Three of the 12 historical missing persons cases the Prince Albert Police Service is reminding the public about during Missing Persons Week. (Facebook/Prince Albert Police Service)

By Nick Nielsen

Missing persons week

A look into how police investigate missing persons reports

May 2, 2025 | 5:30 PM

The province of Saskatchewan has labeled the week of April 27 to May 3 as Missing Persons Week in the province in an effort to raise awareness around the issue and show the public that they can help.

Prince Albert Police Chief Patrick Nogier took the time to pull the curtain back a little bit and tell the public how a missing persons report is investigated. There are a ton of challenges when it comes to missing persons reports from members of the public not coming forward with information, false and repeated missing person reports, asset management, revealing the right amount of information to the public without compromising a possible criminal investigation, and many, many more.

“Not a lot of people know about the complexities of missing person investigations, the magnitude of how many we receive as an organization on a yearly basis, and then you associate that to those long standing missing person files that go into that historical context and there’s added layers of complexity as time goes on.”

During Missing Persons Week, the Prince Albert Police Service has been sharing the details from 12 historical missing persons cases in the Prince Albert area such as Ernestine Kayson, Norman Halkett, Timothy Charelette, and Happy Charles. Even though cases like this have been open for over 30 years, Nogier assures the public that these cases are not forgotten about.

In fact, those cases are looked at every single day.

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“When I walk down to our missing persons Sergeant’s position, that’s a dedicated resource. Specifically and highly trained background that starts with a major crime background and experience, and I can tell you that I can walk into that individual’s office and I can view every one of those 12 files that I mentioned on his whiteboard.”

Nogier continued, “The current Sergeant that’s assigned to that unit has been put in there for a specific reason. He has a very specific skill set that allows him to be quite knowledgeable in the process and investigative process in particular. That’s also a good thing. Some families, in particular, they establish relationships with a certain individual for the organization, they get very comfortable with their relationship and a lot of times it’s a very good and healthy relationship.”

Using the recent missing person report of 62-year-old Dilbert Thomas as an example, every officer on duty will have a hand in the investigation. When that report first came in, Nogier called it an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ situation with the officers they have on duty, and it stays that way with the on-duty officers changing every 12 hours.

“What you don’t see running in the background that on any one of those given days, you could have anywhere from four to six missing persons reported, and a lot of those missing persons are ones that there is a history of some repetitiveness that’s in their background, but they all have to be treated the same.”

One of the biggest challenges in missing persons cases is the sheer volume of cases that get reported to police. According to Nogier, 241 missing person reports have been filed in the first three months of 2025, and that’s just above the pace set in the first quarter of 2024 of 229.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a young child who has gone missing with suspicions of an abduction, or if it’s a person who goes missing consistently. Police must treat each and every missing persons report with the same level of care.

“A very, very high percentage of those don’t turn out to be actually missing people. Sometimes there are those habitual situations that we encounter, a pattern of behaviour that becomes very consistent, but the response to all of those is the same. Which means the frontline work that officers do with respect to capturing the information and doing a detailed report, adding that individual on the Canadian Police Information Center system, sending out images, doing media releases, that’s all consistent and that doesn’t change regardless of whether or not an individual has been missing 15, 16, 17 times in a calendar year or whether it’s the first time they’ve gone missing.”

There’s also the challenge of a missing persons report potentially becoming a criminal investigation. The public can be incredibly helpful for finding information regarding a missing person, but if there is suspicion of criminal activity leading to a person’s disappearance, police can’t just share every piece of information that they get.

For the most part, the police try to release as much information as they can with a missing person report. They err on the side of releasing too much information rather than not enough because even the smallest tip can lead to finding a lost loved one.

“Some of the investigations, there’s information that we’re aware of from a law enforcement agency that’s very sensitive, and it would be sensitive with respect to how we would probably or potentially hold somebody accountable for the disappearance of an individual, and we have to be upfront about that. Are there things that we know about missing person investigations that we are not at liberty to divulge because we need to keep that information close to the investigative process? Yes, and I think we need to be transparent in that.”

Another challenge that police face in all of their investigations is the fact that some people are worried that revealing information could get them in trouble of some kind. Sometimes it’s an issue of someone not thinking their information will make a difference, but sometimes fear comes into play as well.

Police have heard from people who have come forward in the past that there are fears of getting wrapped up in court processes for years in some missing persons cases, and fears of retaliation from criminal groups.

Nogier urges people who have that fear to submit their tips through Crime Stoppers. That’s what the service is for, providing tips anonymously to make sure that there is no possible negative outcomes for assisting police in their investigation.

“We have people that just sometimes don’t know how to connect, ‘how do I provide information that I’m aware of?’ We have people that think that the information is trivial in nature and isn’t needed, but sometimes it’s that small piece of the puzzle that allows us to gain momentum, so there’s a there’s a variety of reasons why. I think the more that we can engage with people that have continually sources of contact and information for our public can provide them with different perspectives, different information that allows them to make better decisions.”

With all these challenges relating to missing persons reports, Nogier does not want the public to be detered in calling the police for their assistance. They are there to help 24 hours of the day, 365 days of they year.

That said, there are things that you can do to help police in the early stages of a missing persons report. The biggest thing is to try and stay calm, collect what information you have, and present that to police so that they can use their resources as best they can to not only help you, but others who may be waiting on police assistance as well.

“The only thing that we ask when it comes to missing persons is that they do their due diligence at the front end to try and determine pattern of activity of behavior, last known whereabouts, do what they can to communicate with family members and or friends, just to try and alleviate some of those things that are really easy to access on behalf of a family member. And then still at the end of that, if there’s still a lot of unknowns or questions or as concerns about the well-being of the individual, people shouldn’t hesitate to come forward. That certainly is not the intents of this discussion. It was just to provide, you know, a little more information with respect to the size and the scope and the capacity of the issues that we have.”

If you have any information regarding a missing persons report, no matter how small, you can contact the Prince Albert Police Service at 306-953-4222, the Prince Albert RCMP at 306-765-5500, or Crime Stoppers to submit your tip anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia