Thirty years ago, in the early hours of March 17, six teenage boys vanished in Pickering after a night of partying.
In the three decades that have followed, there’s been no evidence that proves what happened to the teenage boys. If anybody knows what happened to Jay Boyle, Michael Cummins, Danny Higgins, Chad Smith, Robbie Rumboldt and Jamie Lefebvre, they haven’t come forward.
This St. Patrick’s Day marks 30 years from a day that has become infamous in the Pickering community, March 17, 1995, the last day any of the boys were seen.
Despite the years stretching on, people all over the world are still interested in this haunting case.
Aside from the sheer fact that six people seemed to vanish into thin air, there were other interesting — some claim troubling — aspects of this case that keep it a talking point.
It took 36 hours for Durham police to start searching Lake Ontario for the boys since police first received phone calls they were missing. The search was called off after 36 hours.
Thousands of volunteers, both in the air, on the water and nearby, searched for the boys, who were known to police, but an underwater search was never conducted.
Just three of the boys — Michael, Jamie and Robbie — were spotted on video surveillance entering the East Shore Marina on Frenchman’s Bay after they had left a party. This was at 1:48 a.m. Despite no sign of Jay, Chad or Danny on the tape, Durham police believed all six of the boys stole a 14-foot Boston Whaler replica and a water tricycle and died of hypothermia in the frigid waters of Lake Ontario after their boat capsized.
But there have been no bodies, no clothing or no boats that have been officially tied to the group of friends.
