POLICE TAKE A NEW LOOK AT A MISSING PERSONS CASE FROM 1991
Ontario police reopen inquiry 25 years later
Aquarter century after a young woman vanished from her suburban Toronto home, Ontario Provincial Police have reopened an investigation into her disappearance, and unearthed a new, unconfirmed report she may have been spotted alive in the United States.
If the sighting is real, it would fit with her mother’s fear that Amanda Jane Rudge intentionally disappeared in 1991, aged 27, to save herself and her mother after criminals threatened to kill her.
If it turns out to be false, it will be yet another dead-end lead in a twisting investigation that has now been pursued, with varying intensity, by at least three separate police forces.
A focus of the new investigation is an anonymous phone call at the time of the disappearance to Amanda’s mother, Sylvia Rudge, saying she would never see her daughter again if Amanda gave evidence as a witness to the crimes of her acquaintances in a risky subculture of drugs and drinking.
Police have now determined Amanda was in fact involved in a police investigation around the time she vanished in the summer of 1991. But her disappearance appears to have been investigated only half-heartedly, at least partly because Amanda was legally an adult.
“She was involved in something,” Sylvia Rudge said in an interview. The phone call came from a man with a Jamaican or Caribbean accent, who did not identify himself. “When somebody’s the age she was, they don’t discuss it with their mother.”
Sylvia’s initial missing person report was dismissed, she said, by police who said Amanda was free to make her own decisions without informing her mother, despite the abrupt disappearance from the home they shared in Mississauga.
“They just missed everything because she was 27 years old,” said Sylvia. She believes a key reason for this initial skepticism was Amanda’s troubled lifestyle, with a history of eating disorders, precarious work in hairdressing and bartending, sketchy friends, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and even a few days in jail on minor charges.
“She just did things differently,” Sylvia said. “She was living a life that I didn’t agree with, and a lot of people wouldn’t have done. I’m sure she got involved with just the wrong sort.”
“Amanda may not want to be found. She has participated in a lifestyle that’s described as a high risk,” said Det. Staff Sgt. Paul Rosato of the Ontario Provincial Police. “We still have no information to suggest that Amanda had met with any foul play, but of course we can’t rule that out.”
Despite searching, Rosato has not been able to locate Sylvia’s original missing person report or determine if it was ever investigated or taken seriously.
He said the case came to the OPP’s attention in 2007 when an officer for a different regional police force was investigating unidentified remains, which turned out to be someone else, but it got Amanda’s name onto the OPP’s list of missing persons. That led to inquiries with Sylvia and her former husband Frank Rudge, who stayed in New Jersey after they divorced when Amanda was a young child, and Sylvia moved them to Canada. That investigation showed Amanda becoming a virtual ghost, with no activity on health insurance, credit cards, driver’s licence, border crossings, or other official records. The search is further complicated by her relatively common name.
Frank did not reply to a message left with a receptionist, seeking comment about Amanda. Sylvia said she has made him aware of the renewed police interest, but that he has said he “washed his hands” of her.
Last year, the cold case was routinely kicked up to the OPP’s Criminal Investigations Branch, which a few weeks ago learned of the possible American sighting, and is now appealing for anyone who knew Amanda to get in touch.
“I think there is a cultural change happening,” said Alissa Watt, founder and executive director of The Missed Lives Project, which works on lesser known missing persons cases, and started helping Sylvia after she contacted them a few months ago. “Unfortunately, I think (serial killer) Robert Pickton was a big pivoting factor.”
Watt said the lessons of the Pickton murders (former inquiry head Wally Oppal is an adviser to The Missed Lives Project) have led to such policy revisions as requiring more investigation, not less, if missing women have certain demographic features, such as involvement in prostitution, indigenous heritage, or a risk of self-harm.
Sylvia describes this new investigation as the closest she has come in 25 years to having her fears taken seriously.
“I think the public should know that there are instances where females especially in this world are overlooked in many things, not just disappearing, but life itself, actually. I think we get a raw deal,” she said. “I’m still not sure whether Amanda is still around or not. I find that hard. Sometimes I think she is, sometimes I think she’s not ... I mean, I’m old now and it’s hard, but I know there’s an answer out there.”