. Waning in the northwest of the country, close to the border with Nicaragua.

I'm just about to go meet with one of the people that knew Jackie, not a best friend of Jackie's, but somebody who knew Jackie and who communicated with Jackie's husband, Sebastian, in the wake of Jackie's disappearance and her name is Krista.

Front, back. I'm assuming it's you. Krista was a long-time administrator on the search for Jacqueline Facebook page and she agreed to meet me here in Playa del Coco. She's taller and capable looking behind the wheel of her SUV. She's just come from a night out with friends

and is wearing a black dress. Well, I'm Krista Marshall and I've been living here in Costa Rica since 2018. We first came here for the quiet. Like we were both in the military and upon our release, we were looking for some peace. And we had visited Costa Rica a couple times before and we just knew that this was the place. I actually met Jacqueline on a couple of boat trips.

I didn't remember her from the first one, but she remembered me. And then we ended up talking on the second one. And yeah, I thought she was very nice, very quiet girl, but super nice. She added me on Facebook, and then there was a new vegetarian vendor at the local market. So I'd sent her a picture of their menu, and I had tried one of their items, and I let her know it was really good. But we never ended up hanging out one-on-one. So this is going up the hill to where there are places, right? This is, yeah, okay.

It is very dark here at night. Right. It is very dark, a two-track asphalt road trailing off into nothing, with fields and trees on both sides. Not a lot of other cars at this time around 8 p.m. I'd describe it as a foothill or terrace above the main town of Cocoa below. There's no streetlights on this particular road, which I think is leading to their house,

or to what the house that Sebastian and Jackie build. Yes. See, there's a little guardhouse here, and I don't know if there's anybody in it right now. Maybe. But I'm going to just park right here. There's people parked here all the time, so it should be very quiet. Krista pulls over onto the side of the road far enough to be out of the way

next to a small, concrete building she calls a guardhouse. Nobody appears to be in it right now, and there's no gate or turnpike, but I've heard that guards who were working at this very place might have seen something on the day Jackie disappeared, and I need to find them and speak to them in Spanish. It's pitch black, but for a sodium light nearby, that bathes us in a lurid tone, with insects providing what I find to be a life-affirming chorus in the background.

So the area that Jackie lived, can you just describe the area? What's it like? Is it a new development and how far from town is it? So it's a little remote, like it's on the mountain in between place Del Coco and Pha Eamosa. And there's a couple of different ways to get there. There's the main route and then there's a back road that goes up Kaseke Hill to the Kaseke development. There's some beautiful houses. It's pretty open.

You don't see a lot of fences. There's quite a bit of building going on right now, but in 2021, a lot of these houses that are built now weren't up here. Jackie and Sebastian lived in a condo for a while in Coco, but then, according to Gordon, they tired of the condo life, and it was too busy with all the renters coming and going, and they wanted more space. So in 2020 they began construction of this new place, a house in the Kaseke development.

Okay. Okay, so if we can just go buy the house and see if Sebastian's there, that would be great. And if hopefully he is, and I'll go see him tomorrow. Maybe he'll want to help try to find out where Jackie is. That would be amazing. The number one reason I want to talk to him. Right. I asked Krista how she found out that Jackie had disappeared.

So I saw a post on our local chit-chat group from Sebastian saying that she was missing. What day was that? I believe it was Tuesday or Wednesday. And he said that she had been missing for over 24 hours, I believe, at that time. So I asked what we could do to help. And Sebastian, he ended up meeting up with me and telling my husband, myself the circumstances around how she went missing. For the first year after this happened, I was kind of a mess because how can a woman just go missing

and us put out all that effort to find her and she's still missing. It just doesn't compute to my brain, you know? I don't know Sebastian really personally, you know, I spent time with him during the search and I walked away with not the best taste in my mouth because he talked a lot about her mental health. Krista makes reference to messages that she says Sebastian showed her that were from Jackie on the day she disappeared. Messages that he said showed she had lost it and was distressed. Krista doesn't have any copies but I'd like to see them for myself. Soon, I hope. Oh, and this is the house right here. Oh, it's got lights on.

It sure does. Okay. So what's the entrance, that driveway right there? Yes. Okay. Before I undertake any interview, I like to make sure I'm making the best possible approach for success, make the luck come to me. And knocking on a door late evening with a microphone,

probably not the best good faith gesture. So the door is accessible through the front there somehow? Yeah, the door is right. there? Okay. Yeah, all right. All right. I'll be knocking on that door tomorrow. Good luck. At Nethris, we are Canada's payroll experts. For more than 45 years, we have proudly supported local businesses. Powered by CGI, we provide a robust and secure technological infrastructure. Let our specialists handle your payroll so you can maximize your efficiency and focus on what truly matters. Try Nethrists now. The first month is free. Certain conditions apply. Visit Nethrists.com.

N-E-T-H-R-I-S-com. Nethriss, much more than just a payroll software. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business.

So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. Welcome to this very special edition of Pepito Live. Actually, a special edition is nothing but a call for help. A video posted to YouTube on September 5th, 2021, by a radio personality named Eve Mallet. His show called Pepito Live says its purpose is to serve the X-PAC community and to provide a live. window on all the beauties and treasures Costa Rica has to offer. But this episode

is about Jackie. Today, we invite Sebastian Ferland to share with us his story and his emotions concerning the disappearance of his wife. Sebastian Ferland, thank you for according us this interview.

Your wife, Jacqueline Smith-Ferland, has now disappeared since August 17th. Yes. Put us into context into what you remember and what happened. Okay. To make a long story short, okay, she had issues, okay, like with too much stress and things like that, okay, that cause her to have paranoias, basically. And she had other stuff happening, also insane day.

So that really stress her out and she started slowly to basically like lose. basically like lose it literally, like I want to die and that kind of stuff. And I tried to reason on her and she just lost it on me while I was in shower. And by the time I basically came back to myself and what the hell happened there and drive myself and like get out of shower. She was just gone. As an investigative artifact, this video is the same as any news item documenting the aftermath of a disappearance or murder. Some make a living dissecting videos like this for any inflective tell or error. Are the people making sense of a terrifying story that they experienced, or is something else going on?

Well, what we didn't know, Jack had a doctor in Ontario when they were there, and the doctor said she had schizoleeffective disorder, not schizophrenia of paranoia, or schizoaffective, but mostly anger issues, high as and lows. which she did have something, you know, right? In 2019, Jackie was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder

by a Canadian doctor, according to records. Schizoaffective disorder is diagnosed in people who show a mix of schizophrenia symptoms like hallucinations or delusions, along with mood disorder

characteristics like mania or depression. According to the Mayo Clinic, a person with schizoaffective disorder may talk about or attempt suicide. People, diagnosed with schizoaffective can be treated with medication and get other supports that make life manageable. A report dated February 14, 2019 by Dr. Anthony Basinski of Wasaga Beach, Ontario states that Jackie's schizoaffective disorder is manifesting in hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions,

and goes on to say, in particular, Jacqueline's stress levels are elevated in situations of requiring her to interact with strangers, social interactions, and any change to her routine environment. She does not adapt to changes to her routines and avoids interpersonal interactions when possible. Medications for anxiety and depression and for schizophrenia disorders are mentioned in the documentation, but I don't know what Jackie may or may not have been taking at the time of her disappearance. Medications mentioned in the documentation include eschatalopram for anxiety and depression, and Erapyprizol for schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. Jackie, she was a really high-functioning person.

You wouldn't know that to anybody around her. As some of your friends, she was the nicest person. Besides her, we interviewed neighbors, and they all like Jackie. She said hi and hi to the kids. She was a vittacharian going to vegan and exercise every day. She did stuff. She had to write down what she's going to do that day,

paddleboarding, core work, bike riding, maybe four things. she'd do every day. And then she would broke up a special vign cherry and food there and she really was healthy and looked after herself. So, well, if you knew all the stuff that she accomplished and you can't

be ill if you're doing that. Right? They had all of her safety. The psychiatrist says she had all of her safety skills with her or whatever, you know. So she wouldn't be going out in the dark without her own, you know, in a dark place there.

But a healthy active lifestyle doesn't mean that someone isn't struggling beneath the surface. Jackie's text messages could show a sunny demeanor. Jackie would text her parents, sent them photos of trees in her backyard showing their growth with pride. Happy birthday messages, nature shots, lizards, butterflies, electric sunset photos. June 10th, 2021, 820 a.m. I appreciate the good things you have done for me. I'm also sorry for my reactions that hurt you, love you too. June 20th, 2021, 10.20 a.m. Happy Father's Day, have a nice day. Heart emoji.

August 1st, 2021, 139 p.m. Hi, happy birthday to Dad. We were busy landscaping this morning, just cooling off in the pool now. If you have time to Skype, let me know. August 6th, 2021, 429 p.m. We are in Drake Bay, almost a day. the Panama border on the Pacific coast. Green parrots, scarlet macaws, and toucans were in the trees beside our patio this morning. August 15th, 2021, 1037 a.m. The bananas, lull, they were shorter than me.

Gordon replies, wow, that's unreal. We'll be great to have the fruit from everything. Jacqueline, yes, thumbs up emoji. Sebastian makes claims that Jacqueline suffered from mental illness of some sort and paranoia, and he mentions that. Made it out to be way worse. It was. So to those people who may say or think that you have something to do with her disappearance, what do you respond? I would just have to say to those people.

Obviously, they don't know me, okay, but I have nothing to prove to them. They can just come here instead of complaining and, like, see the efforts we're doing. So just come here and see. Sebastian has always denied having anything to do with Jackie's disappearance. So Jacqueline speaks English. So if by any chance Jacqueline would see this video, Sebastian, what would you like to tell her now? I would like to tell her that I just want her to be happy, okay? And if being happy for her, like, he's not with me, okay, it's fine.

I think that's the definition of love. right there. The rough notion so far is that Jackie left her house on her own at night and didn't return. If Jackie just left when Sebastian was showering like he says, it apparently wouldn't have been the first time that she walked out. According to information I have found, Jackie had left the house before and stayed at Tamarindo Sheraton and once at Coes in Hocko, a beach town in Costa Rica, but she wasn't found at either place this time. Well, he said she's done this before. She never did it for two nights.

She did it a few times for one night. I guess they had an argument. She would go at the hotel and then phone him and say she was okay. Sebastian served in Afghanistan in 2009, 2010, and sometime upon return began a process of claim related to PTSD, ultimately retiring in his mid-40s in 2019 on long-term disability. He received the general campaign star, Southwest Asia, decoration and the Canadian Forces decoration for serving 12 years with good conduct during a service.

Some feel Sebastian may know more about what happened to Jackie. Others who know him well say Heart of Gold. Where is the truth and how can you find it? She might have went to a hotel for a night but she always called back and told Sebastian she's okay and she'll be back in the morning. at this time she didn't take her car and where they live up there it's you know it's really dark and away from town you just don't go out and walking on the road

so we started not to believe the story had Sebastian ever called you before when Jacqueline had left the house like that no we haven't called us no we just heard about it later or something you know so if this happened the year earlier you say And he says in the YouTube video, Sebastian, that it had happened before, gone to a hotel, I'm safe, she would call.

He never called you and said, oh, Jacqueline's left. I don't know where she is. Or this happened. She left and she called. She's okay. He never called to reassure you or to tell you that she had disappeared before this. No. No.

Okay. I mean, do you ask what made this occasion different in your head? Like, why would he call this time, do you think? No, I never really thought about that angle of attempt. while he called that time. I guess because she hadn't come back. Jackie disappeared sometime in the latter part of August 17th, 2021. Sebastian called Jackie's parents late day on the 18th,

and a missing report was filed with police on August 19th. Jackie, it said, left behind her cell phone, her credit cards, and her wedding ring at her house on the evening of August 17th, 2021. I'll need to get into those details and confirm that. I kind of had two thoughts go through my mind. Jackie's sister Candice upon hearing that Jackie was missing. One was that she'll be back. You know, she'll be back.

She's probably just mad and she'll be back. Or maybe she killed herself. Those were the two things that were the only two options. in my brain that I thought at the time. I was thinking that we would find her and then physical evidence would go from there. That yes, suicide was still an option, but that there were other options.

And so I think I was just focusing on the finding part. She never really wanted to be on medication. She also wasn't happy because the medication made her gain weight, and so she was heavier than she had been. probably ever. So, you know, it's just like anybody, you know, you have the side effects of medication you have to deal with, and then you have to decide whether the side effects are worth the medication. And so she was on medication for a while there. Things seemed like they were going well, but she decided that she didn't like the side effects of the medication, and so

she did go off after a while. I asked Candace for her thoughts on Sebastian. He was, what's the right word? Somebody who came across when you first met him, you're like, okay, very opinionated and confident, self-assured, arrogant. So I didn't think anything horribly negative about it at the time. It just was like, wow, he was really opinionated. I would get messages or phone calls about fights that she had. with Sebastian or problems that maybe she, or a fight that she had with mom and dad, I don't remember hearing any physical part.

She would talk about the things that they would say to each other, and it sounded really low, low, horrible fights. It sounded like they both were having issues, things like, you know, you should kill yourself, and, you know, I hope you die, just horrible things, that you would never want somebody in a relationship, to be in a relationship like that. Some of the texts I've seen that Jackie sent to Candace

show what Jackie said she was experiencing with Sebastian, this one from October 14, 2019. Yes, we always fight now because we don't agree on a lot of things, but they never get resolved because he just loses it and often leaves, but he has never left all night or for good or ignored me. And a final one from April 28, 2021. Sebastian has told me at least a hundred times that he will kill himself and that the only good thing is that it will be my fault.

There is no way to know if Sebastian actually said these things, and I hope to ask him about it when I see him, along with the timings of everything that happened. Colleen and Gordon say that soon after their arrival to look for Jackie, things got weird. They had been staying with Sebastian and had even helped him clean up the place when police, Colleen and Gordon, say, took them aside and told them to leave the house. That's when they told us.

They took us in separately, obviously, from Sebastian. Said, get out of the house now. Really? Get out of the house now? I'm not scared of them. Even so, Colleen and Gordon say they took the advice of the police and left the house that day. Gordon then says the OIJ told him something else. They interviewed Sebastian, then you interviewed us, and the boss there leaned forward and said to us,

Sebastian was involved in her disappearance. They think that husband, Sebastian, was involved. I'll try to talk to police and get their opinions firsthand, maybe get my hands on their investigative file. Sebastian was never charged or arrested, and it's over two years later, so time to go find him and see if he can help me solve

what happened to Jackie. And it's the next morning, heading to see Sebastian at the house I was at last night. Then we can start the process of getting all the questions out and seeing if there's any answers to them. It's hot here. Nice, like, I don't know, about 28 degrees already.

Humid on the Pacific. Pacific Coast and we'll see what Sebastian has to say. Does the car have a flat tire is my next question. Northeast on high Eulet Glacia toward Avenida Central, Routa Nassio now Secondario 151. Got it. So just on my way up into the sort of foothills around, Playa Coco. Good dog. There's a nice dog, nice black and white dog on the street here. I don't know your name, but he doesn't seem nice. There's lots of stray or unhomed other animals here, dogs and cats. But I think Austroicans care for them quite a bit, even if they are stray. I'm not sure Sebastian's going to want to talk to me.

There's many reasons why he might not want to talk to me. This case happened 2021. He may not want to talk about it at all because he feels like he's gotten past. Jackie's disappearance, or there might be other reasons. we can never really guess those. So if Sebastian does not want to talk to me, it doesn't necessarily mean anything if he doesn't want to talk to me. There's lots of reasons not to say something.

Here's one of the guardhouses, unoccupied. This development has guard houses, and this one here is unoccupied. I'm just pulling up too. Now I'm just going to do a drive-by of the house here and just sort of see what I can see from the house, as is my practice. In 200 meters, your destination will be on the left.

Some guys looking at me there. Get my business cards ready here. Take off your sunglasses. Let's just listen for... Check, check, hello? Hi. Hello? Oh, shit, my batteries are going low. Okay, I'm going to have to change the batteries.

Good thing I checked. Good thing I brought... Check, check. Hello, that's good. I've got my mic over my shoulder here. Makes it look less threatening, but who knows? Check, check. Good morning. How are you? Good.

Is Sebastian here? Someone knows something is hosted, written, and produced by me, David Rigen. The series is also produced by Maria Jose Burgos, sound design by Evan Kelly. Natalia Ferguson is our transcriber. Emily Cannell is our digital producer. Chris Oak is our story editor. Our executive producer is Cecil Fernandez.

Tanya Springer is the senior manager, and Arif Nurani is the director of CBC Podcasts. You can binge all episodes of someone knows something early on the CBC True Crime YouTube channel, or for early and ad-free listening, subscribe to the CBC True Crime Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click on the link in the show. show description. If you're looking for more investigations, check out the past seasons of

Someone Knows Something. There are nine cases you can binge listen to now. Season 8 investigates the disappearance of Angel Carlic, a young indigenous woman from Whitehorse Yukon. Season 9 revisits my investigation into the murder of Christine Heron and the conviction of the man who confessed to her murder. Find someone knows something on the CBC True Crime YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.