Ronald and Theresa Yakimchuk -- Use Google Earth to Find Them!
Author: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: January 21st, 2021
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.
Original Time of Writing: January 21st, 2021
All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.
Missing person #1: Ronald Yakimchuk
Last-seen date: June 5th, 1973; might be June 1st, 1973
Last-seen date: June 5th, 1973; might be June 1st, 1973
Last-seen location: Brandon, Manitoba
Last-contact: A postcard from Dryden, Ontario (sent by wife)
Link to Government Source: Canada's Missing
Ethnicity/Race: Caucasian
Sex: Male
Age at time of disappearance: 27
Hair: Brown
Eye color: Brown
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 6'0" and 150 pounds, which would look very lean
Link to Government Source: Canada's Missing
Ethnicity/Race: Caucasian
Sex: Male
Age at time of disappearance: 27
Hair: Brown
Eye color: Brown
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 6'0" and 150 pounds, which would look very lean
Missing person #2: Theresa Yakimchuk
Alias: Terry Pettit (Terry is a derivative of Theresa, Pettit is likely the maiden name)
Last-seen date: June 5th, 1973; might be June 1st, 1973
Last-seen location: Brandon, Manitoba
Last-seen location: Brandon, Manitoba
Last-contact: A postcard from Dryden, Ontario (June 12th, 1973)
Link to Government Source: Canada's Missing
Ethnicity/Race: Caucasian
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 23
Hair: Blonde
Eye color: Blue
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 5'4" and 121 pounds
Link to Government Source: Canada's Missing
Ethnicity/Race: Caucasian
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 23
Hair: Blonde
Eye color: Blue
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 5'4" and 121 pounds
Ronald and Theresa Yakimchuk were from Edmonton, Alberta. They traveled east in the spring of 1973 using a "faded red" Volkswagen Beetle "with an off-green hood and rear fender." This vehicle also had a three-meter long and white kayak affixed to the top of it.
There is some inconsistency between the historical journalism that covered this case and modern government database information. The vehicle in question might be anywhere from 1956 to 1959. Below is a picture of a 1956 VW Beetle, a model that would be similar to the 1959 version (plate: Alberta, CA3-262). Note, that the missing people's vehicle was "faded red," which I'm taking to mean dark pink or a red car that saw too much sunlight.
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| From Wikipedia. Author: Stahlkocher. GNU Free Documentation License |
The missing people were traveling to Montreal to attend a wedding. However, they never made it to that wedding. The date of the wedding that they were planning on attending was called "mid-June" in an article in the June 9th, 1980 edition of The Edmonton Journal. Another source says the exact date of the wedding was June 16th, 1973 (Nov 17 2007 Edmonton Journal).
They did visit what's called "an associate" in Brandon, Manitoba. I believe that this visitation might be the last physical sighting of them. However, there is an indication that they may have sent a postcard from Dryden, Ontario on June 12th, 1973. This date was what was written on the postcard, I think, as opposed to a postmark stamp or the date that it was received.
Furthermore, Canada's Missing says they went missing on June 1st but some journalism on this matter says they left Edmonton on June 5th, 1973. If that is true and if they visited associates in Brandon, Manitoba, then you would have to think they were last seen on at least June 7th, 1973 as the drive from Edmonton to Brandon is not one that most drivers would complete in a day.
Complicating this case is the lack of clarity regarding the missing couple's travel plans. While they did want to attend a wedding, they "planned to travel indefinitely after that." The family did not start to worry about their well-being until a few months after they were last seen. Furthermore, the police didn't help with this case until seven months after they went missing, as per the source below.
One important detail, in this case, has to do with a banking matter. Terry Pettit (ie. Theresa Yakimchuk) purchased a "cash draft" from her bank account in Edmonton and, from what I'm gleaning from the journalism, she planned to redeem it in Ottawa. However, this was not done.
I think a "cash draft" might be called a "money order" in modern lingo. In other words, Theresa Yakimchuk purchased a money order and never redeemed it -- suggesting that the couple never got to Ottawa, a city where there was a bank that she could use to claim her funds. When originating from Edmonton, Ottawa would be en route to Montreal, not after it.
Ottawa, as a potential destination, is important in this case. One early report having to do with this case said the missing people had friends there. These friends never met the couple that summer (Edmonton Journal Jan 22 1974).
The opinion of family and police on this matter, in 1980, was that the Yakimchuks had died. Leads have not been numerous but in 2007 it was reported that someone claimed to have seen them in July 1973. According to this person, she and her husband saw the Yakimchuks highway-side near Parry Sound, Ontario in what would have been late-July of 1973. The witness described a Volkwagen Beetle, a man that looked like Ronald, a woman that looked like Theresa, a third man, and Alberta license plates.
Note: in the article above, "CFB Shilo" would be a Canadian military base near Brandon, Manitoba.
In my opinion, this lead from the Parry Sound area could easily be of a different party than that of the missing people. Even with Albertan plates, the area around the Great Lakes in Ontario is popular enough for tourism that it would not be surprising to see plates from any part of Canada, especially during the summer months. If the kayak had been on the vehicle, then that would be much more of a convincing sighting. I wouldn't discount this sighting but it is not convincing to me. It's something that those that are interested in this case need to be familiar with.
Remember, the missing people did not make their wedding target in Montreal for June 16th. They sent no communications after the Dryden postcard. Furthermore, Theresa did not redeem her cash draft in Ottawa. I'm of the opinion that a highway mishap befell this couple somewhere between Dryden and Ottawa.
For temporal considerations, I think it's likely that something happened to them between June 12th, 1973, the date of the postcard, and June 16th, 1973, the date of the wedding that they failed to show up to. Thus, the alignment of time and space for this missing couple is Dryden to Ottawa between June 12th and June 16th, 1973.
These were 20-somethings that seemed to be interested in growth-via-travel at a young point in their lives. It's possible that they might have explored the back areas of Ontario -- not just the main tourist spots near the main highways. If they were in Dryden on June 12th, then they were close enough to Montreal that they had a few days of free time before the wedding.
That their vehicle has never been found is a major point with this case. However, I did read one article from 1980 that suggested that their vehicle had been found. I did not find a follow-up article to this.
There are lots of missing person's cases where the vehicle is found but the driver and passengers remain missing. It seems that finding a vehicle is a lot easier than finding the primary subjects of searches. That the Yakimchuks' vehicle has never been found could mean that the vehicle went missing with the passengers.
One case that this reminded me of is the missing-person case of Janet Farris. In 1992 she was driving from Vancouver Island to a wedding in Alberta. Like the Yakimchuks, she never made the wedding. She was never heard from again and nor was her car ever found -- until 2019 when it was pulled out of a lake in the Revelstoke area.
Ontario is well known for having thousands of lakes. It can be hard to picture a car going off of the highway and ending up in a deep part of a lake as you might picture the shallow depths stopping the car's momentum. However, cars can go off highways and submerge at significant enough depth so as to be hidden for decades.
One officer who worked on this case seemed to think that the car and the missing people may have entered Lake Superior -- at least, he acknowledged the possibility. I align my own hunches with his.
I would think Lake Superior and any other one not far off the main route between Dryden and Ottawa would be part of the search area. Unfortunately, the area is so immense that the manpower is not likely to be afforded to cover all the possible areas.
But make no mistake -- this is a case that Websleuths and amateur investigators can help with. There was a case in 2019 that was solved where a Google Earth user found a submerged car using that software. The car was located in a small body of water, not far from shore, and inside the car was a missing person that had been there for decades.
Lake Superior is huge and the number of smaller lakes between Dryden and Ottawa is numerous. There are also many rivers that might have submerged a car that was driven off of a bridge. However, if everyone who reads this took ten minutes to use Google Earth to search the shallow depths of lakes and rivers that come close to highways then it might yield results in the long run. I don't know what color the car would be now but maybe a kayak might still be affixed to the top -- maybe not. That's the direction I think this search should go in when it comes to amateur contributions.
If you are researching this case, then it may be fruitful to use "Ron Yakimchuk" or "Terry Pettit" as your keywords. Those are the names that turned up hits in the newspaper archives that I looked at.
Other details:
- Their car was not in good condition
- Lt. Col Sid Stephen was the last person to see them near Brandon, Manitoba
- He warned them about dangerous stretches en route to Montreal
- Someone found what appears to be a VW Beetle buried in their backyard; it will be interesting if leads develop (see the Websleuths forum)
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