She is a missing person that won’t disappear. RCMP in Nanaimo, B.C., made another appeal in the late winter of 2011, for information on the whereabouts of Lisa Marie Young. “Through the years we have received hundreds of tips on the car, on the male driver and her whereabouts on the evening of June 30th,” said Constable Gary O’Brien, media spokesperson for the Nanaimo RCMP. “Many of those tips were helpful in our investigation. Now we want to hear from those persons who, for whatever reason, have not contacted us. Someone knows what happened to her and the time to call is now,” said O’Brien.
The case of the Lisa Marie Young is a baffling one that will not stop haunting the city of Nanaimo, B.C., a city of 85,000 at the centre of Vancouver Island. A few years passed on the case when (former) Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan, was heard to say, "They still talk about it. A lot assume they know who did it." Who did what?
It turned out this Canada Day weekend of 2002 Lisa Marie went to Club 241 on Skinner Street, was then seen leaving the club at 2:30 A.M., and was last seen leaving a house party at approximately 3 A.M., a probable 45 minutes after leaving the nightclub. She is leaving the house party in the Cathers Lake area near Jingle Pot Road, reports confirm, in the company of a 20-something male driving an older-model red Jaguar.
This male had come onto the scene serendipitously to act as chauffeur after the bar closed. Lisa Marie went to the house parties with two male acquaintances and the driver, first to one house party, then another. At this point, Lisa said she was hungry and the driver offered to take her to a nearby sandwich shop. The two other acquaintances stayed at the party. Police know who the driver was, as do the Youngs, and he remains a ‘person of interest’ in the case.
He becomes the last known contact with Lisa Marie Young, and then she’s gone. First, as the early morning hours waned, however, she made a worrisome cellphone call to a friend. It was 4:30 A.M. by the time she used her cell to call a girl friend, and this time she expresses concerns about what is happening, and about the driver. Lisa told her friend the guy didn't take her to get something to eat, rather, he drove to another house where she didn't feel comfortable about the unfolding situation.
Police say, “The driver, like many others involved in this file,” is simply a person of interest. Turns out the red Jaguar in which Lisa was last seen was owned by the driver's grandmother, a ‘prominent’ business person in the nearby Vancouver Island community of Qualicum Beach. The police seized the car and questioned the driver, and the car was released after a thorough inspection, as was the person of interest. The grandmother sold the Jaguar and talked about suing over discussions that were implicating the grandson.
Joanne Young told in an interviewer a couple years after the disappearance that the family knew from the outset Lisa Marie would not be coming back. "We were really tight, so we knew," says her mother. Well, fair to say, if Lisa Marie was having issues in life, she probably told her mother. Lisa Marie was part of a close family of five. Things were working out, and she had a new job and new place to live. The evening was supposed to be nothing more than a summer night on a long-weekend out with friends at a nightclub. It involved a couple visits to house parties in the Cathers Lake area of Nanaimo shortly before she disappears. Lisa Marie never called Sunday morning and never answered her cellphone.
Don and Joanne Young have worked tirelessly to piece together a coherent picture of their daughter’s last known travels. According to the information they have gathered, Lisa Marie leaves the club with two male friends and they meet a stranger in the parking lot, who amicably invites them into a red Jaguar to drive them around to parties. First they went to one party, then another. Lisa Marie left the second house party because the driver offered to take her to a fast-food outlet. It appears no stop at any food outlets occurred, so that never happened, and by 4:30 A.M. she phones a friend to say she is nervously waiting in the Jaguar while the driver stopped at a residence.
Joanne Young tells of meeting the person of interest in a police interrogation room. Police refuse to confirm Joanne’s discussion of late July 2002 when she was taken by RCMP to a meeting with the Jaguar driver. It was brief, she reports, and she asked the driver to tell her where her daughter was. She recollects that he replied, "I can't." Then he paused, voice fading, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to disrespect your family ..."
The Youngs have never learned where the driver claims to have dropped off Lisa Marie. Since police call this, “a complex investigation,” they are unlikely to disclose facts that could prejudice an on-going investigation.
Nanaimo has the typical urban problems like all cities, and drugs are part of the scene as in all corners of the country, but Cather Lake and Harewood areas are composed of middle class, family-oriented neighbourhoods. Besides Lisa Marie was familiar enough with the night-scene in the city anyway. Why wouldn’t she be? She was a bartender for three years at Club 241 (under it’s previous name, The Jungle). She was a good looking woman.
She had a three year run behind the bar of The Jungle, a long enough employment history, and remained popular at her former place of employment that had undergone a makeover of it’s own. Lisa Marie must have been adept at navigating a nightlife scene. She told her dad she always traveled with friends. Nobody knows the spiral that leads to and from this event. Nobody knows how hers became an unfinished life, a finished one, or one finishing in a twisted scenario far away in place and mind.
Joanne Young now deceased continued to believe the driver is holding back, while her husband Don is less doubtful about the person of interest’s story. Police are not letting the case freeze either, and investigators continue to visit the file, often with a fresh pair of investigative eyes. They speak to the family, and appeal to public for leads. The media revisits the case often. The cold case continues as an active investigation, perhaps pushed along by community efforts such as that done by Nanaimo’s Alison Crowe, high school friend of Lisa’s, and a singer/songwriter who recorded Lisa’s Song.
No charges have yet been made in the case. Lisa's family continue to organize vigils and to conduct their own searches. If you have any information on what happened to Lisa Marie Young, please contact the Nanaimo RCMP at 250-754-2345 or call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477(TIPS). And go online at www.nanaimocrimestoppers.com to submit your tip and watch the Youtube re-enactment of her disappearance.
