Devon’s legacy: How one teen’s tragedy changed missing-person investigations

No ground search was ever performed when he was missing, and Hamilton police did not initially consider the case a high priority because of gaps in information.

A groundbreaking inquest into Devon’s death, spurred by his nana Pam Freeman and the Chippewas of Georgina Island pushing for answers, revealed that not one of the agencies involved in his care had a complete picture of his life. Police did not know about past suicide attempts and could not assess how seriously Devon was in trouble when he fled Lynwood the last time.

The 2022 inquest into his death led to 75 recommendations to change how Indigenous children in care are treated and how missing-persons cases are handled, including “Devon’s Principle,” the right of Indigenous children and youth in care to return to their home communities. This year, Hamilton police moved forward with perhaps the biggest recommendation they faced — the creation of a dedicated unit to handle missing-person cases.

The missing-persons investigative unit (MPIU), led by Sgt. Kim Walker as the co-ordinator, now includes two detective constables and a community support worker. It is housed in the investigative services division and is under the oversight of the homicide unit, led by Staff Sgt. Sara Beck, allowing the team to work with a broad range of investigative units, including overlap with homicide, sexual assault and human trafficking.

After weighing where the unit was best suited, ultimately the service decided that under homicide oversight was best because of high-risk cases. Being housed within the division gives the team quick access to things like surveillance or co-ordinating with the detectives that handle intimate partner violence, who can contact shelters, Beck said.

There are between 1,500 and 1,700 reports of missing people made to Hamilton police each year and, in many cases, the people want to be missing and often turn up quickly. The majority of cases are people who repeatedly go missing. The challenge is getting the right information so police can identify the high-risk cases immediately.

Red flags for risk include:

• the missing person’s cognition, including mental health and whether they are suicidal;
• if the person is vulnerable due to age or because they are part of a marginalized or vulnerable community;
• the weather, if they are believed to be outside; and
• any history of intimate partner violence.

In high-risk cases, police assess whether there is a need for an immediate ground search — searches are led by the public-order unit and can only happen if police have a last known location where a person was seen. In cases in which the missing person may have dementia, it’s also important to know the last known direction of travel because people with dementia often walk in a straight line until they encounter an obstacle, Beck said.

Pieces of the puzzle

Previously, missing-person cases that were not considered high priority went to front-line patrol officers, who are also tasked with responding to urgent 911 calls. Cases would often pass from shift to shift without continuity. More serious cases would go to investigative units. 

At the time of Devon’s case, Walker worked part-time as the missing-person co-ordinator, checking cases to make sure proper steps were being followed by investigators. But one person cannot investigate more than a thousand cases.

Often there was missing information, Walker said.

“It led to missing pieces of the puzzle when we were investigating,” she said, adding that families were often left out of the loop. She also noted that there wasn’t great communication with social-service agencies, including group homes and child-welfare organizations.

Inquests — including Devon Freeman’s, as well as the Missing and Missed review into the failure by Toronto police to connect missing-person cases to serial killer Bruce McArthur — have also shown a “fundamental lack of trust toward the police when it comes to investigating people that come from marginalized communities.”

Walker believes that if police had known the full picture in Devon’s case, it would have changed how it was prioritized. If his case happened today, it would be flagged as high risk and it would have the resources of the MPIU.

“Every case, regardless of how many times you go missing, should be investigated as though it’s the first time,” she said.

Devon’s nana Pam Freeman said she is happy the unit has been created, noting how important it is — even years after her grandson’s death.

“I wish it had’ve been here then, but it can be here for the next person,” she said while visiting the investigative services division building, where she got to meet the MPIU team and see their office.

Walker said that the motivation to establish the unit was to take these tragedies and turn them into something effective, breaking down the systemic silos that have impeded cases in the past.

“Ambiguous loss is the most painful emotion,” she said, particularly for parents or caregivers, who can feel helpless and hopeless when a young person is missing.

That’s why Walker is so grateful the unit is finally up and running, and has support from command and across the service.

Co-ordination of information

Most police services in Ontario, aside from Toronto, do not have a dedicated missing-person unit. Others have missing-person co-ordinators, who often fall under the umbrella of homicide or major crime units.

Sgt. John Telepakis of Hamilton’s homicide unit also points out that missing-person cases fall under major case management, a regulated system used to investigate the most serious cases in Ontario. It is used to identify connections between cases in other jurisdictions. Telepakis oversees the computer software system called PowerCase for Hamilton police.

Cases in which a person is missing for more than 30 days mandate additional actions, including the case being uploaded into PowerCase. There are also other things police have to do if foul play cannot be ruled out. And any cases that might be serial in nature — when there is more than one suspicious missing-person case that might be connected — requires police to notify the provincial serial predator crime investigations co-ordinator (SPCIC).

Sometimes cases come in as a missing person and end up turning into a homicide investigation, including the recent disappearance of Shalini Singh and the 2022 disappearance of Emily Bailey.

The missing-person unit rolled out over three months, first taking on cases in central Hamilton in January, followed by the east end in February and finally the Mountain division in March. This included taking on about 31 unsolved cases, the oldest one stretching back to 1976.

Calls for a missing person still come in through patrol, because missing-person unit detectives don’t work 24-7 and are often out of the office investigating cases, Walker said. Patrol takes the initial report — using a revised questionnaire that was updated to check for more risk factors following the Freeman inquest — and then gets added to the MPIU’s current list of cases.

Every case is seen by a detective; the only exception might be if someone is reported missing over the weekend and is found before detectives return to the office. But even in those cases, the team can look through the file to see if there are risk factors they can follow up on.

The key in any of these investigations is information flow, Telepakis said, adding that while detectives can task out work, all the information flows back to MPIU investigators.

For instance, the MPIU could have patrol officers check residences over a weekend and then report findings back to the unit — without having to burden patrol officers with getting up to date on the entire case.

Youths at risk

An important part of the missing-person team is the community support worker, a civilian position. Bruce Moffat says he acts as a liaison between police, families and agencies.

This includes support when someone is missing, but also followup work. For instance, if it’s a youth who has gone missing: are there underlying issues that can be addressed to prevent them from going missing again? Sometimes there are safety concerns with where a youth is living and police involve child-welfare agencies, but most often he hears from youths that they don’t like the rules of where they are living. A particular issue is that cellphones are taken away as a punishment for behaviour.

Moffat said he can refer families to formal supports or look for “creative” solutions. He also refers families to specific programs for vulnerable seniors.

It’s important to also educate youth about the risks around disappearing, including vulnerability to things like human trafficking.

The MPIU and human-trafficking units work closely together, in part because there is overlap of victims, Walker said.

One of the bigger challenges, particularly around youth cases, is that child-welfare agencies and group homes often have different rules and procedures than police. Walker said it is still common to get reports of young people who are missing without any details; in those cases, police need to make sure that the agencies are doing their own due diligence before calling police.

Just like a parent would be expected to take some steps to find their child before calling police, so too do police expect agencies involved in care to take some preliminary steps, she said. Too often police would immediately get a call from a group home without any attempts to find the missing youth, even if they were likely at a predictable location such as a family or friend’s house.

Getting online

The initial plan for the dedicated unit was to also include an online reporting tool, but finding the right program has proven challenging. The existing platform police use for other online reporting doesn’t provide enough details to allow for proper triaging of missing-person cases. But an online reporting tool for the missing-person unit must also not be too cumbersome to discourage the public from using it.

There is a team continuing to look for the right fit, but there is no timeline for when the program might be available. The unit was also initially supposed to have three detective constables.

But Walker noted that she would rather have something than nothing, and the unit is something the service can build on. She knows there are cases they are able to solve faster because MPIU exists.

Walker pointed to the recent missing-person case of Fred Dalton as an example of how the MPIU was able to quickly find him, using time and resources that patrol would never have.

The 83-year-old was reported missing in early March after last being seen on March 1 on Kenilworth Avenue, near Centre Mall. The case came in on a weekend and Walker took over on Monday. She found video that showed him getting on a city bus.

From there, the MPIU team worked with other police and found video that traced his steps. He took the bus to the GO station on Hunter Street, where he caught a bus to Toronto and then got on another bus to Montreal. Then he took a train to Nova Scotia, ending up in Pictou.

At first, police thought his travel was random and he was in trouble, Walker said. But then they learned from family that the senior was born there and had told family in the past that’s where he wanted to return to live out his last days.

She believes that many previous cases that went unsolved for over a month would be quickly solved today by the missing-person unit.

Nicole O’Reilly is a crime and justice reporter at The Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com