Barrie Police Chief Rich Johnston will make a “significant announcement” tomorrow regarding an ongoing investigation involving a missing person believed to be 26-year-old Autumn Shaganash, who was reported missing to city police on June 12, 2023.
In a release sent out by police on Wednesday afternoon, they do not mention Shaganash by name, but the description of the age of the victim and the date of the missing person call to police match that of Autumn Shaganash.
News media have been invited to attend the Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus on Fairview Road at 11 a.m. on Feb. 8, at which time Johnston, the lead investigator in the case and a member of the missing person’s family are expected to speak.
After seven months of mystery surrounding Shaganash's disappearance after she left a home in Barrie in June 2023, her family hired a private investigator to work independently of local police.
Shaganash, who was 26 at the time of her disappearance, was last seen leaving the home, located in the Allandale neighbourhood near Burton Avenue and Frank’s Way, on the night of June 9, 2023. She was last seen wearing a black hoodie, shorts and Puma sandals, and carrying a black and tan purse.
A missing person investigation was launched on June 12, when local police were notified of her disappearance.
At that time, Barrie police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon told BarrieToday one of Shaganash’s family members received a text message from her on June 10, but noted she was unreachable after that.
Leon said it appeared from investigative resources that are available to police that Shaganash had “vanished into thin air,” adding her social media activity had ceased following her disappearance.
Investigators “pinged her cellphone” — a method of determining the estimated current location of a cellphone by using GPS data or by using cell-tower triangulation — and she was last pinged in the Kozlov Street area, which is where she was last seen, in Sunnidale Park.
Sunnidale Park has been searched numerous times by police drones and canine search teams, since her disappearance, but to no avail.
Despite everything, Shaganash’s sister, Lili-Anne Moore, said in a recent interview, she and her family are remaining hopeful her sister will be returned safe to them one day.
“We really miss her. She was like a second mom to my girls. She loved them very much and she would never run away from us. She was always in contact with family (and) if she went out, she would text us,” said Moore. “This is very out of character. Something happened and someone has her. I just hope she’s found safe and alive.”
