Lois Marie Hanna, age 25, disappeared on July 4, 1988 from Kincardine, Ontario. At the time of her disappearance, she weighed 120 lbs and stood 5’4” tall. The night before her disappearance, Lois Hanna had attended the “Celebrate in ‘88” fair in the town of Lucknow, which is located about 36 km from the town in which Hanna lived. This route should have taken around 30 minutes or so to drive. Hanna left the Lucknow dance around 11:45 PM, saying she had to be up to go to work in the morning. It is confirmed that she arrived home that night, as her red Pontiac Grand Am was parked in front of her house the next day. Authorities estimate she arrived home around 12:15 AM that morning, which is in keeping with the time required travel between Lucknow and Kincardine.
The next morning, Lois Hanna had not shown up for work at a clothing store, and a worried clerk visited her residence and knocked. There was no answer. Fearing that Hanna was in distress, the clerk found an unlocked window and crawled inside. The house was empty. Hanna’s purse and keys were left behind, her clothes from the night before were neatly hung, and the TV was on. A half-finished cup of fresh tea was left behind on the kitchen counter. It has not been documented if the tea was hot or cold.
In the house, there was no sign of a struggle and all three doors to the outside were locked. The only missing items were a peach nightgown and robe, which indicates that Hanna may have been in her nightclothes when she was abducted. The only usable evidence that was discovered at the scene was two drops of blood on a wall next to Lois’ home, near the side door. Blood testing was done, but the only evidence that the authorities had at the time was that the blood came from a male. A list of 14 suspects was developed, but all but one have been ruled out. It seems the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) had at one point had a suspect under surveillance, but the last article regarding this dates to 2003 in which the OPP say they have a clear person of interest. However, it appears nothing has come of that suspicion.
Lois Hanna had been a beauty queen and was a former Miss Midwestern Ontario. She also attended classes at Fanshawe College. After her disappearance, over 20 searches have been conducted over the course of 10 years, but nothing of significance was found. The OPP will not disclose the name or any other details related to this individual of interest.
There is some speculation on Websleuths that Russell Williams was involved, as his stepfather was working at the Douglas Nuclear Power Plant at the time, which is located around Kincardine. Williams and Hanna would have been around the same age, but it is unknown if they ever interacted with each other before her disappearance. Williams would have been studying at University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus, which would have only been a few hours away from Kincardine by car; Kincardine and the surrounding area also continues to be popular with summer cottage residents. It would have been an early crime for Williams, as it appears his verified crimes did not occur until 2009.
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Lois Hanna’s disappearance has also been compared to that of Lisa Maas, who disappeared from Owen Sound, Ontario also in July of 1988. Owen Sound is in the same rough geographic area as Kincardine, and would be approximately an hour away. However, law enforcement stresses there is not a connection.
Personally, I don’t think it was Williams. Although all signs point to him being in Ontario at the time, it appears he did not begin his activities until the 2000’s, and one would think that in the period between 1988 and the late 2000’s some escalation would have been present had it been Williams. Hanna’s disappearance could be tied to Lisa Maas’, although the situations are different. Maas disappeared after a party, as did Hanna. But Maas never made it home, and Hanna did.
Police believe Hanna was either followed home from the Lucknow dance, or her home was being watched for signs of her return. Officials classify as her as endangered missing, although after 28 years it is likely Lois Hanna is dead.
Search for Lois Hanna’s remains continues
Cadaver dogs scrambled around areas on Monday that had been flagged during a huge search Saturday for Lois Hanna’s remains in southern Bruce County, 31 years after she went missing.
About 200 people volunteered to conduct the grid search, orchestrated by the volunteer group Please Bring Me Home.
The group, which has an anonymous tips website, is led by Owen Sound’s Nick Oldrieve and Matthew Nopper, who acted on interesting new information.
“As they were walking through the bush they were putting flags and flagging tape up and mapping it on their phones so that we could go back and bring the human remains dogs to these areas,” Oldrieve said by phone from the search site Monday.
“This could be anything from shoes to garbage in a really odd place to random rock piles.”
The dogs belong to Sherri Hall, of Alliston, a dog trainer who used to run a bedbug detection business using dogs, but who now has two dogs certified in Florida for human remains detection, she said in a phone interview at the search scene near Holyrood.
Oldrieve and Nopper returned to the search scene Monday, as did two of Hanna’s four brothers, Dave and Jim Hanna, along with search planner Ryan Greig. There was a mini excavator available should it be needed.
There were about 35 areas flagged for a closer look in the main search area. Two other smaller areas produced nothing of interest, Oldrieve said.
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The search took place in a four-by-two-kilometre area southeast of Holyrood in Huron-Kinloss, southeast of Kincardine. It’s a densely wooded area with some rough terrain, he said.
The area is directly behind where a scream was heard the night of Hanna’s disappearance. On the day Hanna disappeared, a man who lived next to that property reported that he woke up between 2 and 3 a.m. to what he believed was a woman screaming.
The property is also about 2.5 kilometres from where two people spotted a woman wearing a pink-coloured nightgown coming out of a bush lot a few hours later.
And it’s close to a gravel pit where a young boy — the son of the man who heard the scream — found a white bra about a year later.
Part of a drainage ditch runs from next to the gravel pit to the bush lot.
Oldrieve said it was the tip about the scream, provided via the website by someone who gave his name, that set the search in motion. The witness is “credible” and the tip “extremely detailed.”
That witness told police this information two years after Hanna’s disappearance. A statement was never written “and he does not feel it was taken seriously,” Oldrieve said.
Oldrieve said South Bruce OPP Det. Sgt. Jeffrey Armstrong has been “very open” to receiving any information about this case.
“It comes with controversy, right? Because we’re kind of dipping our noses into something they’re experts on and we respect that,” Oldrieve said.
Emailed questions to Armstrong on Monday were not responded to immediately.
Chances of finding Lois Hanna’s remains are “quite good,” despite the passage of time, Hall, the dog trainer, said.
“It’s just a matter of being able to get the dog’s nose into the right place. The dogs are quite capable of detecting minimum 500-year-old bones if they’ve been preserved properly.”
Dogs have been shown to be able to detect 1,000-year-old human remains from well preserved bones in museum, she said.
Hanna was 25 years old when she was reported missing on July 4, 1988, after she didn’t go into work at MacG’s in Kincardine.
The night before, she had attended the Celebrate in ’88 Lucknow homecoming dance at the town’s arena. She left at about 11:45 p.m. and arrived home at about 12:15 a.m. According to the police investigation into her disappearance, Hanna’s car was found in her driveway, her television was on and a half-finished cup of tea was on the kitchen counter.
Hanna’s purse and keys were found in the home, along with the outfit she wore to the dance. A peach nightgown and matching robe were missing.
Credit: https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/local-news/search-for-lois-hannas-remains-continues
Also Read:
https://www.northernnews.ca/news/local-news/dogs-turn-up-nothing-so-far-in-lois-hanna-search/wcm/45675529-761d-44c2-b515-656c09e5bf6d
https://www.bayshorebroadcasting.ca/news_item.php?NewsID=112323
http://pleasebringmehome.com/lois-hannah/
https://www.kincardinenews.com/news/local-news/new-evidence-brings-hope-to-31-year-old-missing-persons-case
