Melanie Ethier was born on Christmas Day 1980. Melanie is mixed race; her mom Celine Ethier is white, and her father is from Botswana. Melanie had no relationship with her father at all. At the time of Melanie’s disappearance she, her younger sister Jessie and their mom Celine lived in New Liskeard, Ontario. She was one of three black girls in the community as New Liskeard had a population of 11,000 people in 1996.
At the time of her disappearance, Melanie Ethier worked at a local daycare and was taking self defence classes in which the instructor was a family friend. The daycare she worked at was attached to the high school she attended. She 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. Celine also worked at this daycare as well, while taking college courses in Sudbury. Melanie wanted to be a teacher after graduating from high school.
September 28th-29th, 1996 – last time Melanie Ethier was seen:
On the morning of September 28th 1996, Melanie visited her mother’s friend Sylvie Chartrand’s home. Melanie, Sylvie, and Sylvie’s six year old daughter Steffany were the only people in the home at the time of this visit as Sylvie’s partner Denis Léveillé and her son were out of town. Melanie had broken her nail during this visit, which caused her to feel upset. Sylvie speculated Melanie was upset about Melanie’s 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.
Melanie Ethier left Sylvie’s home and went downtown, which is where she ran into her best friend at a bus stop outside of the New Liskeard Public Library. Her friend was doing homework in the library but stopped doing it once Melanie arrived and agreed to join Melanie. The two girls visited many locations in downtown New Liskeard, they went to Pizza Pizza to have lunch. Melanie went to a dollar store to buy 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.
Her and her friend went to a home in the nearby community of Dymond to collect money from someone Melanie babysat for. At some point in time, the girls met up with Melanie’s boyfriend Neil Fortier (who she had been dating for three weeks) and their friends Dave Bromley, Jay Denomme, and Ryan Chatwin.
Around 9pm that night, the group of teens stopped by a video rental store to rent the movie Sudden Death. At 10pm the group arrived to Melanie’s home to watch the movie but Celine told Melanie her room is too dirty to have guests come over.
The teens attempted to watch the movie at Dave’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. Samya left the group when they reached the Armstrong Street bridge, at that point she returned home. The teens relocated to a house on Pine Avenue which is Ryan’s home. Ryan’s parents were home, in an upstairs bedroom.
At the time of her disappearance, Melanie Ethier worked at a local daycare and was taking self defence classes in which the instructor was a family friend. The daycare she worked at was attached to the high school she attended.
According to everyone inside the home that night, the teens watched the movie quietly in the basement while Chatwin’s parents were asleep upstairs, and consumed no alcohol or drugs that evening. Jay left the house around 12:30 am to 1 am and returned to his home. Melanie’s female friend also left the home at this time in order for her to catch a ride to Haileybury. 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 Melanie is thought to have taken to Melanie’s home, where Melanie’s grandparents were waiting to take her home. She arrived at the Ethier residence shortly before 1am. At the time of Melanie’s friend left, there were only three people in the Chatwin home; Melanie, Neil and Ryan.
In the early hours of 1:30 to 2 am on Sunday, September 29th 1996 are the last confirmed sightings of Melanie Ethier, when she left Ryan’s home and began to walk to her own. It was uncommon for Melanie 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. Family and friends say that Melanie preferred to use the back alley when making this journey.
The bridge was the only portion of Ethier’s route that was brightly lit, and the street would have been reasonably busy even at the late hour when she was seen crossing it. 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.
September 29th – Melanie Ethier is reported missing
Melanie’s alarm clock woke her up at 6:00 or 7 am. Celine went into Melanie’s room and discovered she was not in her bed, 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 8 to 9am. Melanie’s grandparents arrived at the house at 10:00 am 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 wrong, but she was alarmed when it was clear to her that Melanie did not return home the night before. Celine and her father drove to a 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 Ethier also did not appear at her daycare job as scheduled, prompting her mother to phone the New Liskeard Police Service at around 1pm that afternoon to report Melanie missing.
Search & Aftermath
The search for Melanie began on the afternoon of September 29th. 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. Additional help was requested by the local police from the Ontario Provincial Police, 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.
More than a dozen police officers and volunteer firefighters canvassed the areas where Ethier had last been sighted, and police forces across Ontario were alerted to the disappearance. By mid-October 1996, Ethier’s case was listed with Crime Stoppers, and the public was implored to phone in tips that could help investigators locate her. However, nobody was able to find one trace of Melanie. Missing person posters and billboards with Melanie’s picture were put up in New Liskeard and surrounding communities shortly after she disappeared.
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?.” Celine and volunteers from the community – including Jay Denomme, one of the boys present on the night of the disappearance – distributed posters in New Liskeard and communities as far as Timmins, Ottawa and Montreal. The OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) did another search for Melanie in April 1999.
New Liskeard was merged into the city of Temiskaming Shores in 2004. In 2010, a witness came forward saying she saw Melanie crossing the Armstrong Bridge the night she disappeared. According to the witness, she and her husband were driving across the bridge when both spotted a teenaged black girl walking south on the eastern sidewalk The night was clear and they saw no vehicles or other pedestrians on the bridge.
At the time of this sighting, the girl was closer to the north end of the bridge. The witness commented that the girl seemed too young to be alone at night but was walking unbothered at a normal pace, while her husband remarked that he was not aware there were any black girls in New Liskeard. Although the witness believed the girl’s hair may have been in dreadlocks. it is possible she misidentified the braided extensions Ethier wore.
They did not report their account to police until 1997 or 1998 when they saw Ethier’s photo. The tip was not properly logged into police records and would not be investigated until the 2000s when the witness approached Celine directly, at which point police were urged to revisit the sighting Police said they were not made aware of this witness account until 2008.
Another witness, who had lived on Rebecca Street just off Pine Avenue and near Doc’s, took her story to police in 2019. In a 2021 interview, this witness disclosed that around 1:45 am on September 29th, 1996 she was doing schoolwork in her room when she heard a girl screaming outside. Although she initially ignored the outburst, she heard more screaming about 45 seconds later and became frightened.
After checking that her front door was locked, the witness snuck to her window and saw three silhouettes of people running down the street towards Pine Avenue, but no vehicles or headlights. Her husband, who was also home at the time, did not witness the event as he was asleep.
The police investigation into Ethier’s disappearance has remained active since 1996. The investigation is currently handled by the Temiskaming Branch of the OPP in collaboration with the OPP Crime Unit. Celine told reporters in 2017 that she doesn’t believe that her daughter is still alive. In a 2021 interview, Celine told reporters she felt this way since the third day of her daughter’s search. Investigators also believe Melanie Ethier is deceased.
Denis Leveille
Denis Leveille
A possible theory as to what happened to Melanie is that her mom’s friend’s boyfriend Denis Léveillé might have raped and murdered Melanie. Denis was suggested as a likely suspect in the case. Denis had a long history of making sexual advances towards minors and has sexually assaulted teenagers.
Denis was charged with criminal offences at least three times; once in 2006 for failing to comply with orders not to associate or communicate with several people; again in 2012 for making death threats, committing assault with a vehicle, possessing an illegal taser, violating the terms of his parole, and for the last time in 2013 for sexual interference with someone under the age of 16. Denis passed away in January 2016.
Melanie Ethier would be 43 years old.
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