Michael Dunahee

Status:

Open

Summary:

Michael Wayne Dunahee disappeared from the playground at Blanshard Elementary School in Victoria, British Columbia, on March 24, 1991, when he was 4 years old, and has never been seen since. His disappearance became one of the largest police investigations in Canadian history, with over 11,000 tips received by police, though despite a CA$100,000 reward, police still do not have any solid leads in the case.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

On Sunday, March 24, 1991, Michael Dunahee and his family went to Blanshard Elementary School for his mother Crystal's flag football practice. Dunahee was wearing a blue hooded jacket, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt, rugby pants and blue sneakers. The family arrived at the school around 12:30 pm. Upon arrival, Dunahee asked his mother if he could go to the playground, which was near the field where the football practice was taking place. He was last seen that day around 12:30 pm at the playground as his mother, Crystal Dunahee, was participating in a women's flag football practice where his father was a spectator. Although he vanished meters from his parents, no witnesses to his disappearance have ever been identified. Crystal and Bruce immediately alerted everyone at the school, and approximately fifty people began searching the area. The Victoria Police Department was contacted within minutes of Michael's disappearance, and because he had vanished so quickly from such a public location, Detective Inspector Fred Mills quickly classified the case as an abduction rather than a simple missing child situation.

Additional Details:

15 detectives worked the case at one point. They checked out tips, looked into known sex offenders and interviewed children at the playground. One witness reported seeing a man in his late 40s or early 50s hanging around the playground. Victoria detectives investigated known sex offenders and interviewed anyone who had been in the area around the time of Dunahee's disappearance, but were unable to find much information except a witness report that "a man in his late 40s or early 50s" with a brown van was near the playground. Hundreds of volunteers and police officers from several agencies launched an extensive search, but Dunahee has never been found. Police have received more than 10,000 tips in the years since. In 2008, the Victoria Police offered a $100,000 reward in Michael's case. Both investigators and Michael's parents hoped the money would convince someone to come forward with previously withheld information — but it never did. The case appeared on America's Most Wanted five separate times. DNA tests in 2006, 2011, and 2013 each ruled out men who resembled Michael. In 2009, the case gained international attention when police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, discovered a missing person poster of Michael at the home of Vernon Seitz, a 62-year-old man who had confessed to his psychiatrist that he had killed a child in 1959. Seitz had died of natural causes before police could question him, but a search of his home revealed disturbing materials including child pornography, drawings of nude boys in bondage, and files on other missing children cases from across North America. However, further investigation revealed no evidence linking Seitz to Michael's disappearance or any other missing children cases. Milwaukee police concluded that Seitz was likely a disturbed individual who collected materials related to missing children but was not actually involved in any abductions. His missing-person file remains open, and a Victoria police officer is still assigned to the cold case. His family has also held the annual Michael Dunahee Keep the Hope Alive Run to raise money for the nonprofit Child Find B.C. (where Crystal Dunahee works). After the four-year-old disappeared, police conducted one of the largest searches for a missing child in Canadian history and Dunahee's parents helped put in place the Amber Alert system now used for missing children.

Case Last Updated:

Oct 16, 2026