Melanie Nadia Ethier

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Ontario Provincial Police Opp Temiskaming (DETACHMENT)

Missing From:

New Liskeard, Ontario

Summary:

Melanie Nadia "Mel" Ethier was a Canadian teenager who disappeared in New Liskeard, Ontario, in 1996. As of 2025, Ethier's whereabouts and the circumstances of her disappearance remain unknown. She was a Grade 11 student at Ecole Secondaire Sainte-Marie who left a friend's house in the east end of New Liskeard about 2:00 a.m. to walk six blocks to her home.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Ethier was last seen while walking home from the Pine Street East area of New Liskeard, Ontario on September 29, 1996. The Grade 11 student at Ecole Secondaire Sainte-Marie left a friend's house in the east end of this Northern Ontario town about 02:00 a.m. to walk the six blocks to her home. Melanie didn't usually walk home by herself, but with no phone service, she couldn't call home for a ride. While leaving the house, she encountered a suspicious vehicle which slowly approached her as she crossed through an intersection, as if assessing her. The girl was so unnerved by the incident that she ran from the scene to the next intersection by the Armstrong Street bridge, which was better lit. On the early morning of September 29, 1996, Melanie left a friend's house in New Liskeard, Ontario, intending to walk less than a kilometre home. She never arrived, and has not been seen or heard from since.

Additional Details:

The search for Melanie began on the afternoon of Sunday, September 29th, 1996 around 2:30 PM and 3:00 PM after Celine called the New Liskeard Police Department to report her daughter missing. The community, the Ethier home, and Melanie's trek home were all searched that day. Local police wanted the best chance they had of finding Melanie, so they called in reinforcements. The following day, Monday, September 30th, 1996, a formal request for assistance was made to the Ontario Provincial Police (the OPP). New Liskeard police also received assistance in the form of a helicopter from Sudbury, a police dog team from North Bay, and a search and rescue dog from the Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario. The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have described the case as "unique" because Melanie appeared to vanish without a trace. Despite exhaustive searches and a long-standing investigation, no physical evidence or confirmed sightings have ever emerged. Over the following years, police received 700 tips from more than 500 people. "There is no evidence that Ethier left the New Liskeard area on a voluntary basis. All evidence and data collected to date would indicate that Melanie Ethier has met with foul play at the hands of person(s) unknown," the OPP said at the time. Plenty of the suspicion in Melanie's case lingered around Denis Léveillé, a powerfully built convicted sex offender who suffered serious brain damage through a car accident and aggravated things through drug abuse. Léveillé, who knew Melanie through a mutual acquaintance, died in January 2016 of natural causes. Twenty-five years after teenager Mélanie Ethier went missing in northern Ontario, police searched a wooded area in Temiskaming District after getting a fresh tip about the case. That's thanks to the CBC podcast The Next Call by journalist David Ridgen, who this summer focused on the cold case dating back to 1996. Matthews, who took over the Ethier case in 2019, co-operated with Ridgen on the podcast series in hopes of getting fresh tips. The province of Ontario is offering a $50,000 reward for information that lead to the arrest or conviction of those responsible for the disappearance of Melanie Ethier.

Case Last Updated:

Aug 04, 2026