The search for Autumn Shaganash, the Barrie woman who has been missing since last summer, is continuing at Sunnidale Park on Thursday.
The organized search is on day two of the three-day effort, with help from the Barrie Police Service and ISN Maskwa, an Indigenous-led organization which has been brought in to assist with the search for the 26-year-old Shaganash, who was last seen in the park before she vanished on June 10, 2023.
Her last known location was captured on a home-surveillance video near Anne Street close to Sunnidale Park on June 10, 2023.
ISN Maskwa is owned by the Missanabie Cree First Nation and is operated in partnership with Investigative Solutions Network Inc (ISN).
Volunteers from Beausoleil First Nation are also taking part.
A volunteer canine search team consisting of approximately five dogs kicked off the renewed search on Wednesday morning and continued throughout the day.
Smoke swirled in the breeze around an elder near the Dorian Parker Centre as a smudge was performed, which included about a dozen police officers and volunteers as they gathered in a circle together in the parking lot.
A few of Shaganash’s family members were on hand, some travelling down from Hearst, a nearly 10-hour drive away, offering support and comfort during the emotional time.
“It has been almost 17 months since I last saw my sister. I miss her. Her family miss her and her friends miss her,” said Lili-Anne Moore, Autumn’s sister, as she read out a prepared statement to members of the media gathered in the park.
“There has never been a day that has passed where I don’t wonder where she is, and we have never given up hope that one day that she will be found and come home to us,” she added.
“Autumn, if you are out there and hear this, please find a way to let us know where you are and the police will come and get you.”
Moore thanked ISN Maskwa, who travelled to Barrie to help find her sister. “Thank you to the ground searchers from the Beausoleil First Nation fire department, the canine handlers and their dogs.
“Autumn, please come home, we miss you.”
Standing near a trailer in the parking lot was Paul Syrette, acting director of operations for ISN Maskwa. He is a former police officer with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Anishinabek Police Service. He is also a former chief of the Garden River First Nation, situated outside of nearby Sault Ste. Marie.
“The family of Autumn Shaganash reached out to some of our contacts through the Chiefs from the communities where she is from,” he said at the park on Wednesday.
“They started a conversation about a year back, just to engage and look at an opportunity to potentially help find Autumn, and in that capacity of support to, first and foremost, the Barrie Police Service that are working hard to help find some resolution for this family,” said Syrette.
Syrette said ISN Maskwa’s mission is “just to help this family … First Nations helping First Nations, and to be able to sit with the elder here, and to be able to sit with family members and talk with them and support them.”
He added it is “important from a First Nations lens on how we support each other. What do I hope to accomplish today? Some new friends. A sense of peace for the family, and to help and support, and to just sit and listen.”
Peter Leon, the communications coordinator with the Barrie Police Service, was also on hand, working with Syrette and his organization.
“Barrie police are participating in what is the seventh search of Sunnidale Park since Autumn Shaganash was reported missing back on June 12 of last year,” he explained.
“We have been approached by ISN Maskwa. They have reached out to the family and offered assistance to participate in a search, which we openly support and welcome,” he said.
“With winter soon upon us, this will give us another opportunity to conduct a search of the park … just in case something may have been missed, or something may have appeared as a result of the changing elements of the weather,” Leon added.
Leon said the police investigation remains “pretty much in the same status that it has been; active. It is ongoing. It will always remain open until we are able to either locate Autumn and confirm her whereabouts, or reunite her in one manner or another with her family.”
Owen Monague, the fire chief in Beausoleil First Nation on Christian Island in Georgian Bay, was asked to participate in the search, and brought eight members of his team to Barrie.
“We gladly accepted and we are honoured we were asked to be able to provide our service, our trained individuals and our equipment to this search.
For Monague, personally, “transcending these jurisdictional boundaries to be able to assist, and provide some sort of resolution to the family. Obviously, in a regular situation, we wouldn’t have been in the community like this because our boundary is in our community where we operate, but to come here to the city of Barrie and be able to assist, we’re honoured.”
SAR-1, a search-and-rescue training company based in Listowel, brought in three of its members to assist in the search.
"Our role (today) is giving back to the First Nations community, partnering with ISN Maskwa, and helping in the search for Autumn, and supporting the Barrie police,” Jamie Stirling, company president, said during a lunch break at the park on Thursday.
Stirling noted that between the three of them, they bring over 100 years of search-and-rescue experience.
“We bring a modern-day search approach to it, where we use data to tell us where we should look, and what the percentages are of what our results will be (in a given search area), and then we use the data from GPS units and compasses to tell us where we’ve been, and how well we’ve searched the area,” he explained.
The search at Sunnidale Park wraps up Friday.
Timeline of events
- June 9, 2023: In the evening hours, Autumn Shaganash leaves her sister’s home in the Allandale neighbourhood, near Burton Avenue and Frank’s Way. She was wearing a black hoodie, shorts and Puma sandals. She was also carrying a black and tan purse.
- June 10, 2023: Between 9:30 a.m and 9:45 a.m., Shaganash’s sister receives a text message asking to be picked up. Only three minutes had passed when her sister tried to respond to the message. But Shaganash’s phone went to voicemail and appeared to have been turned off, according to police. (In January 2024, the private investigator hired by the family noted that, in an effort to unearth potential clues, he had gained access to her “digital footprint” and discovered a message sent in the early-morning hours of June 10, which “alluded to her presence at an unspecified location.”)
- June 10, 2023: Police say Shaganash was making her way to the city waterfront to watch the Barrie Airshow with a male friend who was walking ahead of her when she vanished. At the same time, an ALS fundraising event was taking place in Sunnidale Park. She was seen in the Kozlov Street area near Sunnidale Park, and in the Sunnidale Road and Letitia Street area between 10 a.m. and noon. Police have said they have video evidence of this.
- June 12, 2023: A missing-person investigation is launched after local police are notified of Shaganash's disappearance. Sunnidale Park was subsequently searched numerous times using police drones and canine teams, but to no avail. Police had also searched downtown Toronto, without any positive results.
- June 21, 2023: Police are asked if the case is being treated as an abduction or possibly linked to human trafficking. “There is no evidence that human trafficking is involved, but we obviously are going to look at every possible angle here,” says a police official. “There has been no confirmation that she is being held against her will.”
- June 27, 2023: Barrie police make a public appeal to people who were in attendance at the ALS fundraiser for potential photographic/video evidence that could help in the investigation.
- Aug. 2, 2023: Investigators release new photos in hopes of jogging people’s memories and generating new leads in the search for Shaganash.
- Sept. 19, 2023: Shaganash’s 27th birthday.
- Nov. 14, 2023: Shaganash’s sister pleads with the public for information. “We really miss her. It’s been too long,” she says.
- Jan. 23, 2024: Shaganash’s family announces they have hired a private investigator, Derwin Johnson, of Toronto-based Present Truth Investigations.
- Jan. 27, 2024: The private investigator tells BarrieToday the family has provided evidence to him that they had obtained independent of the police investigation. This includes video surveillance footage from a residential home showing Shaganash walking with the male friend, mentioned above, but the family has also acquired additional video that “they are kind of holding close to their chest,” Johnson says. “They’ve shared (it) with us and we are analyzing that video now.”
- Feb. 8, 2024: Almost eight months after Shaganash was reported missing, Barrie police hold a news conference to announce a $50,000 reward for information that helps locate the missing woman. During the question-and-answer period with reporters, police say they have had “numerous” leads.
- April 9, 2024: Barrie police announce they have partnered with an advertising company to post signs on Barrie Transit buses and billboards around the city in an effort to locate her.
- May 30, 2024: The private investigator tells BarrieToday “a few witnesses have come forward, and leads have been forwarded to (Barrie police), but as you are aware, they will not share the results of their investigative efforts, or if the leads had substance.”
- June 9, 2024: Shaganash’s sister tells BarrieToday about a lead being followed involving a black car a witness said was in the Sunnidale area asking a female for a ride. She said a similar black car can be seen in surveillance video.
- July 9, 2024: North Bay police say Barrie police received information that Shaganash had been sighted in North Bay on June 21, and asked the public for help in locating her.
- Aug 8, 2024: Shaganash’s sister, Lili-Anne Moore, confirms to BarrieToday the North Bay sighting was not Autumn, after reviewing the video footage obtained by police.
