TIMES COLONIST
THURSDAY AUGUST 2 2001

Capital Region

Mom hopes TV re-enactment leads to daughter

By JESSICA WEIRMIER

Times Colonist staff

Judy Peterson is hoping this week's release of a one-minute CrimeStoppers clip will lead to concrete information about her daughter's disappearance eight years ago.

Lindsey Jill Nicholls was 14 years old when she disappeared on Aug. 2, 1993, while walking down a rural road near Courtenay. "The last thing I told her was 'I love you' and 'I miss you' only two days before she went missing," said Peterson. Lindsey had recently moved to the Comox Valley after her father, an RCMP officer, was transferred from Delta. Peterson said her daughter was not happy about the move. After some rough times at home, Lindsey skipped town and stayed with friends in Delta for about four weeks. She came back to voluntarily stay in a foster home.

Things were improving between Peterson and her daughter. Lindsey was making friends and a life in the small valley community. Then, on the August long weekend, Lindsey went for a walk. She was last seen on the 3300 block of Royston Road.

The CrimeStoppers' video re-enact­ment shows Lindsey leaving the foster home and heading down the road, wear­ing blue jeans, a khaki tank top, plaid shirt tied around her waist and white canvas shoes. A lot of people watch television and Peterson is hoping the CrimeStoppers clip will jog someone's memory. "Maybe someone's in a different space in their lives and could come forward (with information)," said Peterson.

Cpl. Fred Richardson of the Courtenay RCMP said the re-enactment is an important way to either find someone who has new tips or encourage anyone they've already dealt with to add new information. "There's always the hope that somebody will see it and it will jog their memory," said Richardson. "(We're) always optimistic but as far as gauging optimism, there's no way to know."

Thousands of children are reported missing every year, and the vast majority are runaways, said Rhonda Morgan, executive director of Missing Children Society of Canada. Last year in B.C. alone, 18,573 kids were reported missing. Of that number, 15,346 were recorded as runaways, 2,556 were "unknown" causes, 72 were parental abductions and only seven cases were stranger abductions. Cpl. Art Maye of Our Missing Children's registry in Ottawa said it takes one month to close files on average. By closed, Anderson said he means the child is either recovered or the case is satisfactorily resolved.

"We have the number of children recovered each year, but their files are from all years," said Maye. The registry doesn't break the files down into which year a file was opened. There are 17 missing children cases yet to be solved in B.C. Three of those are from Vancouver Island.

Camille Raina Ricketts went missing from Victoria in 1994, Lindsey Nicholls disappeared in 1993 and Michael Dunahee went missing, also from Victoria, in 1991.