Shelly Tannis Dene: Missing Edmonton Woman Since 2013

Author: Shane Lambert
Original Time of Writing: January 6th, 2021; second look on August 22nd, 2026.

Shelly Tannis Dene: Missing Person from Edmonton

Shelly Dene. Appears to be a selfie of her last Facebook post from May 17th, 2013.

Missing Person

Missing person: Shelly Tannis Dene
Last-seen date: Not clear -- one report said July 2013, but there is a text message in late August that is mentioned.
Last-seen location: Edmonton, Alberta, I think at her grandmother's house near 114th street and 102nd avenue, which would be the Oliver area.

Last communication: A text exchange with her sister around mid-July 2013 appears to have been her last known communication with family. 
Link to Government Source: Case 2014006306
Ethnicity/Race: Aboriginal (of the Fort McKay First Nation)

Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: Click the tag "missing and murdered aboriginal women" to see all the relevant cases at this website
Sex: Female
Age at time of disappearance: 25 years old
Hair: Brown
Eye color: Brown
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 5'7" and 110 pounds
Scar: right cheek according to Canada's Missing; however, in a YouTube video I watched, the scar(s) may have been on the left side of her face; they are from a dog bite.

Disappearance and Missing Person Report

Shelly Dene was last seen in the summer of 2013. However, she was not reported missing until November 8th of that year after her phone became disconnected (Facebook post: Missing People of Canada).

The reported disconnection of the phone as of November 8th does not mean she was active with her phone in the days prior to that. Phone-service disconnection is a process that could take weeks or months, with bill non-payment being one reason or prepaid services not being renewed being another. But you can't really tell exactly when she was active with her phone by a disconnection date. 

This is a case involving a lot of activism on the part of some of those who knew her. In fact, I lived in Edmonton from 2014 to 2015, and I remember seeing her missing-person posters around the downtown area. 

Shelly Dene's Move to Edmonton

She had only moved to Edmonton in 2013 (perhaps around May or June), and she had a residency previously in Kelowna. At other times in her life, she lived in Fort McMurray, Fort McKay, and Vernon. This is an important detail, I think, because Shelly was a person who seemed to relocate a lot.

Custody, Family and Her Last Communication

A detail that is treated as important in her mystery is that in the months or weeks prior to her last communication, she had learned that she would not be getting custody of her child back. Reportedly, this wasn't good for her emotional well-being. In the following excerpt from an Edmonton Journal article, "Candice" refers to Shelly's sister and "Yvonne" refers to Shelly's mother. In what I believe is Shelly's last-known communication, she indicated that she was going to the Yukon.

Mon, May 11, 2015 – 4 · Edmonton Journal (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) · Newspapers.com

The Red Truck and Possible Yukon Trip

The balance of the picture I got when reading about this case was that Shelly may have been heading to the Yukon in a red truck with a man who was of First Nations descent. However, the red truck and its relationship to Shelly isn't perfectly clear as an established fact in the mystery of her disappearance. This is like a lot of missing persons mysteries, where a detail is mentioned but that detail's relationship to the mystery is not established.

Wed, Aug 27, 2014 – 2 · Whitehorse Daily Star (Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada) · Newspapers.com

          

Yet, someone traveling from Edmonton to the Yukon using the highway would likely head west on the Yellowhead Highway. After that, there are two ways to go: one through Whitecourt and Grande Prairie or one through Grand Cache and Grande Prairie. That she may have been traveling with a man with a vehicle seems to reduce the chances of her using hitchhiking; however, the red truck is an ambiguous factor in this mystery.

Other Mysteries Involving a Red Truck 

I found some other mysteries involving red trucks that I think are worth mentioning. I am not suggesting that these cases are related to Shelly Dene's disappearance, and the similarities should not be treated as evidence of a connection. Rather, I think that tenuous connections can sometimes be worth exploring, particularly when a case remains unsolved. If any of the following mysteries are eventually resolved or produce new information, it may be interesting to see whether any of that information happens to be relevant to Shelly Dene's case as well. At this point, however, these are simply investigative possibilities, not established connections.

Shooting of Mohamed Nagiel Saddek Nagem

Another unsolved mystery involving a red truck that I found that, in my opinion, is worth mentioning has to do with a 2017 unsolved murder as covered at Homicidecanada.com. I don't have any reason to believe this mystery was solved either.

A Surrey man was shot while in the Yukon, near Whitehorse, and a red truck was seen leaving the scene. Whether the two mysteries, Shelly's and the 2017 shooting, are related is very hard to establish, in my opinion. There are certainly going to be a lot of red trucks, even in a city as small as Whitehorse. So, this is only a case to be aware of but not one with a concrete connection.

I think anyone looking at Shelly's mystery could conduct a periodic search to see if this 2017 mystery gets solved or generates a lead (or you can call my attention to it and I will have a look). Basically, you want to see if the shooting of Mohamed Nagiel Saddek Nagem has a lead or has been solved.

For example, if the shooter does get identified, he could also be looked at regarding his whereabouts in 2013 and if he owned a red truck at that time as well. This kind of lead is, in fact, tenuous, but when these mysteries go unsolved for so long, it's often these tenuous leads that amateurs are left with.

"Whitehorse RCMP responded to a reported shooting in Porter Creek, at the area of Alaska Highway and Wann Road on September 20th at approximately 6:40pm.

Police said two vehicles were involved in the incident. Police said the vehicle driven by the victim was in close proximity to what they believe was a red pick up truck. The person in the red truck fired several times injuring the driver of the other vehicle, before fleeing the scene.

The 25 year old victim was rushed to hospital where he died of his injuries on September 21st." (Lee Jordan, September 24, 2017)

Disappearance of Amber Rose Marie Guiboche

Amber disappeared in Winnipeg on the night of November 10th, 2010. Like Shelly, Amber was an Aboriginal woman. Like Shelly, a red truck has been associated with the mystery, as Amber was last seen getting into a red truck by one source I found. But another source describes the truck as burgundy. Also, the truck driver was described as Caucasian.

Possible Abduction News From 2022 Involving a Red Truck

A Global News article from Alberta describes a red truck in relation to a "possible abduction" at Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta.

Unanswered Questions in the Case

All leads, in this case, appear to be tenuous. If you read the journalism in an effort to get an inkling of what happened to Shelly, at some points you might think suicide is relevant because she had a history of substance use. Furthermore, she seemed to be, at least, upset or disappointed at the time of her disappearance over not having custody of her child. 

There is a possible text message that Shelly may have sent her sister before she disappeared (August 28th, 2013) that is mentioned in relation to this mystery. This message is described as one in which Shelly answered in the negative when Candice asked if she was okay. In my opinion, that negative response is really hard to ignore.

The Man With the Red Truck

Another circumstance, in this case, is just who exactly the man was she was seen with -- the man with the red truck. Shelly's case has received some news exposure. 

Did Shelly and the man go to the Yukon together? Is he missing too? The person who saw him says he was wearing beige clothes, and she wondered if he might have been a Truck Driver by profession. Was the red truck actually a rig?

A Potential Lead Through Another Missing Person Case

A break, in this case, would be if someone ever came across a missing person's report involving an Aboriginal man in western Canada who was last known to be driving a red truck before he disappeared in 2013. Sometimes, when people use the highway, they go off the highway.

Considering that angle, if Shelly disappeared with the man she was last seen with, then his case file might generate a lead. Keep an Aboriginal male with a red truck in mind if you are among those who peruse through missing people reports.

The Search for Shelly Dene

But, to be honest, there is not much to go on for Shelly. Assuming that she went to the Yukon, then the area that this search covers is immense, as the trip from Edmonton to Whitehorse is 22 hours or so. At present, I would have to say that the chances of an amateur or websleuth providing a useful lead in this case are low.