By The Numbers

By The Numbers

Lisa was 21 years old when she was murdered, 21 years ago, and someone who was in the room at the time of the murder is [when this was written] currently 21 years old.

RCMP initially refused to accept the report of Lisa's disappearance, telling her mother to call back after 48 hours. This was never the policy of any police force in Canada and the first 72 hours are statistically the most critical to a missing person's case.

Lisa's parents persisted with calling and about 8 hours later an officer stopped by and picked up a photo of Lisa, however when they tried to follow up with him the next day, they were told he had gone on 5 scheduled days off, and to call back after that.

Despite Lisa's ominous final call (he won't bring me back) and text message (they won't let me leave) and a neighbour's report of witnessing a backyard burial, and Lisa's failure to show up to move into her new apartment or for her 1^st day at her new job, it was still 10 days before RCMP admitted that Lisa may have met with foul play.

Within the first 2 months after Lisa's disappearance, her family performed dozens of searches including an underwater search by 2 private divers based on tips from 2 psychics. The dive took place less than 400 meters from Lisa's actual burial location.

The RCMP's 1^st search took place 80 days after Lisa was reported missing, including an 18-day delay because investigators were pulled off of Lisa's case due to an unrelated shooting which was solved in less than 2 days. Perhaps demonstrative of their faith in RCMP, Lisa's family repeated the search, 2 months later.

Investigators were uninterested in Lisa's father's repeated inquiries about producing a Crime Stoppers video re‑enactment, and RCMP later said Crime Stoppers no longer does re‑enactments of crimes — but 2 months later this was proven to be a blatant lie, yet it still took another 6 years for RCMP to provide Crime Stoppers with the basic case details required to finally produce the re‑enactment which was finally aired 7 years after Lisa's "disappearance". Unfortunately, the 2½ minute video contains at least 18 factual errors.

After Lisa had been missing for 18½ years RCMP performed their 2^nd search, which was 6,666 days after their 1^st search, in the backyard at 827 Nanaimo Lakes Road — the location of the 1^st houseparty to which Lisa was taken — and was a location which Lisa's father had asked investigators to look into after he received several tips indicating the significance of the property.

Despite multiple people saying they saw Lisa at the party, RCMP was initially adamant that Lisa wasn't there, yet 2 decades later admitted that the location was significant to her disappearance. Investigators returned to search the property a total of 3 times, without success.

The property is, however, where Lisa is buried — beneath a 4ft² concrete square (49.14502, -123.97504) which was added in 2002 — but was never excavated or otherwise disturbed by RCMP.

Lisa's father and his Purolator Courier co-workers quickly distributed 1000's of "missing" posters — which included her parent's home phone number, and eventually, a photo of Chris Adair (Jaguar driver) — across Vancouver Island, generating a flood of tips from the public: dozens within the 1st week, 100's by the end of the month, and they haven't stopped coming. By 2019 investigators had received over 800 tips, and by 2021 (after the case received renewed attention — including the viral popularity of the Where is Lisa? podcast — the number of tips was in the 1000's. As of 2022, RCMP continues to receive new tips a few times each month.

On that Canada Day 2002, 26-year-old Chris Adair drove Lisa to 827 Nanaimo Lakes Road at least 2 times: around 1am, and again mid-day. When Lisa was murdered there were 4 people in the room, although 2 of them were young children.

3 weeks later, Chris was arrested in Kamloops (400 km away) on unrelated charges of Fraud and Theft, outstanding from a year earlier. 21 days after Lisa's disappearance, the 2 charges (and Chris), were transferred from Kamloops to Nanaimo, but only 1 charge arrived; the Fraud charge seemingly "disappeared" in transit.

Around July 22^nd, Chris was questioned about Lisa's disappearance at the Parksville RCMP detachment, and then released. It's unclear why this took place in Parksville — 40km from Nanaimo and 14km from Qualicum Beach, where Chris stayed with his grandparents — but notably, 21 years earlier, Chris's grandfather had been for 5 years Mayor of Parksville and Alderman for 3 years.

1 day later in Nanaimo, Chris was convicted of Theft and handed a Conditional Sentence Order (CSO), requiring him to "keep the peace" and remain in BC for 90 days. However, 30 days later, he breached both conditions by assaulting an RCMP officer, 2000km away in his hometown of Yorkton, Saskatchewan.

For Assaulting a Peace Officer while committing Breach of a Conditional Sentence Order, Chris Adair was sentenced to just 1 day in jail.

On June 4^th, 2020 — soon after release of the Island Crime season 1: Where is Lisa? podcast series — Lisa's 1st cousin Chantel Moore was murdered by an RCMP officer, during a "wellness check" soon after she and her daughter moved from Vancouver Island to New Brunswick. Chantel is the 2nd of Tla-o-qui-aht Chief Moses Martin's granddaughters to become a victim of murder.

Lisa was murdered on Canada's 135^th birthday.

Lisa's case has been the topic of over 250 news articles and nearly 50 podcast episodes produced as far away as Australia, Turkey and Scotland. The RCMP's case file reportedly contains "15,000 documents and 100's of witnesses". The annual "Walk for Lisa" continues to draw crowds upward of 100 supporters, and the Lisa Marie Young Facebook group has over 8,000 members. The RCMP's investigation has been discussed by MP's at the House of Commons on at least 5 occasions.

Over the years 3 cash rewards have been offered for resolution in Lisa's case:

• ^$2,000 offered by Crime Stoppers,
• (as of Sept 2002) ^$11,500 by the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, ,
• (as of 2022-02-02) US^$50,000 offered by an "anonymous American" who learned of Lisa's disappearance by listening to the Island Crime podcast.

...these three rewards total approximately CAD^$82,000.

See Also

• Notoriety
• News Article List
• Podcasts
• Timeline: July 1, 2002