Melanie Nadia "Mel" Ethier (born 25 December 1980) is a Canadian teenager who disappeared in New Liskeard, Ontario, in 1996. As of 2025, Ethier's whereabouts and the circumstances of her disappearance remain unknown.
Background Melanie Ethier was an honours student at École secondaire catholique Sainte-Marie in New Liskeard, Ontario. Ethier has been described as being "salt of the earth" and having a "lovely personality". She is the daughter of Celine Ethier, whose family had moved to the New Liskeard area when she was six years old. She acted as a "second mother" to her younger sister, Jessie, who was five years old in September 1996. She was one of only three Black girls in the community. Ethier's father, with whom she had no relationship, was from Botswana and met her mother while attending a mining school in neighbouring Haileybury, but was relocated to another school during the pregnancy and returned to Africa once his schooling was complete.
At the time of her disappearance, the combined population of New Liskeard and its neighbouring communities was roughly 11,000. Ethier was employed at a local daycare, the Garderie Richelieu, and learning self-defence from a family friend. She intended to become a teacher after graduating from high school. The Garderie Richelieu she worked at was attached to her high school; Ethier would open the facility early in the morning, go to school, return after school to help the younger children off the bus, and remain until it closed in the evening. Ethier's mother also worked at the daycare while also taking college courses in Sudbury.
In September 1996, Ethier stood 5'5" tall; weighed approximately 120 lbs; and had brown eyes and long, braided black hair. She was fond of wearing hair extensions. She had not been diagnosed with any mental illness and was not taking any medications, and friends who knew her at the time of her disappearance do not believe she was suffering from an undiagnosed condition.
Disappearance
On the morning of Saturday 28 September 1996, Ethier visited the home of her mother's close friend, Sylvie Chartrand. Only Ethier, Chartrand, and Chartrand's six-year-old daughter Steffany were present at the house as Chartrand's partner, Denis Léveillé, and her son, Jason, were out of town. During this visit, Ethier broke a nail which caused her to become upset. Chartrand later speculated Ethier's disappointment over her broken nail was compounded by the family's financial difficulties, as their car was broken down and phone service to their house had been cut off the previous day due to unpaid bills. Ethier left the home and travelled downtown, by chance running into her best friend at a bus stop outside the New Liskeard Public Library. Her friend, who had been doing homework in the library, decided to abandon her schoolwork early and join Ethier.
The two girls visited several locations in New Liskeard, including a Pizza Pizza where they had lunch. Over pizza, Ethier floated the idea of becoming a teacher and volunteering in Botswana, the country her father was from. Ethier purchased candles, frosting, candy hearts, and a new cake pan to make a cake for her grandmother's birthday, which was going to be celebrated the next day before her grandparents went out of town. The pair also visited a house in nearby Dymond to collect money from someone Ethier had babysat for. At some point, the girls met up with Ethier's boyfriend, Neil Fortier, who she had been dating for three weeks; and their friends Dave Bromley, Jay Denomme, and Ryan Chatwin. Fortier described Ethier as being in a "good mood" that day and night.
The group stopped in at a video rental store around 21:00–21:30 EST and rented the movie Sudden Death. At 22:00 that evening, the group arrived at the Ethier home to watch the movie. Ethier's mother was spending time with Melanie's grandmother in their living room and suggested that her bedroom was too disorderly for hosting guests. Although given the choice to watch the film in her bedroom, Ethier told the teens they would have to watch the movie elsewhere and they left the residence. The group attempted to watch the movie at the home of Bromley's then-girlfriend, Samya Benchabi, who was unable to host them as her family was preparing for a move but joined them briefly as they walked to another house. Benchabi left the group when they reached the Armstrong Street bridge, at which point she returned home. Ethier's female friend complained that the air had turned cold around this time.
Shortly after 22:00, the group relocated to a house on Pine Avenue where Ryan Chatwin lived. Chatwin's parents were present in the house, but remained in their bedroom. Bromley returned home at this time. The house was a roughly ten or twelve-minute walk from the Ethier home, or about six blocks. According to those present, the teens watched the movie quietly in the basement while Chatwin's parents were asleep upstairs, and consumed no alcohol or drugs that evening; investigators have stated that they believe this to be true.
Before the movie finished, Denomme left the house at around 00:30–01:00 and returned home. Ethier's female friend also left early in order to catch a ride to Haileybury, also departing at around 00:30–01:00. While leaving the house, she encountered a suspicious vehicle which slowly approached her as she crossed through an intersection, as if assessing her. The girl was so unnerved by the incident that she ran from the scene to the next intersection by the Armstrong Street bridge, which was better lit. She followed the same route that Ethier is thought to have taken to Melanie's home, where Ethier's grandparents were waiting to take her home. She arrived at the Ethier residence shortly before 01:00, catching the last few minutes of Saturday Night Live before being driven home. The vehicle she encountered has been described as a white or light-coloured Chevrolet Monte Carlo or similar two-door model with signs of being in poor condition, including a grey patch on the right side which was likely hiding a hole or other damage. The witness believes the occupants were two teenage boys or young men, but that she can't remember ever seeing the car again. At the time of her departure, only three people remained in the house: Ethier, Fortier, and Chatwin.
The last confirmed sighting of Ethier was at around 01:30–02:00 on Sunday, 29 September 1996, when she left her friend's house and began making the walk to her home alone and on foot. It was uncommon for Ethier to walk home by herself, but without phone service she could not call home for a ride. One of the boys escorted her to the door and watched her walk west down Pine Avenue East. At this time, she was wearing a green Nike windbreaker, a white t-shirt with a blue heart Pepe logo, blue jeans, a black belt with a silver buckle, black boots with a short heel, a necklace, and a watch.
Ethier's route would have taken her through three intersections, over the Armstrong Street bridge, past a gas station and apartment building, up a back alley or along a main road, and finally to the top of Church Street where the Ethier residence was located. After the bridge, the last stretch of her walk home involved a poorly-lit back road where the video rental store she had visited earlier in the day was located. The weather that evening was clear, and as it had only been two days since the previous full moon it is believed that there would have been some natural light along Ethier's route.
Celine became aware of her daughter's absence the next morning, when Melanie's alarm clock roused her at 06:00 or 07:30 and she discovered her daughter was not in her bedroom. As it was not uncharacteristic of Melanie to spend the night at her friend's house, Celine went back to bed and did not wake again until 08:00–09:00. Melanie's grandparents arrived at the house at 10:00 to celebrate her grandmother's birthday, at which point Melanie was supposed to have finished preparing the cake she had bought materials for the day before. Celine did not immediately suspect anything was amiss due to Melanie's habit of responsible behaviour, but she was alarmed when it became clear Melanie had not made it home the night before. Celine and her father drove to Tim Hortons to purchase a cake and call around in hopes of reaching Melanie, where she learned her daughter had left the Chatwin residence heading home. Melanie also did not appear at her daycare job as scheduled, prompting her mother to phone the New Liskeard Police Service at around 13:00 and report Melanie missing.
Investigation Initial search The search for Melanie began on the afternoon of Sunday, 29 September 1996 at around 14:30–15:00. New Liskeard police dispatched officers to the Ethier residence and began a search of the area around the Armstrong Street bridge and along the banks of the Wabi River within hours of her being reported missing. Local police requested assistance from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on Monday 30 September; a helicopter from Sudbury, a police dog team from North Bay, and a search and rescue dog from the Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario were dispatched to expand the search around Pine Avenue, as were an OPP emergency search and rescue team and an Ontario Hydro helicopter the following day (Tuesday, 1 October). A psychic with a history of contributing to police investigations also joined the search.
Police stated that they checked all surveillance video taken along Ethier's route the night she vanished, as well as the visitor's log in the Wheel Inn Motel near Pine Avenue. In the days following, police surveillance was conducted on three local girls who may have been the intended targets of an attack on Ethier. These girls, other local teens, and an exotic dancer in Notre-Dame-du-Nord who bore a strong resemblance to Ethier were occasionally spotted by witnesses and mistakenly reported to police.
The weekend of 5–6 October, one week after Ethier disappeared, the 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron performed training exercises in the area and also participated in the search. On Tuesday, 8 October, an underwater search and rescue team began a three-day search of the Wabi River between the Armstrong Street bridge and Lake Temiskaming, though clay deposits in the river reduced their visibility and forced them to search by touch alone. At some point, a Lockheed C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft was also used to search the area. By mid-October, Ethier's case was listed with Crime Stoppers and the public was implored to phone in tips which could help investigators locate her.
Search teams were unable to find any signs indicating where Ethier had disappeared from or where she was taken. Officially, no evidence has been recovered in the case, though according to the Ethier family a single item may have been recovered by police on the first day of the search and never made public. OPP statements to the media made it clear detectives believed she had no reason to leave the community and suspected foul play. Police never recovered any security footage from the Night Owl convenience store, located one block away from the Pine Avenue residence. Shortly after Ethier's disappearance, missing person posters and billboards with her picture were put up in New Liskeard and surrounding communities; some of these remained in place as of 2020, and others have since been replaced. One particularly well-known billboard outside Latchford pairs a photo of Ethier with the question: "You know what happened to me - So why don't you help?".