So many questions. Few answers......

I enjoy reading about cold cases. They appeal to my curious nature. Like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, a cold case is put on the shelf while newer crimes take priority. One such case, which is still an active investigation, is the sudden disappearance of Nicole Louise Morin, who was eight years old when she left her Toronto apartment to go swimming with a friend. The date was Tuesday, July 30, 1985, and it was turning into a hot day. Just before 11 a.m., Nicole walked out of her 20th floor apartment, made her way to the elevators down the hall....and vanished. She hasn't been seen or heard from since.

I never knew Nicole, but I can't help but think back to the summer of '85 and how similar my life was. I lived in a building with a pool next to it. I loved to swim and often did on sunny mornings. But I came home. Nicole didn't. I thought my neighborhood was the safest place in the world. But then the posters went up with the word 'missing' in big letters along with a composite image of Nicole with her swimsuit, towel, and other bits and pieces she took to the pool. My friends and I were just a bit more uneasy as Nicole became another statistic, a child the police couldn't find.

Other than deciding whether to hang out by the pool or the mini mall down the street, there was little to be concerned about. I'm sure Nicole had similar thoughts. Most of the residents of her building were probably at work, and the elderly and/or retired might have decided to stay inside where it was cooler. One theory is that on the way down to the lobby someone boarded the elevator, grabbed Nicole, and got off. Another report suggested she made it downstairs and was taken outside the building. One way or another, nobody was around to see where Nicole might have gone. Unlike New York City few, if any, apartment complexes in Toronto in the mid-80s had doormen or surveillance cameras. Mine didn't. It was a simpler time, more innocent. Bad things did happen, though, and the Toronto police had their work cut out for them as they questioned hundreds of people.

Nicole's building had multiple underground garages, utility sheds and storage rooms separated by vast lawns and parking lots. No dice. Likewise, a search of creeks and parks near Pearson International Airport revealed nothing. In a time when the internet was a long way off and no one had cell phones equipped with cameras, the trail went cold. The 31st anniversary of this crime has come and gone, and the police are none the wiser. Perfect crimes do exist, and some people are too clever to be identified.