Desperate mom begs help in finding daughter

By Richard Watts Times-Colonist Staff

The Vancouver Island mother of a vanished teenaged girl is making a desperate appeal for news of her daughter. Lindsey Nicholls, now 15, disappeared from the house where she was living in Comox on Aug. 2 and investigations have failed to turn up even a hint of what happened to her. Now, after five agonizing months of "not knowing," her mother, Judy, is pleading for anyone to come forward with some information about the missing teen.

"I don't know what I can say. She knows we love her," said Judy Nicholls. In recent years, Lindsey had been having problems at home. The family had moved to Comox from Delta about two years ago when her RCMP father was transferred. Nicholls said Lindsey found adjusting to her new home very difficult and never made any bones about not liking Comox.

"It was all 'Comox sucks,' and 'I want to go back to Vancouver!" The mother doesn't believe her daughter had a drug problem and doesn't believe she has ever worked as a prostitute. Lindsey was just 14 and cranky.

Then last April she ran away, back to Delta to stay with the family of a friend there for about four weeks. When she came back she stayed first with a group home, and then with a foster home. "It was the only way we could convince her to come back," said Nicholls. Things started to turn around. With Lindsey on neutral ground, the communication between mother and daughter improved and the teenager made new friends, started dating, and appeared to be making a new life.

"I thought she was doing really well. She had joined the air cadets and she went skiing just about every weekend." And then, on the Monday morning of the August long weekend, she left her home and hasn't been seen since. She took none of her things and no money. She just left.

With her history as a runaway, much of the investigation has centred around trying to track her down through her friends. One report of a body had police dragging the river near Comox, but everything turned up blank. Besides police, the case is now being investigated by the Calgary-based Missing Children Society of Canada. Rhonda Morgan, chairwoman of the society, said Lindsey's case is unusual because most runaways turn up within days and can be easily found through friends.

"If we don't get something within the first week, I would be surprised. These kids keep in contact with their friends." Society investigators have checked out leads on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland and turned up nothing. Lindsey's picture has been put on a poster and callers have telephoned with leads, all of them empty. "We are hoping that someone will call in ... It could be she got in with a group of kids that we are not aware of and that's why we can't find her," said Morgan.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Missing Children Society of Canada at 1-800­661-6160 or the Courtenay RCMP.

Lindsey is described as 160 centimetres (five-foot-three) weighing 52 kilograms (115 pounds) with blond hair colored with red henna.

When she was last seen she was wearing blue jeans, a khaki tank top, a blue plaid shirt tied around her waist and white deck shoes.

LINDSEY. Where is she now?