Michael Dunahee's Case -- Remembering the Composite Sketches and Vehicle Drawing

Missing person: Michael Wayne Dunahee

Last-contact date: March 24th, 1991 at about 1230pm
Disappeared from: Victoria, British Columbia -- Blanshard Elementary School playground

Link to Government Source: Canada's Missing

Ethnicity/Race: White
Sex: Male
Age at time of disappearance: 4 years old
Hair: Blonde, short
Eye color: Blue
Height and weight at the time of disappearance: 3'0" and 51 pounds
Clothing: White Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt, rugby pants, blue canvas sneakers, blue cloth jacket with red lining and red cuffs

There are few missing person cases in Canada's history that have generated as much lasting interest as the case of Michael Dunahee. If you, the reader, are among the contingent that will undoubtedly look back at the case in March, remember to take a moment to look at the composite sketches and the drawing of the van that Michael was thought to have been lured into. 

The drawing of the van was produced by a young child who said she saw Michael go into it. In my opinion, it looks like a small bus or a vehicle that would be used for services like airport transfers.

Thu, Mar 24, 2011 – 1 · Times Colonist (Victoria, British Columbia, Canada) · Newspapers.com

The picture of the van that the young girl drew does not look like that common of a model. By my research, the vehicle would resemble the Chevrolets in the "P30" and/or "step van" series. These vehicles were on the road in 1991 and seemed to go back several decades with new models hitting the market perhaps annually. The following is the picture that the girl drew.

 

The full-lengthed door on the side is the biggest clue as to the model in my opinion. While I couldn't find a great non-copyrighted photo, I recommend that the reader go to Google images and search for "Chevrolet P30 step-van" and then look at the models from 1991 and prior. My top guess for the year, make, and model would be a 1981 Chevrolet P30 Grumman Step Van.

As far as usable photos go (ie. the photographer allows his/her photo to be used), I found the following. Firstly, I embedded a video below of a 1982 model from Youtube.

For the picture below, it's of a 1997 Chevrolet P30 so it is a model that came into the market several years after Dunahee's 1991 disappearance. However, the earlier models also had that long door that you see in the child's drawing. I think it's that feature that is most credible in the drawing along with color of the vehicle as the disappearance happened in the early afternoon (ie. color is easier for the human eye to detect at midday).

Furthermore, the front windows are viewable when taking a side-longed view of the vehicle. This is the kind of vehicle that you might expect to be camperized, used as a food truck, or used for roadside lodging. To me, it suggests that the person that abducted Dunahee was transient or lodged in campgrounds RV parks.

Wikipedia photo by Mr. choppers.

There was an alleged Dunahee sighting in New Jersey in the weeks after Michael disappeared. A shopper at a convenience store named Harry Krusch claimed he saw Michael on April 4th, 1991 in a place called Maple Shade, New Jersey.

An article with the composite sketch of the man who was allegedly in Michael's company is below. I will say that I never really thought much of this alleged sighting of Michael. However, it's also important to remain open-minded. Note, that the composite sketch involved with this alleged sighting is of a black man while the former sketch was of a white person.

Tue, Apr 16, 1991 – Page 21 · Courier-Post (Camden, New Jersey) · Newspapers.com

Author: Shane Lambert (Facebook profile)

Twitter: @UncoolNegated (Twitter)

Pinterest: Missing Person Board
Original Time of Writing: February 13th, 2021

All articles are subject to editing after the original posting.

I am not a Private Investigator, however, I am currently studying to be one as of February 2021.

Website hashtag: #MPCSL