Five months have now gone by since Barrie resident Autumn Shaganash was reported missing to city police.
Shaganash, 26, had left a family member's home on Friday, June 9 in Barrie's Allandale neighbourhood, near Burton Avenue and Frank's Way.
A missing persons investigation was launched a few days later on June 12, when local police were notified of her disappearance and a report was taken.
Shaganash's family remains hopeful as the police investigation continues.
“I’m in touch with the detectives regularly,” Shaganash's sister, Lili-Anne Moore, said in a phone interview. “Just the basic updates that we go through every couple of weeks."
Moore says there has been no banking activity recorded anywhere since her sister’s disappearance, and no health card records generated by any kind of medical-type visits.
As far as other digital records, Moore said police are currently waiting for information from tech company Apple.
“We’re waiting to get in touch, something about an IP address,” she said.
“We pinged her cellphone and she was last pinged in the Kozlov (Street) area, which is where she was last seen, in Sunnidale Park," Moore added.
A cellphone "ping" is a method of determining the estimated current location of a cellphone by using GPS data or by using cell-tower triangulation.
Moore said Sunnidale Park has been searched five times by police drones and canine search teams, with the most recent search being completed just a couple of weeks ago.
“We really miss her. It’s been too long,” she said.
There have also been searches in downtown Barrie, but as police have said in the past, she seems to have “vanished into thin air.”
There have also been searches in downtown Toronto.
Meanwhile, Barrie police continue their search.
“It is still active and ongoing," said Barrie police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon. "It is in the hands of our major crimes unit and I know they are in constant communication with the family."
Leon says investigators are tracking any leads they can.
“We continue to follow up everything and everything that does come in," he said. "I think it’s important to assure the public that there is no such thing as a cold case.
“We are right where we were months ago where we have no information whatsoever as to her whereabouts. We are just as concerned as the family," Leon added.
Police have conducted a significant number of searches and have utilized many different resources that are available to investigators, Leon said, but with negative results.
“And that’s frustrating for the family and frustrating for the investigators,” he said. “But at the end of the day, we can’t do anything but hope for a positive outcome in the conclusion of this.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Barrie police at 705-725-7025.
There is also a Facebook page dedicated to finding Shaganash.
