On today’s show I delved into a 21-year-old cold case with Canmore connections, the disappearance of Matthew Taylor (aka. Matthew Richard Taylor). I spoke with Nick Oldrieve from Please Bring Me Home, an organization that is now profiling this case.

 

Rob: What is Please Bring Me Home?

Nick: Please Bring Me Home is a not-for-profit organization based in Ontario. We try and create a buzz around cold case missing persons through Canada, and also have an investigation team and a search team. There’s a void there. It’s not that nobody wants to help resolve these cases, but there’s just very little out there that you can do the colder and the older the cases get.

Rob: Has your work helped solve any cases? Helped generate any leads?

Nick: Every media story that we’ve ever done in the last four years for any cold case missing person has always resulted in tips. We always share those tips with law enforcement, but if people want to remain anonymous we don’t give their identity. We have been successful in helping solve two cases from Ontario.

Rob: Let’s talk about the specifics of the Matthew Taylor case. I moved to Canmore in 2001, and there were Missing Matthew Taylor posters all over town. There hasn’t really been as much media attention on this one as it deserves. What can you tell us about this case?

Nick: I spoke with Leah Casey, Matthew’s sister. There are so many different rumors that came in around that time. In Sicamous, B.C., RCMP are investigating his case and that’s because he took a truck, I guess hitchhiking. They stopped in Sicamous because of the weather and he went missing from there. It’s really hard because we know he was headed to a certain place, but we’re having a hard time verifying – did he ever make it to that place after he left the trucker? He was 17 years old at the time, it was October 30th, 1999. There were a lot of things that he was struggling with at the time; he was living on the streets in Canmore. And from the family’s knowledge, there have been no searches done since 1999.

Rob: Have there been any leads or any information since that time about his whereabouts, or what might have happened?

Nick: There’s been all sorts of rumors that had come up. One of them was they heard that he maybe went out to Calgary. There’s very little to go on with his case unfortunately. I believe that because of Matthew Taylor’s lifestyle, that could be a leading reason why we’re here today. We see a pattern with a lot of these missing persons. It’s sometimes not taken with the best care. It’s unfortunate. If we can have the public focus on Matthew Taylor, he was a human being, he’s missing, just like anybody has gone missing before and not focus on the lifestyle that he lived. We need to find out where Matthew Taylor is, if he’s alive. If he’s not, we want to bring him home. What I go back to is he had the street smarts to probably live on the streets anywhere because he was living on the streets in Canmore at the time. I just don’t think at this point, after this much time, 21 years now, that he wouldn’t have reached out to his family, which is what concerns us the most.

Rob: If anyone has any information, if they’re interested in generally what you’re doing, you have information online?

Nick: People can call a tip line that we have (1-226-702-2728). It’s anonymous as well. They can send anonymous tips in through the website. We have Facebook, we have Twitter. So there’s plenty of ways to get in touch with us.

 

If anyone has any stories about Matthew they’d like to share, recollections about his disappearance, or can connect me with anyone he was with at the time of his disappearance, I’d love to follow up on this story.  Please send me an email.  Of course, if anyone has any information about Matthew’s current whereabouts or a tip that could help solve this, contact the RCMP or Please Bring Me Home through the above links.

 

Filed under: Canmore