Unsolved Case Files by Daniel

Missing Since March 4, 2011

File Number: 104200214

Joseph Joly-Durocher is from Temiscaming, Quebec, but was in North Bay in the District of Nipissing on March 4, 2011 visiting with friends. He was staying at an apartment at 683 Sherbrooke Street.

Joly-Durocher and his friends attended Cecil's Eatery and Beer Society shortly before midnight on March 4th and Joly-Durocher was denied entry due to his level of intoxication. His friends remained at the bar without him. Joly-Durocher was last seen on video being denied entry to the bar and leaving westbound on Main Street.

It is believed that he returned to the apartment as his coat was later located there, along with his cell phone and glasses. His debit card was later located in a snowbank down the street.

If you have any information concerning this case, please contact North Bay Police Service at 705-497-5555.

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DRUGGED AND STRANGLED

File Number: 104200125

Richmond, British Columbia: With the exception of the Pickton case, very few Vancouver-area murders have caught international attention like this one. It was covered by Unsolved Mysteries, a Current Affair and other media publications. Why? Well...

In June 1989, the body of Cindy James, a 44-year-old nurse, was found in the yard of an abandoned house in Richmond. She had been drugged and strangled while her hands and feet had been tied behind her back. The autopsy report indicated she'd died of an overdose of morphine and other drugs, and despite being hogtied, her death was ruled a suicide by the RCMP.

But her family never believed this was a suicide. For more than six years leading up to her murder, James had reported hundreds of harassment incidents to the police and to her family. The specifics of the case are too lengthy to go into detail here, but it's worth reading in full.

The short of it is, soon after leaving her husband in 1981, James started receiving threatening phone calls. The police started to investigate but over the next several months, the harassment increased. She reported prowlers outside her house at night. Windows were smashed and phone cords cut. According to a friend, James claimed bizarre notes were being left on her doorstep, and that she had been attacked several times.

James tried to hide her identity, changing her last name, moving houses, painting her car, etc. But the harassment continued, including the violent attacks. But because there were never any witnesses, the police became suspicious that James was lying about the case, or was withholding important information.

Months before her death, James was found hypothermic in a ditch six miles from her home. She was wearing a man's work boot and glove and had a nylon stocking tied around her neck. She was cut and bruised, yet could not recall how she'd gotten to the ditch. Again, police were suspicious about her story.

Shortly after, a fire was started in her basement; an arson, according to police, that only could only have been started by someone in the house, since there was no evidence of a break-in, James was suspected and she was checked into a psychiatric facility. She checked out 10 weeks later.

On May 25, 1989, she disappeared. Her car was discovered not far from her house, with groceries and a wrapped gift in the backseat. There was blood in the car. Her body was discovered two weeks later in an abandoned house.

James' ex-husband, a psychiatrist, was considered a suspect. So was her boyfriend at the time, who worked as a policeman. Neither were charged. Even after a public inquest where 84 people testified, no arrests were made.

The case remains unsolved.

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SHE LEFT HER TOWNHOME UNIT

File Number: 104200121

Brantford, Ontario: Mary Emma Hammond (nee Bisenthal) left her townhome unit on Elgin St., around 3:30 a.m. on September 8, 1983. She had the early morning shift at the former Buns Master Bakery, 110 Morton Ave., where she had worked for approximately one year.

Mary declined her husband's offer to drive her to work and left the home alone on the approximately 1.5 km walk.

Walking north on Park Road North (now Wayne Gretzky Parkway) she passed the Massey-Ferguson factory and cut across the field towards the rear of the bakery. Approximately 4:00 a.m. a co-worker called Mary's husband asking why she hadn't arrived at work. Her footprints were followed to the property line at the rear of the bakery and to a point where Mary cut across a field. They then disappeared.

Police were notified. Evidence at the scene includes some items from her lunch, a cup, dish and a half-eaten apple, one of Mary's white sockettes and a small quantity of blood in an area of the field.

At the time of her disappearance Mary Hammond was 25 years old, 5'10", 140 lbs., with long straight reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and a fair complexion.

She was last seen wearing a blue, mauve and red lumber jacket, blue jeans, white Adidas running shoes with a silver stripe and a yellow T-shirt.

Investigators received information that a pickup truck left the rear of the bakery around the time Mary disappeared. The truck was seen parked at the back of the bakery parking lot and later driving through the rear lot. It is described as an older brown pick-up possibly a Ford, with painted bumpers and round headlights. Despite appealing to the public and an exhaustive police investigation, no truck matching that description has ever been found.

Anyone with information about Mary Hammond is to contact the Brantford Police Service at 519-756-7050 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.