It was hot and hazy on Aug. 9, 2001 when Dawn Carisse left the former North Bay Psychiatric Hospital. A thunderstorm would bring rain later that evening, washing away the day and any sign of the mother of three.
Years earlier, Carisse suffered a heart attack on Christmas Eve, causing a brain injury that left her with short-term memory loss.
Her daughter Sandra Charlton said Carisse loved music and dancing with her kids, but after she fell ill she would often repeat herself. “She had a hard time remembering things,” she said. It was soon clear Carisse required constant supervision.
Carisse’s family made the difficult decision to admit her to the hospital where she could be cared for, kept safe.
SIX LIVES DISAPPEAR
At least six patients of the former North Bay Psychiatric Hospital are missing. Vanished without a trace; none have communicated with friends or family. No remains have been found.
Sightings have been reported; none a significant lead.
The hospital housed thousands in locked and unlocked units from 1952 until 2011, when its patients and services were relocated and amalgamated under the North Bay Regional Health Centre.
In 2013, the building was demolished.
Philippe Guérin was a 27-year-old patient of the hospital when he disappeared June 12, 1966. Hospital officials sent a letter to police reporting him missing. His parents died never knowing what happened to their son, the oldest missing persons case on record at the North Bay Police Service.
A decade later, 31-year-old Norman Welsh was picked up by OPP walking along a highway outside Sturgeon Falls, July 18, 1976.
Concerned for his safety, police took him to a local hospital; from there he was admitted to the psychiatric hospital. When staff accompanied him outside the next day, he ran toward the wooded grounds and was never seen again.
On July 21, 1982, Terry Zubko was 18, a patient at the hospital since May. At 10 a.m., granted one hour of unsupervised time outside, Zubko went for a walk from which he would never return. He was reported missing later that afternoon.
On April 7, 2000, a particularly frigid day, just one year before Carisse slipped away, 34-year-old patient Russell Hoffert was reported missing. Hospital staff told police he simply walked away wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt, jeans and running shoes. With the wind chill that day, it was -20 degrees outside.
On his 28th birthday, Glen Wesley was headed for downtown North Bay. A patient of the hospital, he had been granted special leave at 1 p.m. on Sept. 15, 2010 on a short-term pass. He never returned.
“Can you really have six human lives just disappear?” That is the question Ellen White poses on her podcast, Whereabouts Unknown.
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