Disappearance of Melanie Ethier

Melanie Nadia "Mel" Ethier (born 25 December 1980) was a Canadian teenager who disappeared in New Liskeard, Ontario in 1996. As of 2021, Ethier's whereabouts and the circumstances of her disappearance remain unknown.
Background.
Melanie Ethier was an honours student at École secondaire catholique Sainte-Marie in New Liskeard, Ontario. Ethier was bilingual; a ballerina, highland dancer, and roller skater; and has been described as having a "lovely personality". Melanie was the daughter of Celine Ethier and acted as a "second mother" to her younger sister, Jessie, who was five years old in September 1996. She was one of only three Black girls in the community; her father (with whom she had no relationship) was from Africa. Her favourite song was "Give Me One Reason" by Tracy Chapman.
At the time of her disappearance, Ethier was employed at a local daycare - the Garderie Richelieu, where her mother Celine also worked - and learning self-defence from a family friend. In September 1996, she stood 5'5" tall; weighed approximately 120 lbs; and had brown eyes and long, braided black hair. Ethier was fond of wearing hair extensions.
Disappearance.
On the day of Saturday, 28 September 1996, Melanie Ethier and her best friend visited several locations in New Liskeard. Ethier also purchased a new cake pan and a cake in preparation for her grandmother's birthday, which was being celebrated the next day. At some point, the girls met up with Ethier's new boyfriend and three male friends; another person, the girlfriend of one of the boys, also joined them for a while but left for home around nightfall. The group stopped in at a video rental store in the early evening around 21:00-21:30 EST and rented a movie. At 22:00 that evening, the group arrived at the Ethier home to watch the film they had rented. Ethier was reminded by her mother, Celine Ethier, that her room was too disorderly for hosting guests, and the teens left to watch the movie elsewhere.
Shortly after 22:00, the group relocated to a residence on Pine Avenue where one of the boys lived. Another boy returned home around this time. The house was a roughly ten or twelve-minute walk from the Ethier home, or about six blocks. According to those present, the teens watched the movie quietly in the basement while the boy's parents were asleep upstairs and consumed no alcohol or drugs that evening; investigators later stated that they believed this to be true.
Before the movie finished, one of the boys left the house and returned home. Ethier's female friend also left early in order to catch a ride back to the neighbouring town of Haileybury, departing at around 00:30. 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 meet her ride. At the time of this friend's departure, only three people remained in the basement: Ethier, her boyfriend, and the boy whose family lived in the home.
The last confirmed sighting of Ethier was at around 01:30-02:00 on 29 September 1996 when she left her friend's house and began making the walk to her home alone and on foot. It was uncommon for Ethier to walk home by herself. One of the boys escorted her to the door and watched her walk west down Pine Avenue East. A witness later reported seeing Ethier walking on the Armstrong Street bridge, crossing south over the Wabi River. At this time, she was wearing a green Nike jacket, blue jeans, a white t-shirt with a blue heart "Pepe" logo, and black boots.
The Armstrong Street 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. The weather that evening was clear, and as it had only been two days since the previous full moon it is believed that there would have been some natural light along Ethier's route.
Celine Ethier became aware of her daughter's absence the next morning when Melanie's alarm clock roused her at 06:00 or 07:30 and she discovered Melanie was not in her bedroom. As it was not uncharacteristic of Melanie to spend the night at her friend's house, Celine went back to bed. In the afternoon, Melanie did not appear at her daycare job as scheduled, prompting her mother to first contact the friends she had spent the evening with and then the New Liskeard Police Service. Celine Ethier reported Melanie missing on a phone call to New Liskeard Police Chief Doug Jelly.
Investigation.
Initial search.
The search for Melanie Ethier began on the afternoon of Sunday, 29 September 1996 at around 14:30-15:00. New Liskeard police dispatched officers to the Ethier residence and called for a search of the area around the Armstrong Bridge and along the banks of the Wabi River. Local police requested assistance from the Ontario Provincial Police the next day (Monday, 30 September); 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 were dispatched to expand the search around Pine Avenue, as were an OPP emergency search and rescue team and an Ontario Hydro helicopter the following day (Tuesday, 1 October).
More than a dozen police officers and volunteer firefighters canvassed the areas where Melanie Ethier had last been sighted, and police forces across Ontario were alerted to the disappearance. Although authorities conducted a door-to-door canvass, no homes in the area were searched. Two New Liskeard police officers were assigned to lead the investigation, and were joined by two detectives from the OPP Major Crimes Unit in Orillia during the first week of October. All of the friends who were with Ethier the night of her disappearance were questioned by police. In the days following, police surveillance was conducted on three local girls who may have been the intended targets of the attack on Ethier. These girls, other local teens, and an exotic dancer in Quebec who bore a strong resemblance to Ethier were occasionally spotted by witnesses and mistakenly reported to police.
The weekend of 5–6 October, one week after Melanie Ethier disappeared, the 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron performed training exercises in the area and also participated in the search. On Tuesday, 8 October, an underwater search and rescue team began a three-day search of the Wabi River between the Armstrong Bridge and Lake Temiskaming. By mid-October, Ethier's case was listed with Crime Stoppers and the public was implored to phone in tips which could help investigators locate her.
Search teams were unable to find any evidence indicating where Melanie Ethier had disappeared from or where she was taken. OPP statements to the media made it clear detectives believed she had no reason to leave the community and suspected foul play. Police never recovered any security footage from the Night Owl convenience store, located one block away from the Pine Avenue residence. Shortly after Ethier's disappearance, missing person posters and billboards with Ethier's face were put up in New Liskeard and surrounding communities; some of these remain in place as of 2020, and others have since been placed. One particularly well-known billboard pairs a photo of Ethier with the question "You know what happened to me - So why don't you help?".
Celine Ethier distributed posters in New Liskeard and just across the provincial border in Quebec; wrote a letter to the editor published in a November issue of the "Temiskaming Speaker" newspaper; and sent information about Melanie to media companies in Toronto in the hopes of keeping attention on the case. ChildFind, a national charity dedicated to finding missing children and supporting their families, had begun circulating information about Melanie and her disappearance across Canada by December 1996.
1997-1998.
Two officers assigned to work the case full-time, New Liskeard Police Sergeant Dwight Thib and OPP Detective Constable Bill Deverell, began reinterviewing witnesses in early 1997 in order to exhaust all possible leads in the case. OPP Inspector Pete Burns had taken the lead on the case by September 1997 and Thib returned to regular police duties on 25 February 1998. The task force dedicated to searching for Ethier was formally disbanded in 1998, but both Thib and Deverell would continue to work on the case when new leads appeared. Deverell later claimed that he remained on the case up until the day of his retirement, 31 December 2002; Thib continued working on the case until he was attached to the OPP in 2007. Over the course of their investigation, the two officers interrogated hundreds of suspects and persons of interest. The OPP conducted another search for Melanie on 26 April 1999, focusing on the Dawson Point area to the east of New Liskeard which had previously not been investigated. In summer 2000, police seized materials from the landfill in McGarry as part of the investigation.
Shortly before Christmas 1996, the Tri-Town Region Crime Stoppers doubled the reward money offered to anyone who could resolve the case, bringing the value up to $2,000; in December 1998, the reward was increased to $25,000.
Later years.
New Liskeard was amalgamated into the city of Temiskaming Shores in 2004, joining with the neighbouring communities of Haileybury, Dymond, and North Cobalt. Ontario Provincial Police took over law enforcement in the community in 2007. OPP Constable Jennifer Smith later admitted that some tips issued to New Liskeard police about the case may not have been passed on during the transfer of duties.
In 2010, an eyewitness account of Ethier crossing the Armstrong Street bridge was made public. In 2020, the OPP declassified parts of Ethier's friend's account of the evening, in which she described being spooked by a vehicle after leaving the Pine Avenue residence.
Current status.
The police investigation into the disappearance of Melanie Ethier has remained active since 1996. The investigation is currently handled by the Temiskaming Branch of the Ontario Provincial Police in collaboration with the OPP Crime Unit, and is led by Detective Inspector Rob Matthews and Detective Sergeant Lisa Laxton. The province of Ontario currently offers a $50,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest or conviction for those responsible for Ethier's disappearance.
All of the OPP's information about the case has been uploaded to Powercase, a newly implemented major case management system which alerts detectives to similar details in other investigations and could tie Ethier's disappearance into a wider crime spree. Tips generated by this system have led to several digs in the Temiskaming area which have failed to uncover Ethier's remains. In 2010, the OPP claimed to have received over 700 tips from 500 witnesses relevant to the Ethier case, as well as having over 300 persons of interest; in 2020, they were receiving on average 2-3 tips per month about the case. The OPP has also gone on record to say they follow up on tips offered to them by psychics.
Celine Ethier told reporters in 2017 that she no longer believed her daughter was still alive. Investigators also believe Melanie Ethier is deceased.
Theories.
Suggestions about what happened to Ethier are mostly speculative, as almost no evidence is known to the public. The OPP has disclosed very little information in the hopes of preserving the integrity of their investigation. The theory favoured by the OPP is that Ethier was driven away from the search area by a car on the night of her disappearance, either abducted by a stranger or lured into the vehicle by someone she knew. The search is complicated by the Trans-Canada Highway, which passes by the community and makes the possibility of a random assault by someone from outside the community more likely.
The suggestion that Ethier was taken by her estranged father has been dismissed by the OPP, who have eliminated him as a suspect. Celine Ethier has criticized the unlikely theory that her daughter was roped into a sex trafficking ring. A relative of Ethier claims to have been contacted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Canmore, Alberta in 2005 to alert them that a man in their custody had claimed responsibility for the crime but had died by suicide.
Locations identified as possible places of interest in the investigation have included the Dawson's Point peninsula, investigated by police after a tip claimed Ethier was buried there; Mowat Landing, where multiple suspects claimed to have spent the weekend fishing; a cemetery in North Cobalt, where a homemade headstone dedicated to Ethier was erected; and a bridge on the road between New Liskeard and Rouyn-Noranda, another site where her body was allegedly buried. In 2010, the television documentary "Chasing Ghosts" suggested Ethier could be one of over 600 unidentified decedents whose remains are kept in Canadian morgues and cemeteries.
Gauthier murders.
In April 1996, 47-year-old Louis Gauthier had been murdered in Thornloe, twenty minutes north of New Liskeard, by two minors: a boy who Gauthier had engaged in a sexual relationship (identified in court documents as "M.L.") and his half-brother, 17-year-old Robert Goulet (identified in court documents as "R.G."; also known in the media as "Robert Laffrenier"). The boys' uncle, Gregory Crick, helped plan the attack. Crick suspected Goulet was drawing unwanted attention to their family and that he had informed the police of their involvement in Gauthier's murder. Goulet went missing in New Liskeard on 6 or 8 November in what appeared at the time to be another teen vanishing. Goulet's body was found in a Hilliardton gravel pit in April 1998, and it was ultimately determined that he was stabbed and killed by either M.L. or Crick. The surviving brother and Crick were arrested for the murder of Louis Gauthier in December 1996.
No link was ever formally established between the Gauthier murders and the disappearance of Melanie Ethier. Investigators - including OPP Detective Constable Bill Deverell, who worked both cases; and then-New Liskeard Police Chief Doug Jelly - have denied any connection. However, a teenage girl who was incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility with M.L. in 1998 claimed that he confessed to murdering Ethier; he has since denied any involvement. According to police, Robert Goulet attended a party in October or early November 1996. A witness who attended this party had informed police that Goulet had admitted to disposing of a body by putting it through a wood chipper. Wire taps used by police to monitor Crick, Goulet, and M.L. failed to produce any evidence which would suggest they had a hand in Ethier vanishing. The movie "Fargo", released in spring of that year, may have inspired the rumours that Ethier's body was destroyed with a wood chipper.
Mistaken identity.
In 1996, Robert Goulet and his half-brother M.L. publicly accosted two Black girls in New Liskeard with racial slurs and threatened to shoot them. One of the targeted individuals, known in the media only as "Sarah", was often said to look very similar to Ethier, to the point they were often confused for each other by locals and even their own relatives. Sarah occasionally purchased drugs from the brothers. On Friday, 27 September 1996, Sarah told a friend that she owed money to a local drug dealer and was afraid for her life, telling the confidant not to be surprised if she went missing over the weekend. She had also spoken to police before the incident, providing information on the activities of a group of three local boys. Sarah, who lived on Pine Avenue at the time, was not made aware of the Ethier disappearance until Monday, 30 September. At this point, Sarah (who also went by the name "Sierra") began to refer to herself as "Melanie" and dress in clothes similar to those worn by Ethier on the night of her disappearance. Days after the incident, Sarah told several people that she was Melanie Ethier at a bowling alley in Haileybury. Sarah moved to North Bay sometime after 1998, and appears in her school yearbooks in 1997 and 1998, despite a rumour which alleged she left town weeks after the disappearance. She then moved to Vancouver, British Columbia. Aside from a voicemail left for her mother in February 2020, she has cut off all contact with her friends and family; her current whereabouts and status are unknown.
Melanie Ethier and Sarah were familiar with each other, and with the only other Black girl in town. In a 2020 interview, the third person in this group rejected the notion that Ethier was the target of a racially-motivated hate crime and stated she did not believe the attack was random. She also suggested that violent and racist threats made against her by Robert Goulet and his brother could suggest she was their intended target that night.
Melanie Louise Ethier has also been suggested as a possible target for the attack. Born in 1979, she was only a year older than Melanie Nadia Ethier and both attended École secondaire catholique Sainte-Marie at the same time. After the disappearance, police told Melanie Louis Ethier that they believed she may have been the intended target the night her namesake went missing. In a 2020 interview she recalled that police were interested in her friendship with another student who was actively dating M.L. and suspected that the brothers may have believed she knew about their criminal activities. In addition, Ethier's mother was the cousin of Louis Gauthier, who they had murdered in April 1996. After questioning why they would mistake someone of a completely different height, build, and race for her, police told Ethier the brothers may have asked someone else to attack her and, knowing only her first and last names, that person had gone after the wrong individual. Ethier alleges that the last time she spoke to M.L. was in a park near her home, where he behaved anxious and insisted somebody was watching them. He asked Ethier if she believed he had killed her cousin; she denied any suspicions, but later stated that she did believe he was involved in both the murder of Gauthier and the disappearance of Melanie Nadia Ethier.
Local suspects.
Drunk drivers may have killed Melanie Ethier. After May 1996, bars in Ontario were able to remain open until 02:00, while bars in Quebec could stay open until 03:00. Witnesses who were in the bar Doc's the night of 28–29 September 1996 have submitted tips to investigators claiming they saw an intoxicated patron leave the bar early in order to reach a bar across the provincial border before last call, and that one of these drivers may have struck Ethier with their car. A 1999 search of the area east of New Liskeard was sparked by a tip sent to police alleging that Ethier had been hit by a car on the night of her disappearance. The tipster claimed that the person responsible was driving with a suspended license and had only recently been let out of jail, and in a panic loaded Ethier's body into their trunk and buried her at Dawson's Point. Although police investigated the site, no remains were found. In 2000, police retrieved materials from the landfill in McGarry Township while investigating a rumour suggesting a group of teens from Virginiatown was responsible for Ethier's disappearance.
Several key oversights in the investigation may also point to the possibility that a police officer or someone associated with the police department was responsible for the crime, and the resulting errors made by investigators were to cover up their involvement. One witness has alleged that in the days prior to her disappearance, a police officer had asked around town about Melanie Ethier as though concerned for her well-being.
White supremacist groups were active in the Temiskaming area in the 1990s, and Ethier's disappearance was considered a likely hate crime in the early days of the investigation. Before Ethier went missing she was one of only three Black girls in New Liskeard; following her disappearance, the other girls were placed under police surveillance in case they were targeted next.
Assault by stranger.
Bars in the area (including Doc's, located on Armstrong Street only a block away from the Pine Avenue residence) would have been closing at around the time Ethier began walking home, putting her on the streets at the same time as the bar's inebriated patrons. Witnesses described two female hitchhikers seen outside Doc's at 02:10 who were later identified by police and ruled out as suspects. As it was a busy Saturday night, police officers in two cruisers had been assigned to monitor the bar but did not note any suspicious activity; they were the only officers on duty that night. There were also three weddings and possibly a small party going on elsewhere on Pine Avenue on the weekend of 28–29 September 1996, and someone who had been drinking at a get-together or was from out of town may have come across Ethier and seized on the opportunity to assault her. Ethier's route would also have taken her past two gas stations, an Esso and a Mr. Gas, both of which are likely to have been open at the time she walked by.
Pete Gilboe, a decorated conservation officer with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry who operated in New Liskeard from 2001 to 2020, said in a 2020 interview that he doubts one popular theory which suggests Ethier was killed by hunters from the United States. At the time of Ethier's disappearance, the only hunting seasons that would have been open would be for small game and bear, and in the 1990s most bear hunting took place in the spring rather than the fall months. The small game season rarely draws anyone to the community, and big game hunters would be required to stay with a licensed outfitter or lodge.
Of particular interest to the case is the suspicious vehicle encountered by the two girls who were with Ethier on the day she disappeared. The girlfriend of one of Ethier's friends had spent some time with their group on the afternoon of 28 September 1996 but left them to return home after sunset. While walking home with her large dog, a white delivery van with a side door pulled over to ask her for directions. The driver and his passenger were reported as being men in their 30s, both unkempt and wearing tank tops. She found the conversation uncomfortable, and when her dog began to bark aggressively at the vehicle the men drove off. The van was also spotted that night by a video store employee. The employee, who was the sister of one of the male friends Ethier was with, had seen Melanie earlier that day and had even paid for the movie the group rented. One man, either the driver or his passenger, entered the rental store at around 22:30 and loitered around, ignoring the clerk's offer to help him find what he was looking for, and left without ever saying a word. He was wearing blue work pants which looked unwashed and discoloured, a grungy white shirt which had been extensively yellowed, and work boots. He was described as being of an average build with dirty blond hair, in his mid-40s, standing roughly 5'8"-5'9". She described the van as being a "beat up" white utility van with no signage, and was unable to inconspicuously take down the license plate number because it was parked in a dark spot. After the man left, the clerk, who would normally walk home but felt threatened by the stranger's odd behaviour, called her father to pick her up when the store closed at 23:00. Police did not question the clerk until 2020.
Another vehicle reported in the area on the night Ethier disappeared was a light-coloured (white, light blue, or light grey) car with a vinyl roof, possibly an older-model Cadillac Eldorado, Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Ford Elite, Ford LTD, Ford Tempo, Ford Thunderbird, Mercury Topaz, Oldsmobile 88, or Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. The car was spotted driving around New Liskeard after dark with its headlights turned off, behaviour considered suspicious by witnesses. The vehicle was seen by witnesses on the Armstrong Street Bridge at around 02:00. It is unknown if this vehicle, the white van, or the slowly-moving car encountered by Ethier's friend on Pine Avenue are connected to each other or the disappearance. Police Sergeant Dwight Thib stated in a 2020 interview that he did not believe the vehicle was connected to the case.
Assault by serial killer.
At the time of Ethier's disappearance in 1996, as many as three known serial predators were active in the Temiskaming area.
Richard Bouillon was a convicted sexual predator who murdered his 16-year-old neighbour Julie Sruprenant in Terrebonne, Quebec on 15 November 1999. Bouillon had been suspected for the murder of Julie Surprenant by her family as well as police but was never arrested, only offering a deathbed confession in 2006. Bouillon also admitted to other crimes which were communicated to police but not investigated. As is the case with Ethier, Surprenant's remains have never been recovered. The community of Terrebonne is a roughly eight-hour drive from New Liskeard.
Paul Alan Hachey was a repeat violent offender who was ultimately convicted of three sexual assaults which took place in Edmonton and two murders which took place in Ontario. Hachey murdered 46-year-old Larry Arnold on 14 October 1994 and hid Arnold's body in a ravine in Rosedale, Toronto, where it remained hidden until 19 November nearly five weeks later; and 20-year-old Sarah Whitehead on 7 August 1997 while she was walking home from the mall along a footpath in North Bay. Hachey was arrested in Calgary in December 1997 for another sexual assault. Police in Hachey's hometown of Sturgeon Falls, Ontario made the connection between him and the murder of Sarah Whitehead using DNA retried from a cigarette butt at the crime scene in Calgary to tie Hachey to the crime as well as the assaults in Edmonton; he also confessed to the murder of Larry Arnold while in police custody. Although he was active in the area, his "modus operandi" (or "MO") does not match the details of the Ethier disappearance and the OPP do not consider him a suspect.
Michael Wayne McGray was a serial killer who was active and transient at the time of Ethier's disappearance. Between 1985 and 1998, McGray killed at least six girls between the ages of 7 and 18 years old, and has since claimed to have been responsible for eleven more which have yet to be linked to him. McGray's confirmed crimes took place in Dartmouth, Moncton, Montreal, Saint John, and Weymouth; but he claims that his yet-undiscovered crimes occurred in more distant locales including Calgary, Seattle, and Vancouver. McGray's was arrested on 1 March 1998.
Public reaction.
Initial reaction.
The New Liskeard community helped search for Melanie and support the Ethier family. A special prayer service was held at New Liskeard's Church of St. John the Evangelist on 2 October 1996, three days after Melanie disappeared; and a second was held shortly afterwards at Paroisse Sainte-Croix. Parents whose children were enrolled in the Garderie Richelieu, the daycare where both Celine and Melanie Ethier worked, began organizing a trust fund for the Ethier family after the disappearance. On 18 November 1996, a vigil of about a dozen people led by Celine Ethier decorated a tree near the intersection of Armstrong Street and Whitewood Avenue in downtown New Liskeard, just south of the bridge where Melanie was last sighted. Another vigil was held on 9 December, and was attended by roughly sixty people. The tree, located behind the Holy Cross Parish church, was adorned with yellow ribbons and photos of Melanie in order to keep the public aware of her case, and throughout the holiday season other trees were similarly decorated with gold ribbons. Celine Ethier later stated:
"My house felt like a big funeral for the first two weeks because I had people dropping off food, flowers, gifts. I had a lot of contact with the police, they really kept me up-to-date. I did mini-searches myself with friends."
The principals of New Liskeard Public School, Haileybury Public School, and École secondaire catholique Sainte-Michel reported in October 1996 that the event incited much discussion about personal safety among the students, but that the public awareness of Ethier's disappearance did not increase the number of parents who dropped off and picked up their children from school. Conversely, schools in the nearby communities of Earlton and Belle Vallee noted a significant increase in the number of parents transporting students to and from school. Local students later stated that many were afraid for their lives. In November, a seminar hosted by an OPP constable at Englehart High School about the dangers of children walking alone was attended by 150 students, far more than the 30 that were expected. New Liskeard Police Sergeant Dwight Thib noted that more parents were driving their children to school functions for about six months to a year, but that concern had dwindled by the end of 1997. Some teens in the region would put on outfits resembling the one Melanie wore on 29 September and walk along roadsides and highways, leading locals who spotted them to call in false tips to police.
"The Temiskaming Speaker" named the disappearance of Melanie Ethier as their News Story of the Year for 1996, and one article referred to the case as the "story of the decade".
Continued interest.
Despite passing polygraph tests and being eliminated as suspects by police, much of the public's suspicion and distrust fell on the male friends who were present the evening of 28–29 September 1996. Ethier's then-boyfriend would later claim that his biggest regret in life was not walking her home that night. He has also stated that even in 2020 some locals continued to accuse him of being responsible for Melanie's disappearance, either through negligence or by murdering her. The boy whose family who lived in the Pine Avenue residence where Ethier spent her last night has also stated he felt extraordinary guilt for not having the foresight to walk her home. With the exception of the man who was dating Ethier at the time of her disappearance, no other person who was present that evening still resides in the Temiskaming area.
The Canadian Centre for Child Protection has provided support to the Ethier family for over 20 years. The Missing Children Society of Canada has tried to bring attention to the case, citing Melanie Ethier as a case of a missing child who had yet to be located and may still be living after the victims of serial child abductor Ariel Castro were found alive in May 2013.
In 2016, the City of Temiskaming Shores Public Works Committee turned down a proposal to install a bronze memorial dedicated to Melanie Ethier on the Armstrong Street bridge.
Approximately 300 masked marchers attended a "Walk for Awareness: Bring Melanie Ethier Home" event on 7 November 2020, raising awareness for the case and advocating for better child welfare.
Social media.
Celine Ethier created a Facebook page entitled "Let's Work Together to Find Melanie Ethier" on 11 August 2009 to raise awareness for her daughter's case. Ethier has concentrated her search for Melanie online, telling reporters in 2015 that "I feel that Facebook, because it is so known to everybody, it's going to give Melanie more exposure" and "I am going to get the tip that I need to be able to find her".
In January 2020, the Ontario Provincial Police released a series of videos on historical and unsolved criminal cases including the disappearance of Melanie Ethier, interviewing her mother Celine Ethier as well as Detective Sergeant Lisa Laxton and Detective Inspector Rob Matthews from the OPP.
Interest in the case increased in September 2020 when Michael Jolicoeur, a medium, began posting vlogs to his YouTube channel claiming to have been contacted by the spirit of Melanie Ethier.
Criticism of police.
Police have been criticized for their unfair treatment of the friends who Melanie Ethier spent the day with on 18 September 1996. The boys were treated harshly by police, who sometimes questioned them at school and without any parents present. Ethier's female friend, who reported that she encountered a suspicious vehicle after leaving the Pine Avenue residence, was only questioned informally by officers in a parking lot.
Michael Andrew Arntfield, a professor of criminology at the University of Western Ontario and former police detective, criticized the OPP in 2017 and again in 2020 for withholding details about the case from the public which could engage tipsters or other people who may not know they have pertinent information that investigators are unaware of. Arntfield also questioned the Ontario government's strategy of offering a monetary reward for information that would resolve the case, suggesting that the funds could be better used incentivizing persons involved in the drug trade to come forward as informers. In 2020, the hosts of the true crime podcast "Shedding Light" also criticized the investigation for inefficiently handling resources and inconsistently reporting facts related to the case.
Editorials by staff at the "Temiskaming Speaker" newspaper criticized law enforcement and the government of Canada for not expanding the National DNA Data Bank of Canada to include missing persons and unidentified remains, which may have stymied investigations like the Ethier case. Celine Ethier also criticized the federal government for voting down legislation which would expand the DNA database. In 2019, another editorial in the paper praised the passage of the Missing Persons Act on 1 July 2019.
OPP Detective Constable Bill Deverell has refuted criticism that the police overlooked tips and didn't consider every possible lead in the investigation.