By Geoff Smith (@GeoffSmithLNN on Twitter)

Police keeping hope alive in pair of missing person cases

Nov 15, 2018 | 11:22 AM

LETHBRIDGE – Julie Ann Derouin was 23 when she was last seen. That was New Year’s Day in 1980.

Was she the victim of foul play, or did she simply choose to disappear? Police have never been able to find that out, but they’re not giving up. Derouin is the subject of one of two cold cases the Lethbridge Police Service is calling attention to. The other is the 1993 disappearance of Theodore Murray Milde.

“We’d just like to make sure the public is aware of these files,” Acting Staff Sgt. Mark Smallbones told reporters Thursday, Nov. 15, “and if there’s any information whatsoever that they please contact us, no matter how little it is, so that we can continue to look into it and hopefully try to bring some closure to these files.”

The case of two missing sisters who were located in 2017 shows there’s hope for cases that have remained open a long time.

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“If by chance these people are out there, and they’re watching it themselves, then we’re hoping that they would also contact us. We’re not looking to disrupt their lives; we’re just looking to bring closure to the file,” Smallbones added.

Here’s what police know about Julie Derouin: She was an associate of the Ghost Riders Motorcycle Club, now defunct. Sometime late in 1979, she moved to Lethbridge from the Lower Mainland of B.C. While she disappeared at the start of 1980, she wasn’t officially reported missing until June 1983.

Investigators received conflicting tips they were never able to confirm: that she had returned to B.C. That she had moved to Ontario. That she had been murdered.

 In 1985, police, armed with a warrant to search and excavate, did an exhaustive search of the property where she had lived with her boyfriend, but no trace of her was ever found.

In the case of Theodore Milde, there’s evidence to suggest he committed suicide. But his body was never found.

Milde’s disappearance was first brought to the attention of police Feb. 18, 1993, after a friend found a note and Milde’s keys in his mailbox. The note told the friend to go to his home, where there were items he wanted his friend to have. It also said where his vehicle would be found.

There were more notes inside the home when police searched it. His vehicle turned up exactly where Milde said it would be, just outside city limits along 28 St. N. There were footprints in the snow leading into the coulees.

Extensive searches of the river valley and surrounding areas turned up no traces of Milde, and he was never in touch with family or friends again.

Smallbones said as time goes on, new challenges can arise, with fading memories and deteriorating evidence. Investigators take a fresh look at the evidence each year to make sure nothing is missed.

While no new evidence or tactics have come to light in these two cases, social media could lead to a break.

“Hopefully, to be able to touch out to several different people, not just locally but nationally and internationally, that there might be somebody that might have that linking piece, and that’s why we do it.”

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