It has now been more than a month since Autumn Shaganash disappeared and the search for the local woman has turned up nothing, leaving the family searching Barrie, Toronto and even scouring the internet for clues.
The 26-year-old woman was last seen leaving a family member's home on Friday, June 9 in Barrie's Allandale neighbourhood, near Burton Avenue and Frank's Way. The following Monday afternoon, on June 12, city police were notified and a full report was taken, launching a missing person's investigation.
Shaganash's sister, Lili-Anne Moore, spoke to BarrieToday on Friday and said this is the most difficult thing she has ever dealt with.
“I’m numb; I can’t even cry anymore," Moore said. "My mom is dealing with it in her way and while I am missing my sister, I can’t imagine what it's like to be missing a daughter like she is."
Several police searches have occurred since Shaganash's disappearance, including Sunnidale Park and downtown Barrie in particular, but as police have said in the past, Shaganash seems to have “vanished into thin air.”
“There have been little sightings, if that's what we can call them. Apparently she has been seen in Toronto, but we have no proof of that,” Moore said. “We have searched a lot of places in Toronto, but there has been no luck at all.”
It was previously reported that a text message came to Moore the day after Shaganash went missing, but it wasn’t said what was in the text.
“'Can you come pick me up?' That's what she texted me the day after we last saw her," Moore said. "I responded about three minutes later, but her phone had been turned off.
“I didn’t think anything of it because I thought maybe (the phone) died and she needed to charge it."
Since then, there has been nothing.
“It has been off since that day and she has had no social media activity, which is highly out of the ordinary,” Moore said. “The police pinged her phone in the Sunnidale area, but it's been off since that last text.”
Earlier this week, Barrie police communications co-ordinator Peter Leon said he had checked in with the major crime unit for an update.
"There have been no developments in this ongoing missing person investigation," he told BarrieToday.
“Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation, I cannot answer specific questions, but we are hopeful that we will be able to reunite Autumn with her family,” Leon added. “I can state with confidence that our major crime unit is leaving no stone unturned."
Police have previously said this was out of character for Shaganash.
Moore echoed that sentiment.
“Absolutely it is. She doesn’t just not call or not come home. She lives with me and helps me with my kids,” Moore said. “We were in Toronto for a week and half because we don’t know, she might have been trafficked? It's the only thing we can think of, as people just don’t disappear.”
Moore did open up and say that while her sister was not a drug user or into a dangerous lifestyle by any means, she had been talking to a person who Moore described as “a bad person.”
“The last person she was with is a bad person. He is not a good person. He has a criminal background, does drugs and I don’t even really know him,” she said. “He has been interviewed a few times.”
Moore said her sister met this person at a Barrie Native Friendship Centre program where Shaganash regularly attended for something to do.
“It was a chance meeting; they weren’t friends before that," Moore said.
Moore said the last video footage of her sister is at 10 a.m. the day after she was last seen and she is walking with the man Moore described. She said Shaganash’s phone went off around 9:45 a.m.
The family has had to endure the unthinkable throughout the weeks-long search, delving into areas that one is not normally trained to look at.
“We have been searching escort websites just in case she has been forced into that lifestyle," Moore said. "The problem is they sometimes use a photo of one woman and another is the one forced to show up. It's very hard to do this, but we have to find her.”
Police have previously stated that while there's no proof that human trafficking is at play, they are looking into every possible scenario.
The other element that's not lost on Moore and her family is with their Indigenous background comes the many traumas from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) tragedies.
“It is something you know about, but we never thought too much about it because you don’t think it will happen to you. But here we are,” Moore said. “I will say that we are happy with how much help the community is giving us. Any bit will do.”
Moore wants the community to remain vigilant and help bring her sister home safely.
“We miss her, we miss her so much," she said.
Shaganash was wearing a black hoodie, shorts, slip-on Puma sandals, and had a black/tan purse. She needs an asthma puffer daily and has likely not had one since her disappearance.
Anyone with information about Autumn Shaganash's whereabouts is asked to call 911 immediately.
