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E052: Emma Fillipoff
1.7k Plays5 years ago
First, she peered out windows as if afraid of some danger lurking outside. Next, the terror took over her body. Then, the young and free-spirited Emma Fillipoff was never heard from again.
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Transcript
Starting a Podcast with Buzzsprout
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuthhounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought, I'd love to try this out on my own? Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are,
00:00:22
Speaker
When Maggie and I first started our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space in each other, we knew that this was the way to go. It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends and from where our listeners hail.
00:00:52
Speaker
Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards. Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform. So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today.
00:01:07
Speaker
If you use our Coffee & Cases referral code, 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy. Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world.
00:01:35
Speaker
Now it's time for the world to hear what you have to say.
Exploring the Power of the Mind
00:01:40
Speaker
The mind is a powerful thing. I could right now mention that a dog you just pet has fleas or someone in the room with you has a contagious itchy rash. Then very soon it starts in your arm, that itchy sensation.
00:02:02
Speaker
Soon you're frantically scratching every visible patch of skin. Crazier yet is the fact that if you become convinced enough of the danger of a rash, you can actually form one on your skin. Despite the lack of anything physiologically wrong with you, your body can react as if there were something wrong because your brain tells you that it could happen.
00:02:33
Speaker
In extreme situations, the body can take the situation a step further still. Some women have been diagnosed with a condition called pseudosyces. Women who want so desperately to be pregnant can convince their bodies that they indeed are. The breasts begin to lactate. The belly distends. For all intents and purposes, you look
00:03:03
Speaker
pregnant. But if a doctor were to do an ultrasound, there's only one thing missing, an actual baby. But in her mind, convinced of her pregnancy, her mind has controlled her body in particular and peculiar ways. So what happens when that same power of the mind takes a darker turn?
00:03:29
Speaker
One focused not on new life, but on the darker shadows found in this one.
00:03:36
Speaker
I think I speak for most of us when I say that we've all likely, at least once in our lives, walked by a mirror and caught a quick glimpse of ourselves in the reflection and jumped, convinced that what we saw was some stranger out to get us. And even after we laugh it off with the realization that the flash of shadow was indeed only us, we remain nervous long afterward.
00:04:04
Speaker
10 minutes later, we're still peering around the shower curtain, convinced of the sound we heard with some lurking danger. Leaving for work 30 minutes later, we still check the back seat just to make sure that no one and nothing is there to jump out as we race to work. In our case this week,
00:04:26
Speaker
A young, free-spirited young woman, correctly or incorrectly, fell under the spell of this fear of being watched.
Case Introduction: Emma Philippoff
00:04:36
Speaker
She slowly changed from her wonderful, bohemian self to a paranoid young woman hesitant to even leave a convenience store. And then she disappeared.
00:04:52
Speaker
This is the story of Emma Philippoff.
00:05:31
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement.
00:05:47
Speaker
So justice and closure can be brought to these families. With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive. So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
00:06:08
Speaker
Guys, we are so close, so close that we can just taste it. Allison and I are up to 140 ratings on Apple Podcasts. That means that we are only 10 ratings away from a bonus episode and 10 ratings away from you not having to hear us beg you one more time to take a moment to rate the show.
00:06:34
Speaker
For those of you new to the podcast, quite some time ago, Allison and I set a very lofty goal of 150 ratings on Apple Podcast. We knew it was going to take a bit of time to get there and that it wasn't going to be easy, but we have also always had faith in our listeners to help us get there. And we are finally in the home stretch.
00:06:56
Speaker
With the holiday seasons coming up, please give us the greatest present by sharing our podcast with at least two people. And if you haven't taken a second to rate the show, please do so. If you have a few seconds longer, also leave us a few words about what you liked most about the podcast. And when we get to that 150 ratings, we will announce when we'll do a bonus episode.
00:07:18
Speaker
Just make sure that you follow us on social media, Coffee and Cases podcast on Facebook, and at Coffee Cases podcast on Instagram. Or as always, listen in each week to know when that bonus episode will air. Now, let's get into the show. Maggie, have you ever done any of those things that I mentioned in the intro, like peering out the shower curtain?
00:07:39
Speaker
um yeah when anything is not here i literally shower with the curtain not closed so i can make sure i can see if anybody comes up on me and i'll check the back seat in the mornings too when i get in i honestly i wonder if this is like a female commonality like no matter where you're from
00:08:02
Speaker
we do this yeah let us know i know like do people in New Zealand do this like right but i'm wondering i don't know if men do it like i really think it's i don't know if it comes from like the horror movie psycho alfred hitchcock where she's like in the shower and that's like i don't know
00:08:21
Speaker
But I honestly think that a lot of my fears, now, obviously some are just my own fears that I think, like I said, are ingrained in a lot of women from, you know, television shows, Alfred Hitchcock, the news, all that stuff. But one of my particular fears comes from this distinct memory that I have, Maggie. I was in like third grade, and so I was like eight or nine years old.
00:08:51
Speaker
And I was at church one night with my mom. And before we left to go out to the cars, imagine how horrifying this would be to an eight to nine year old.
00:09:01
Speaker
When we went out to the cars, the pastor announced, I don't know how he found out or who called or what, but they had just gotten word that during the sermon, a convict had escaped police custody and was like, could be in the general vicinity of the church. And they literally said, we should all check under our cars in the back seats and in any unlocked trunks before getting into them.
00:09:30
Speaker
I would have been freaking out. Oh my gosh, I was terrified. And I can remember all of us like walking out in like this huddled mass, checking the cars one by one before getting in. And even though we looked like the whole time we were driving home, I kept peering out of the corner of my eye into the back seat just to be sure.
00:09:50
Speaker
Well, yesterday morning, yours is more valid than what I did yesterday morning. I was pulling out to go to work. And as I was, well, I was walking down the sidewalk to get to my car. And when I was walking down, like these two men were running. And I was like, this is weird because they've never done this before. And then they got all the way to like where I'm like, I was like,
00:10:13
Speaker
power walking to my car and I got in. When I got in, they separated and ran opposite ways. So I immediately caught Anthony and I was like, um, I need a chaser and pepper spray. And like, I'm telling him like what happened. And then this morning I saw them again and
Emma's Life and Personality
00:10:28
Speaker
I think they're just friends and they're running. So then I felt like a moron and I almost, and I almost hit them with my car because they were getting on the top side.
00:10:37
Speaker
Listen, you never know though, and that's the thing. And you know, several of the cases we've covered, people are, or have like a fear of being followed, or like in danger. And you know, I freak out when that happens for like a moment. I can't imagine the kind of toll that that would take on you if you felt that every day. Yeah, like a long-term thing. Right.
00:11:05
Speaker
So before I get into that fear of being followed, I wanted to tell you a little bit of background about this fresh-faced, free-spirited girl who's at the center of our episode today. So Emma Philippoff was born January 6th, 1986.
00:11:26
Speaker
And in 2011, when kind of the beginning of the history that I know takes place, she was 25 and kind of looking for something different from her hometown. She didn't like the discord that she'd been surrounded by recently. Her parents had just gotten divorced and that has to be harder, I think the older you are. Yeah, I think so too.
00:11:56
Speaker
And she was, you know, at age 25, you're also in that kind of age group where you're ready to explore your own independence, removed from your parents anyway. And so she was more than ready to find peace in her life when she settled into Victoria, British Columbia. So I'm finally covering a Canadian case. That's what I was hearing you say. I always do the Canadian cases. I know. I know.
00:12:24
Speaker
So, according to Rebecca Schroeder, Emma was born in Perth, Ontario, and she moved around quite a bit before eventually settling in Victoria. In Schroeder's article vanished in Victoria, the case of Emma Philippoff. Emma had kind of explored the world finding herself.
00:12:47
Speaker
By that I mean she was in every article I read described as whimsical. So she was private, but she was also like individual with a capital I. Like one of those unique people you meet who are like so wonderfully artistic and different that their presence just sticks with you long after they've left the room. Do you know what kind of people I'm talking about?
00:13:15
Speaker
reminds me just from like those few sentences of um one of Anthony's cousins like I would describe her as whimsical. She's very much like like a flower child and like yeah she just has such a presence. Yep and that's exactly what Emma was like. She was also an avid lover of literature which obviously I appreciate. Yes. And photography
00:13:39
Speaker
which again, I appreciate, I love it. And her passions took her all over. She actually taught English in China before returning home to Canada to study photojournalism in Ontario. And then she went to culinary school. Oh, okay. So she has a long resume then. Yeah. And like, I'm so interested in all of those things. So all of that sounds wonderful to me. Like I could totally do any of those.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah, except that would be very large if I worked at culinary school and could cover really good. I would eat so much food.
00:14:15
Speaker
But for Emma, unfortunately, she suffered from a congenital knee disorder and that bothered her quite a bit when she would be standing on hard floors while cooking. So that obviously wasn't a good combination. And it feels to me from my research that she kind of floundered a bit, like not really having a clear direction or path.
00:14:43
Speaker
And so she moved to Victoria without a solid plan. Well, at least not solid enough that I would have felt comfortable. That's what I was gonna say, like, I would have to have a, like, concrete plan. Right. Yeah. Like, I like the idea of a bohemian lifestyle, but I'm too much of a planner. Mm-hmm. Like, I was the kind of kid who, you know, in high school, by February, I knew what summer job I was gonna have.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, or like you had like your whole college path written out like I did like my freshman year after I decided to be an English major. I knew what classes I was going to take when I was going to take them like all that. Exactly. Yeah, Emma is the opposite of us, basically.
00:15:32
Speaker
She moved to Victoria. She lived with a friend and her friend's partner. And she took a job as a barista in a coffee shop, but that job didn't last very long. And after she lost that job, Emma was a bit of a nomad. She kind of moved in with different friends. She lived at a hotel where she cleaned rooms for some spending money. She stayed on various boats with acquaintances.
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah, she lived in the woods for a while sleeping in trees
00:16:07
Speaker
No, thank you. I know. Again, like, how many times have we said just to appreciate nature from afar? Don't go into it. She stayed for months at a time at the Sandy Merriman Women's Shelter before landing a seasonal job at Redfish Bluefish, which is a seafood restaurant, obviously named after the doctors. The doctors see, but... Yeah.
00:16:35
Speaker
She couch surfed for a while in between those month long stays at the women's shelter, but she was happy to be away at least from all those tensions back home. That same article by Rebecca Schroeder reports that Emma had felt stuck in the middle in her parents divorce and she had seen a side of both of them that she didn't like.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah I think that would be more likely to happen like as an older child of divorcing parents because like by the time you're in your 20s I think like obviously like you're still their child but I think they start to view you more as an adult and I think they talk to you about more
00:17:17
Speaker
or more openly about things.
Impact of Parental Divorce on Emma
00:17:19
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, because she knew that her father James had left her mother Shelly for a younger woman. And she also, in an argument that she saw her parents have about the affair, she saw her mom Shelly chase her father James around their home with a knife. Wow. Yeah. And Emma had to call the police on her mother.
00:17:46
Speaker
Wow, sad. So, and it was soon after that that Emma moved. Cause you know, when you love people, you don't want to see them like that. Yeah.
00:17:58
Speaker
And while Emma didn't speak openly about the incident or really much else in her life or anything concerning her emotions, I mentioned earlier, Emma was very private. She did write about it in her journal. Here's what she wrote, quote, my parents' marriage in shambles, my father turning to me, my mother hating us both, and me,
00:18:27
Speaker
always the good listener. Too nice to say that it hurt me too. Oh my God. My heart just shattered for her. That is sad. I know. And you know what she says, like you said, it's so true. It's so poignant. And I feel like too many people overlook the effect that a parent's relationship has on the children.
00:18:54
Speaker
Yeah. And I actually had this long conversation with my mom the other day coming home from work because I just feel like, um, I know like within like my family and I've seen it in other families, like sometimes kids that come from broken homes, like they have to hear their parent, like bad talk, the other parent. And I just think that's so like unhealthy because deep down, even if like their dad is like,
00:19:22
Speaker
you know, the scum of the earth, they're still a part of them that loves that parent because that's their parent. And it just always makes me sad. Well, I watched a, an episode of what would you do, which is an amazing show. And that was one of the topics
00:19:38
Speaker
of one of the, what would you do? Like, would you step in if you heard one parent bad mouthing another to stop? And one of the girls on there, and I thought this was so true, and it's similar to what you just said, like, not just even if the person is scum of the earth, right? But the child obviously still loves that parent, but what you have to realize is that child also knows that he or she is a product of both people.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, so they have a part of them in there. Then there's always that thought, you know, if a dad is like saying mom is scum of the earth, then that child is sitting there thinking, but that's part of me too. Yeah, I've never really made that connection. True.
00:20:22
Speaker
And so, you really get the sense with what Emma wrote, though, of the impact that it had. But the seasonal work that she had taken at Redfish Bluefish, it was keeping her mind off of the trouble back home, but that seasonal employment ended on October 31st, 2012.
00:20:43
Speaker
Emma assured her coworkers that she planned to return for the next season, but things quickly spiraled downward.
00:20:53
Speaker
According to the website Help Find Emma Phillipoff, about three to four months before her employment had ended, Emma purchased a van. It was her plan to get out of her friend's homes and just to live in this van and to use it for storage for the possessions that she had that she had been keeping in a storage locker.
00:21:16
Speaker
and what had seemed a wonderful purchase at the time that would you know serve her purpose as well ended up costing Emma more than she anticipated. This obviously it was a van that was in bad shape mechanically and she had to have the van towed multiple times and was reportedly looking for a low budget mechanic to try to get it fixed.
00:21:42
Speaker
So this van that was supposed to be like this freedom for her was not. Yeah, it actually was the opposite. Exactly. It drained her of money. And Emma was the kind of girl she wanted to explore the world, to enjoy nature, to simplify her life.
00:21:58
Speaker
She was known among her friends to take these beautifully artistic pictures, to walk around barefoot just to feel the earth under her feet. She loved the local public library. Like I said before, she was a voracious reader. And I love this. Her friend said that she would often sit and just read in the children's section of the library for hours.
00:22:24
Speaker
I know during Emma's time in Victoria, she liked to pass that time with other artists with street performers and with other people who shared and understood her transient lifestyle.
00:22:40
Speaker
She was described on the Find Emma Phillipoff website as quote, free spirited, creative, adventurous, giving, soft spoken, private, independent, trusting, flighty, highly sensitive to people.
00:22:58
Speaker
and had, quote, an aversion to convention, intrusive questions, social media, cell phones, spending money, and playing any role in the establishment, end quote. So I feel like Yama is like, and I don't want to be like judgmental, but I feel like Yama is like the poster child for
00:23:20
Speaker
like a stereotypical kind of like missing person, like just kind of off on her own. She hangs around with people who are just like,
00:23:29
Speaker
going by the seat of their pants all the time. And like, I feel like a lot of the times the stories we read, the people that get caught up in just kind of dangerous scenarios are those type of people. And it's sad. It's almost like it's dangerous. I think if you go either extreme. Yeah. Because I feel like, you know, for children at least, you know, there's danger in the social media and the cell phone, you know, people representing themselves and things like that. But she's kind of the opposite.
00:23:58
Speaker
but I think you're right. And the description of Emma that I just gave, I feel like it's important because it kind of helps you understand why she rarely spoke to her family on the phone. Cause she had an aversion to cell phones. Like she just didn't, didn't want one. And so she usually only talked to them on the phone on holidays and she would write to them instead.
00:24:25
Speaker
So she felt like an old soul. Oh, yeah, exactly. But the problem is that, you know, I also mentioned her aversion to quote unquote intrusive conversations. So like she didn't like anyone who tried to ask questions that she felt were too personal. And so her communication was often very cryptic.
00:24:50
Speaker
And she was so private that no one in her family even knew that she was staying at a women's shelter.
00:25:03
Speaker
And what she didn't share of her own feelings and experiences though, she made up for with her easy laughter and her listening ear. She made friends easily, because even though she doesn't like to share, she likes to listen. And she loved to like drink and socialize with them. Again, she's just this beautiful, fun, young girl. And she did attract the attention of several men, but she really only dated one.
00:25:32
Speaker
and it ended mutually. So by the summer of 2012 though, a bit of the fun-loving nature had faded.
Signs of Emma's Mental Deterioration
00:25:44
Speaker
Friends say that she became almost and I quote monk-like. As in like she just
00:25:51
Speaker
quit doing anything like drinks like drinking okay that's exactly right they said that she quit drinking she quit smoking she quit drinking coffee and she even stopped this one is hard for me to say maggie eating sugar
00:26:08
Speaker
No, I literally, no, I think I had a doctor's appointment today and I was like, you know what's five minutes down the road? Krispy Kreme. Where we're gonna go Krispy Kreme. So we have a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and I've got a whole thing of donut holes. And you know what I have for breakfast this morning? A donut from the local donut place. And Sleuthhounds, do you know what Maggie and I had last week when we recorded?
00:26:37
Speaker
That's right. We did. So I can't imagine giving, I mean, I probably need to, but what ifs. Yeah, I'm living my life is 2020. Yeah. So she gave up eating sugar. She was a vegan.
00:26:53
Speaker
And she was extremely picky about what food she ingested and how much. So this was a shift, but they said that, you know, sometimes she would just eat popcorn or like just eat olives.
00:27:12
Speaker
or sometimes she would just eat fish. So I'm assuming she's a very tiny person. And she became even tinier. Emma lost lots of weight, her friend said. So between that change,
00:27:30
Speaker
not hanging out socially with her friends like she used to with the loss of her seasonal job and with winter coming on and you know less ability to spend time outside which she loved everyone around her noticed that Emma was not acting like the Emma that they knew and instead she was acting paranoid and withdrawn.
00:27:56
Speaker
So in those changes in Emma that predate and in some ways kind of illuminate Emma's behavior in the days leading up to her disappearance. Okay. So I'm going to start on Tuesday, November 20th, 2012. This is eight days before her disappearance.
00:28:19
Speaker
She was, you know, fitting with her new interest in cleansing her body that I just mentioned, you know, cutting out sugar, cutting out coffee, all that stuff. Emma walked down the street from the women's shelter to the YMCA to get a membership. And that act is absolutely normal. Yeah. However, what video camera surveillance footage shows next is not.
00:28:49
Speaker
Over the course of a 14 minute period, it shows Emma like intently gazing through the front windows of the YMCA and she looks nervous. Like she's looking out into the street? Right. Okay. And she's either fidgeting with her hands or she is holding something like a cell phone. I'm more inclined to say fidgeting, knowing her aversion to cell phones.
00:29:18
Speaker
but she exits to YMCA. You can see her kind of pacing, pausing outside for a little bit less than a minute and then she comes back in. And again, she like is peering out and fidgeting nervously. She exits, she stays outside less than a minute and comes back in.
00:29:43
Speaker
So she exits and re-enters the YMCA four times in that 14 minute time span. It's like that case that I covered with the elevator. Yep. With Alyssa Lamb. Yeah, yeah. Yep, where she's like peering out. Mm-hmm. I know. And so she does that four times before she finally exits and she turns right to leave.
00:30:11
Speaker
The next day, on Wednesday, November 21st, her interaction with a tow truck driver was a bit more positive. Now, if you remember, I told you that Emma had been having trouble with her van. And she was in need of a mechanic. So on this Wednesday, Emma was having her van towed from where it was. It was parked in Sooke, British Columbia. She was having it towed back to Victoria.
00:30:40
Speaker
Okay. And this tow truck driver recalls a happy Emma who stared out the window at the snow-capped mountain. She talked about wanting to make a surprise visit back home to see her family and like maybe even move back to Perth, Ontario because she missed the landscape and those family members. So this seems regular Emma.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yeah, very different from the YMCA, Emma. Yes, yes. After that episode with the tow truck driver, that's positive, two days pass fairly uneventfully until midnight on Friday, November 23rd, when Emma called her mother, Shelly. Now again, phone calls are not that common for Emma. Right, and this isn't really, I mean, well, it would be close to Thanksgiving in America, but I don't,
00:31:35
Speaker
I don't know if they have it, the equivalent of that in Canada in late November. I'm gonna go snow. But yeah, so this is odd to begin with. And in that phone call, Shelly recalls Emma being distraught and crying and saying that she wanted to come home. And again, that's not like Emma.
00:31:58
Speaker
She doesn't like intrusive questions. She doesn't like to talk about emotions. And so this level of emotional display was unusual.
00:32:12
Speaker
And because of that, Shelly was concerned for her daughter and she offered to get Emma a plane ticket home. And Emma reportedly, even as Shelly was booking it, kept asking anxiously, have you booked it yet? Have you booked the flight yet? And so Shelly was like prompting her daughter Emma for more information, but all she could get from her was that she was safe, but she didn't give her mom any more information.
00:32:42
Speaker
So it's kind of almost like she's having like a manic episode sort of. Yeah, she's, I don't know. I mean, that sort of desperation. On Saturday, November 24th and Sunday, November 25th, those were days that presented even more worrisome behavior from Emma.
00:33:08
Speaker
Mere hours after crying and anxiously asking Shelly to buy her a plane ticket home, Emma called back to say that she was fine and she was gonna stay and figure things out.
00:33:21
Speaker
Again, it's just so weird, it's like a light switch, on off, on off. Right. Shelly says that she could still feel that something was wrong, but she knew Emma enough to know that, you know, should Emma decide not to come home, that plane ticket would just go unused and the money would be gone. So even though she was reluctant to do so, Shelly did go ahead and cancel that flight.
00:33:47
Speaker
On Saturday evening though, Emma had changed her mind again. She called her mom again, distraught and asking to come home. But this time, she also asked if her mom could fly to Victoria to help her pack up all of her things.
00:34:09
Speaker
So I'm sure her mom was like, yeah, I'm on my way. Right. Exactly. Yeah. She immediately booked a flight to Victoria. So that was on Saturday evening, Sunday, November 25th, roll around and Emma again called her mom asking her calmly but solemnly to no longer come. And how far away are we from her disappearance? Uh, three days. Okay. And
00:34:37
Speaker
Shelly, Emma's mom, again, likely just as I would do if I had a 26-year-old daughter who seemed upset but wouldn't tell me why and would shut down if I continued to pry, told Emma that she wouldn't come, but while she did cancel the flight, she didn't unpack.
00:34:56
Speaker
Oh, I would have been like, yeah, I'm not coming. Right. I would have flew out there anyway. Yeah. And I think Shelly had in her mind that she was going to, like you just said, Maggie, she was going to go ahead and go help no matter what Emma actually said she wanted. I think it was one of those, like, I'm going to help you and love you and be there for you, even if you don't want me to kind of moments.
00:35:19
Speaker
and so she just wanted to be ready at a moment's notice. Well after speaking with her mom and telling her this time don't come, Emma found out that she was going to have to have her van towed again. This van though. I know. You should get rid of this thing.
00:35:37
Speaker
Seriously. She had parked it on Burdette Avenue for the past few days, but leaving it there was a parking violation. So she had it towed to the parking lot of the Chateau Victoria Hotel. Okay. So that's Sunday. Okay. Monday passed with no phone call from Emma. So again, I guess her mom is assuming everything is okay.
00:36:05
Speaker
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2012, two nearly passed until Emma's mom Shelly decided that she was going to try to call Emma back on that phone number that she'd been calling from. Oh yeah, because I just kind of assumed it was a pay phone, but I guess perhaps it could have been the cell phone maybe.
00:36:24
Speaker
Well, it wasn't a cell phone, but she had been using the phone at the women's shelter. So when those phone calls came through on Shelly's phone, the call display had said Sandy Merriman.
00:36:43
Speaker
And so her mom had thought that that was a woman's name. It sounds like it. It freaked out when she realized what it was. Yeah. I mean, you can imagine her shock when she called that number back on Tuesday to find out that her daughter Emma had been staying months at a time at a women's shelter for close to a year. Yeah. Wow. But she had no idea.
00:37:10
Speaker
And Emma did call her mom back that same night on November 27th. Her van had gotten a sticker on it, you know, noting that it would need to be towed this time. So she had just towed it the day before, or two days before from Burdett Avenue to the Chateau Victoria Hotel. And now she had a sticker on it that it was gonna be towed from the Chateau Victoria Hotel parking lot if she didn't move it.
00:37:39
Speaker
She just has no luck with this thing. I know. And again, and this is on Tuesday, November 27th, again on the phone, Emma pleaded with her mom to come and help.
00:37:54
Speaker
like help her pack up all of her stuff so she could come home.
Emma's Last Known Activities
00:37:58
Speaker
Well, you know, Shelly had never unpacked, you remember, from a few days prior. So she booked a flight for the next day. This time she was like, I'm not gonna cancel. I don't blame her. Yeah. So on Wednesday, November 28th, 2012, that was the day that Shelly did arrive in Victoria.
00:38:22
Speaker
but it was also the day that hours earlier, her daughter Emma was last seen. Oh my. I know. So here's the best timeline that we have of Emma's movements on that final day. Okay? Okay. I'm ready. All right.
00:38:43
Speaker
at 4.30 a.m. What is this? Yes, 4.30 a.m. Emma again called her mom to ask Shelly not to come. Okay, I would be, well, first off, she's already like made up her mind, but I'll be like, Emma, I don't care what you say, like, come be out there. And all Emma would say to her mom was quote, not today, mom. And then a couple of the sources I read
00:39:13
Speaker
They claim that Emma said another comment, something to the effect of, I don't know how I can face you. Okay. And so I don't know if that's because of like the incident in the divorce, or if Emma felt like she had done something wrong and she didn't want to feel guilty. I don't know. It might be like she didn't want her mom to see her in a shelter or something like that.
00:39:42
Speaker
I don't know. But like I said before, despite the fact that Emma again said not today, Shelly was not about to cancel again. She was determined to find out what was worrying Emma, especially now that she found out that Emma was staying in a shelter. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So at 7 a.m.,
00:40:03
Speaker
Emma spoke with the management at the Chateau Victoria Hotel. Remember, that's where Vanna is, towed from there. And she asked them if they would give her one additional day to make arrangements to move the van before they had it towed. And they said, OK. OK, so she's making like plans, like long term plans. OK.
00:40:26
Speaker
Almost an hour and a half later, at 8.23 a.m., surveillance footage shows Emma go into the 7-Eleven at the corner of Douglas and Humboldt streets. Yeah, because if I'd been up since 4.30 a.m., and I don't drink alcohol, I don't drink caffeine, but if I'd been up that early, I'd be getting me some type of coffee or something, like a big night Mountain Dew. She's not drinking coffee anymore. True. We're sugar. This is ridiculous.
00:40:56
Speaker
But when she was at the 7-11, she bought a $200 prepaid credit card. We have no idea why she did, but she did.
00:41:07
Speaker
She was dressed, cause again, she's on the surveillance footage. She's dressed for cold weather. She has these camo pants on and this like beige winter coat. And her hair is up in a bun. But what's weird is she's carrying like all of these bags of belongings, like on both of her arms. And then she has this orange purse.
00:41:30
Speaker
So I'm wondering if she like emptied the contents of her van into all of these bags. Well, that's a good theory.
00:41:38
Speaker
but I don't know if that's true in a minute. Similar to her behavior days earlier at the YMCA though, again on this camera footage, she looks like she's nervous and she's like peering out the front door, surveying the surroundings cautiously before exiting the building.
00:42:01
Speaker
and like you can I'll show you the pictures like you can see her standing at the the glass door like hands above her eyes peering out oh so it's like obvious she's like watching for something or something yeah yeah at 10 a.m
00:42:19
Speaker
A friend of Emma's was on the public bus and passed by and saw Emma. And she was in the same clothes, the camo pants, this beige winter coat, but her hair kind of looked disheveled. At 10 a.m. she was standing on the corner of Pandora Street. That friend who was on the bus, his name is Julian Huard. And when he saw Emma, he decided to go ahead and get off the bus because it was like a couple of stops away from where he was going anyway.
00:42:50
Speaker
But when he got out and he's like calling to Emma, she didn't move and she didn't even acknowledge him.
00:42:58
Speaker
Oh, that's weird. I know. So he decided to go ahead and run his errand that's a couple blocks away. And when he was done, he came back to Pandora Street to see if he could find Emma. And she was in the exact same spot, just planted there. Like she hadn't even moved. She hadn't even moved. And the whole time he was away. And she was still carrying all these bags on both of her arms across her chest.
00:43:25
Speaker
And she now had the hood of that winter coat up around her face. So he thought, well, like maybe she didn't see me. So he literally walked around to the front of her and stood in the street immediately in front of her. And when she still didn't move or speak, Julian asked Emma if she needed help, to which she just barely nodded her head no.
00:43:56
Speaker
I'm super weirded out by this whole thing. Like this is super strange to me. Yeah. This is not the type that was described like earlier in the episode. No, I know exactly. I mean, this is complete shift. And so Julian continued to stay in there, but like with zero acknowledgement from Emma, he kind of got frustrated and he left.
00:44:21
Speaker
I don't blame him. I mean, I don't know. Part of me wants to be like, oh, I would have made sure they were okay. But part of me would have just been like, okay, bye. Right. I know.
00:44:30
Speaker
And although we can't verify this information positively, there were several witnesses who believed that they saw Emma at the library around noon. But I mean, Maggie, we talk about this a lot. And because Emma going to the library was a normal occurrence,
00:44:53
Speaker
I feel like it's a detail that individuals are highly likely to confuse. Like it could have been the day before that they saw her, you know, cause she's normally there. So maybe then they're like, imagine that she's there even when she's not because she would have been. So I'm not so sure about that sighting.
00:45:12
Speaker
And the reason I say I'm unsure about it is because very shortly after noon, another friend of Emma saw her still on Pandora Street near the hour place soup kitchen. And when he approached her, she told him that she wasn't feeling well and couldn't talk.
00:45:34
Speaker
Okay. I know. I didn't know if she meant like she had lost her voice or if she meant like she's too busy and didn't have time to talk. Well like she's just so maybe has like such a bad headache she just can't. Maybe. But this male friend then asked if Emma needed a hug because she seemed upset and he leaned in for that hug but uncharacteristically Emma got like this horrified look on her face.
00:46:09
Speaker
I'm perplexed and my face shows it if you all can see it. Like, this is just so strange to me. Mm-hmm. I know. And it's going to get even weirder. Oh, OK. Now I'm nervous. Around 1 PM, a witness actually called the Victoria Police Department to report a young woman slowly pacing Pandora Street. OK, so it's like she's like a completely different person. She's like not even.
00:46:29
Speaker
and just briskly walked away.
00:46:39
Speaker
mentally there. Right and the woman is likely Emma that this witness called about because she's seen carrying several bags of belongings wearing the same clothes as Emma is seen in in the video from 7-11 and the witness said that this young woman has quote a vacant look. So the police took a report
00:47:05
Speaker
Sometime in the next couple of hours, more witnesses report a similar young woman, but this time on Douglas Street. And you might not remember this, but that's near the 7-Eleven. So did police ever go check this out? Well, kind of, but not until later. Oh, okay.
00:47:26
Speaker
All of these witnesses who see her over the course of the next couple of hours are all concerned about the young woman's behavior. She's wandering aimlessly as if she's lost. And these witnesses, they all believe that she was wearing shoes, but then other witnesses later recall a young woman walking around barefoot.
00:47:56
Speaker
A third witness remembers seeing this young woman walking around with an older man, but a description of him wasn't provided.
00:48:08
Speaker
That kind of makes sense to me if he was dressed like normally, like not in a way that stood out. Maybe they thought he was helping, like he was helping her or something. Exactly. And if, you know, here she is carrying all of these bags and potentially barefoot, it does make sense that she would be the one that they remember. Yeah. Even though I know that has to be frustrating in hindsight, like when you're trying to piece clues together.
00:48:35
Speaker
Yeah, but we've talked about that before, like you remember odd things, not normal things. Right. And these witnesses actually call 911, but I couldn't find if law enforcement ever followed up.
00:48:51
Speaker
A final witness believes he saw Emma near another homeless shelter, the Rock Bay shelter, but a lot of people are doubtful about the validity of that sighting of Emma because they say that she refused to stay at that particular shelter because it was co-ed. Okay, so that's super out of character. Right.
00:49:13
Speaker
And all the while, Emma's mom Shelly was likely feeling relieved because she had no idea that any of this was going on. Oh, yeah. So she thinks she's just like on her way to help her little girl. Meanwhile, though, Emma's behavior became even more bizarre.
00:49:36
Speaker
Sometime between four and six, another witness actually saw Emma twice. The first time she saw Emma shuffling slowly down Douglas Street, so that same street is the 7-Eleven, so she's been there for hours now.
00:49:53
Speaker
Then the witness saw Emma again 45 minutes later cross in front of them. They were in a car at this point on Douglas Street. And again, whatever it was about her behavior, it was odd enough that this witness too called the Victoria Police Department to file a report.
00:50:11
Speaker
I feel like by this time, the police should say, okay, we've gotten a pretty substantial amount of reports on this lady. We probably need to go check this out. Right. And what's crazy is that this witness's contact information was taken, but the police never called back to take the full report. Oh, okay. Cool.
00:50:30
Speaker
Yeah. And the next few sightings of Emma are specific and they are accurate. So those are just kind of vaguely like between four and six this happened. These next few we actually have by the minute. At 554 PM, Emma is seen again on store camera footage. She's back at the 7-11 where she bought the $200 prepaid credit card.
00:50:58
Speaker
This time she used her debit card to buy a prepaid cell phone. Okay. That's weird. Okay. Yeah. Cause again, she has an aversion to cell phones and she could use the phone at the shelter, but she bought a cell phone.
00:51:13
Speaker
And just as before, when it's time to exit the store, Emma is hesitant again. She's like looking all around the surroundings outside, peering through the glass, right from the safety of inside the store. Again, looking worried as if some fear or danger could be lurking right outside. Yeah, like I'm getting creeped out. Listen to it.
00:51:38
Speaker
I know. Imagine living it. Just a few minutes later, right around 6 p.m., Emma returned to the Sandy Merriman Women's Shelter. And one of the workers at the shelter mentioned to Emma that her mother, Shelly, had called for Emma and that Shelly would be flying in to visit.
00:52:01
Speaker
Emma's mother though swears to this day that while she did call the women's shelter back, remember she saw the caller ID and thought it was a woman and called it, she swears that she never told anybody that she was going to be flying in.
00:52:18
Speaker
And why that is problematic is that that very tidbit of information caused Emma to have an immediate reaction. Because remember, Emma's very private. She wants to avoid probing questions. She's very independent. And she told her mom not to come. That's exactly right. And the last that she talked to her mom, she told her not to come. So when Emma heard from this worker that her mom was still coming,
00:52:46
Speaker
Emma immediately acted extremely anxious and like bolted out of the shelter so quickly that when the worker tried to follow her by the time the worker got to the door Emma was nowhere to be seen. Wow. We do know that Emma hailed a taxi from not not far away from the shelter at 6 10 and she asked to be taken to the airport
00:53:15
Speaker
No, why she's going to the airport, I don't know. I don't know if she's thinking, well, my mom's flying in. I don't know if she was gonna try to fly somewhere herself. I have no idea, but she asked- Yeah, she's trying to leave. Yeah, she asked this cab driver to take her to the airport, but almost just as quickly as she said that,
00:53:35
Speaker
She told the ABC taxi driver that, nevermind, I can't afford the $60 fare to the airport. Will you just take me back to the very place where you picked me up? Okay. What's strange about that comment is, do you remember the first thing that Emma purchased from 7-Eleven? Well, she bought that $200 prepaid debt card thing. Yes, exactly. So she did have the fare.
00:54:02
Speaker
So that's odd that she said, nevermind, I don't have the $60 fare. And sources later found out that in addition to that prepaid credit card, Emma had between $2,000 and $3,000 in her bank account. Which I know, which makes sense because it said she didn't like to spend money. Right. So that's odd though, that she would say, Oh, nevermind, I don't have it. Well, I think I don't think anything's odd at this point. Well, wait, wait till you hear this.
00:54:34
Speaker
When they got back to the location near the shelter where the cab driver had picked her up, Emma asked if she could just sit in the cab for a little while. That's a little odd. He noted that Emma was behaving strangely.
00:54:54
Speaker
and that she seemed confused when a noise came over the cab's dispatch radio and she asked the cab driver in a paranoid tone, why is there noise coming out of that?
00:55:13
Speaker
That's odd to me. Yeah, I don't even know how to respond to anything that she's doing, because it's just so weird. I mean, we all know a dispatch radio. You know there's somebody on the other end calling to you. Exactly. But she was freaked out by it. So now that she's kind of scared, she paid the small fare that she owed for coming back to the exact same spot, and she just exited back into the street.
00:55:44
Speaker
Five minutes later at 6.15, another of Emma's acquaintances, because remember, she travels around. I mean, she talks to everybody literally. So she ran into another acquaintance, a man named Dennis Quay. And when he saw Emma, and this is according to the Find Emma Phillipoff website, quote,
00:56:04
Speaker
standing barefoot on a corner looking disoriented, paranoid, and seemingly unable to cross the street.
00:56:17
Speaker
Like, wouldn't it be super chilly in Victoria, Canada in late November? Yes. I mean, about this, I mean, I'm assuming a little colder than what it is where we live, but I mean, it's going to be chilly. Yeah. It's not time. Yep. And I don't know what to do with that seemingly unable to cross the street.
00:56:41
Speaker
And just like her friend Julian had done earlier, Dennis asks Emma if she's okay, if she needs help, if she's being followed. And that, I feel like, gives me a sense of how she was acting. Yeah, because that's not just a normal question you're gonna ask someone. I feel like their face would not have to show that in their emotions. Yeah, and she initially asks Dennis if he'll walk with her for a little bit,
00:57:08
Speaker
But he continues to ask questions to kind of try to find out with the root of what's going on. Oh, that's a bad move. Exactly. And immediately when he does that, Emma looks at Dennis and says, I want to walk by myself.
00:57:23
Speaker
Now, instead of leaving her like Julian had done earlier in the day, Dennis stepped inside a nearby restaurant to phone the Victoria police station and he waited. He said, I'm going to wait until you get here. Oh, well good for him. Yeah. So he waits until the police get there. And it's when he sees them talking to Emma, he finally leaves because he's like, okay, well now help is here basically.
00:57:51
Speaker
And the police did speak with Emma. It was near the Empress Hotel on Government Street and they talked to her for about 45 minutes from 7.17pm until a little after 8pm.
00:58:05
Speaker
And police notes that were taken at the scene revealed that while Emma was cooperative, she also wasn't talkative. So like they would ask her questions and she wouldn't engage in dialogue with the officers. She would just give nods or like one word of answers as responses. So like she's basically been doing all day with the friends that have seen her. Right. And she refused to put her shoes back on. And she told the police that she was going to meet a friend.
00:58:35
Speaker
You know, while her mannerisms are quirky, the officers ultimately decide, you know, Emma isn't a threat to herself. She doesn't seem a threat to anybody else. And so they let her go.
00:58:50
Speaker
Which, I mean, I get it, but then a part of me also doesn't. Like, I mean, which I guess they don't know her, like, how she is on a day-to-day basis, so maybe they think this is just her normal behavior. Right. And I mean, she hasn't done anything wrong, so they can't direct her. If they offer help and she refuses to take it, I mean, there's nothing...
00:59:11
Speaker
I don't think there's much that they could have done. It was three hours later at 11 p.m. that Shelly, Emma's mom, finally arrived at the women's shelter to see Emma. But when she came in and asked for Emma,
00:59:27
Speaker
She heard about that episode at six when Emma had come in and been told that her mom was coming and then bolted out. She was told that Emma hadn't come back since and she hadn't claimed her bed for the night. Within the hour, Shelly's mom was talking with police and filing a missing persons report.
00:59:53
Speaker
Yeah, that last talk with police for years was the last reported sighting of Emma.
Investigation into Emma's Disappearance
01:00:05
Speaker
Wow. Well, the last confirmed sighting, I should say.
01:00:11
Speaker
So in the weeks that followed the police investigating Emma's whereabouts, despite investigating over 200 leads, only a few additional clues manifested. And like I said, that talk with the police was the last confirmed sighting of Emma. The rest are like people describing women
01:00:37
Speaker
similar to a description of Emma. Does that make sense? Yeah. And sadly, Emma never activated the prepaid cell phone. So like the police couldn't even ping it for a location. I'm just like, I don't even know what to say. It's just so strange.
01:01:02
Speaker
And so all the police have to go on is eyewitness testimony. And, you know, again, we've said it a bajillion times. That is notoriously fallible. Exactly. Like I could say I saw Emma, but maybe I just saw a girl that looks like Emma and it wasn't actually Emma. Right.
01:01:20
Speaker
Here's about all we do know. We do know that on November 29th Emma's van was indeed towed away from the Chateau Victoria Hotel. Remember she asked for the additional day they gave it to her. Here's why I said I'm not so sure about the bag she's carrying being
01:01:39
Speaker
her items from the van because when police were notified that it was towed they obviously went to investigate and they found out that Emma had been using the van for storage still because in it they found her laptop
01:01:54
Speaker
her camera, recently checked out library books, journals, and her passport. Okay, so she clearly wasn't going to leave the country. She left the passport. Yeah, right. It's right there in Urbana. And later that same day, Shelly, Emma's mom, found out a bit further information from the women's shelter concerning Emma's recent behavior changes.
01:02:19
Speaker
It seems that her eating habits weren't all that people around Emma had noticed. Staff at the shelter noted that recently Emma had become more depressed and paranoid in the weeks leading up to her disappearance and they actually had called the police about Emma's mental well-being.
01:02:41
Speaker
They specifically described one day during which Emma moved all of her room furniture outside of the shelter into the street, claiming that it was too loud, and she had to move it out because it was talking to her. So is this like, like, how close is this to her disappearance because, or do we know that? In the weeks leading up to it,
01:03:11
Speaker
So it's kind of like what she said in the taxi though, like kind of like where'd that noise come from? Like she thinks things are like kind of talking to her. I know. And the staff members at the women's shelter, they called the police, like I said, and the police basically said, well, call back if this bizarre behavior continues, but no staff member ever called back.
01:03:38
Speaker
So I feel like there are some people who kind of let Emma down. That's what I was going to say. Like I feel like there's been a bunch of cases, a bunch of instances rather that
01:03:48
Speaker
A difference might have been made in this case. Right. Yep. And three days later on December 2nd, another potential witness came forward about an encounter with a woman similar to Emma's description. This report, she says that this woman approached her near the harbor after dark.
01:04:13
Speaker
And that this young woman told the witness to remember her name, Emma Phillipoff. Emma Phillipoff. Emma Phillipoff. Three times she repeated the name. That gave me chills. Yeah. And so then I'm like, part of me wants to think that that is her. But then the only reason you would tell somebody to remember your name is if you think something bad is going to happen. Right, exactly.
01:04:43
Speaker
a seeming breakthrough came on December 5th, 2012. So now we're talking like a week after her disappearance, roughly. When at 11, 17 AM, the $200 prepaid credit card was used at a Canadian gas station. Okay. Progress. Yes. But it was a man who used the card. Okay. Maybe he kidnapped her. Well,
01:05:11
Speaker
He has since been cleared by the police. He reported that he found the card on the side of the road.
01:05:20
Speaker
And while he does later admit that he was drinking daily at the time and that he was too drunk to really remember where he found saccade, he does remember that it was still sealed in the package and that he had waited nearly a week before using it. Oh, I wouldn't like.
01:05:42
Speaker
turn that into the police or something. There's no way I would have let my conscience would have let me spend that. I know, I know. And after that, Maggie, there's nothing for nearly six years. Then in 2018, another witness came forward. This is why Maggie and I say all the time, Sleuth Hounds, it's never too late. Yeah.
01:06:09
Speaker
And this witness is now the one who we believe is the last person to have seen Emma alive before whatever befell her. So you might be thinking, well, why did he wait so long? She disappeared in 2012.
01:06:25
Speaker
It is because his family actually advised him not to report the encounter that he had because they were afraid, you know, as the last person to see Emma alive, that he would somehow be implicated for the crime. Or, you know, or he could be the person that saved her life. Right.
01:06:47
Speaker
And here is what he said transpired around 5 a.m. on November 29th, 2012. So remember the last we knew, she spoke with the police and that talk ended around 8 p.m. on November 28th. Okay. So this is 5 a.m. the next morning. The man named William, we don't know his last name, all I know is his first name, he was on his way to work at a new job and he was actually running a few minutes late.
01:07:17
Speaker
On his way, he passes a young woman who looks like she's in distress and she's running back and forth on the side of the road. And he notices that she has no shoes on.
01:07:32
Speaker
Yeah. And he said that when he stopped, he offered her a ride. She took him up on it. And he said that she actually seemed to calm down significantly when she got into his car. Well, that's heartbreaking.
01:07:48
Speaker
I know. And she asked if William could drive her to Colwood so she could see a friend. Now, Colwood, I guess, was a little bit out of the way. And remember, William was already running late for work. So he offered a compromise and he was like, how about I at least drive you a little bit closer to Colwood?
01:08:07
Speaker
Okay. After driving her, and by a little bit, it really was a little bit, but hey, five minutes in a car, who knows how long that would take? To walk, yeah. Yeah. So he drove her about five minutes toward Colwood, and then William reports he dropped this young woman off at a 24-hour gas station at the intersection of Craig Flower and Admirals.
01:08:32
Speaker
And he said that as soon as the woman exited the car, her erratic behavior continued.
01:08:39
Speaker
So there's not a lot of things that like I can justify being late for work like I am super strict about like what time I leave the house even though I don't have to be at work until like 7 45 like I have to be there by 7 30 like you're right me and not yeah so I have everything planned out of like when I can leave and get there and blah blah blah
01:09:03
Speaker
But I think that if I had stopped to help someone that was pacing by the side of the road, which I'm sorry, but I wouldn't because I would be afraid they're going to murder me. I know. I know. Same. If she started acting that way when she got out of the car again, I would just call in and be like, I have something that I need to take care of. And I would have driven this lady to like the police station, a hospital, something. Right. I know. Well,
01:09:31
Speaker
I guess I'm torn, obviously I would too, but then I'm trying to see it from his perspective and I guess where this is a brand new job. And this is like day one. I don't know. But yeah, he said that like as soon as she got out of the car, she was acting paranoid and again, running back and forth. But that eventually he saw her start to walk toward Colwood. So maybe he thought like,
01:10:00
Speaker
I don't know what he would have thought. But it is that interaction now that's obviously nine hours after talking with the police, this is the last confirmed sighting of Emma.
Theories Around Emma's Disappearance
01:10:14
Speaker
And I say confirmed because Emma's mom Shelly is convinced that the young woman that William offered the ride to is Emma. I mean, it's just like you said, you were like, oh, that's Emma. We found out barefoot.
01:10:28
Speaker
According to an article in The Times Colonist by Katie DeRosa, Shelley Phillipoff said the following about William's report, quote, his account is more than believable. He described Emma to a T, her mannerisms, everything. The way he talked about her taking her long hair out from under her coat. I thought it was so plausible that she walked throughout the night, end quote.
01:10:56
Speaker
And Kimberly Bordage in her podcast, The Search for Emma Philippoff stated, quote, we started the canine search by working with the last known point in View Royal where William let her out of the vehicle at Craigflower and Admirals Way. We searched the immediate vicinity by Craigflower Bridge, reads around the Gorge Waterway, places that people normally wouldn't pass through, end quote.
01:11:25
Speaker
but nothing has ever been found. So it's literally like she just disappeared. Yep, into the night. Now there are a few theories about what happened to Emma, so I'm just gonna go through them quickly and see which one you think is the most plausible. Okay.
01:11:43
Speaker
Theory one, as a free-spirited person and a girl who lived this bohemian lifestyle, some say Emma just dipped off the grid to live in a community of like-minded people or just live on her own. However,
01:12:03
Speaker
You mentioned it earlier, Mackie. If she were going to travel internationally, what would she have needed? Her passport. Now, she could have traveled by boat. That is true. And she was known to hang out at the pier and sleep on friends' boats.
01:12:22
Speaker
But Emma's mom Shelly insists that as close as Emma was to her younger brother, Alexander, she would have never just left him. So she might've been a wanderer, but she was also deeply empathetic and she wouldn't have willingly hurt her family like that. Okay. Theory one. Theory two, sex trafficking. I just think it's sad how many times this is like, this is a theory in our cases. Yeah, I know.
01:12:52
Speaker
We have to bring it up. Shelly Philippoff was concerned that Emma was taken and thrust into sex trafficking ring. And like you just said, we've talked before about how this crime is one that is becoming more and more common.
01:13:10
Speaker
But law enforcement actually do not believe this theory because they say that there's usually a grooming period where the trafficker seems like a good person trying to win over the victim and then entices them to willingly participate with the promise of a vacation or something like that before taking the person away.
01:13:33
Speaker
Emma is extremely private. So I feel like this could still be a possibility. But obviously we would need a lot more proof. We have none. Theory three, a stalker. Now, obviously it seemed like Emma was afraid of something or someone. And many believe that there really was a stalker she was running from.
01:14:02
Speaker
If so, it would explain why she stayed at a women's only shelter and refused to stay at the co-ed shelter. It would explain her behavior in the week leading to her disappearance, like all of that peering out of windows, seeming paranoid, even seeming horrified when the male friend offered her a hug. If this theory is true, there are three potential men to mention.
01:14:30
Speaker
The first is a man unnamed with whom Emma had had a quote, bad experience sometime between 2008 and 2009 when she was in culinary school. At least three of her friends state that Emma was under increasing stress, feeling that she was being harassed by that same gentleman. And she never told his identity to friends.
01:14:58
Speaker
like never named him. Okay. Which I think seems even more like plausible that this was like a bad experience with this dude. Oh yeah. Because if you've been stalked, you don't want to say the name because what if he, somebody knows him or like then he finds out where you are again. Yeah, exactly.
01:15:16
Speaker
And she didn't even write about it in her journal and name him. But because of that experience, her friend said that she like wanted to avoid social situations. And I mean, maybe that was the impetus for why she stopped social drinking.
01:15:33
Speaker
And friends also noted that Emma who loved to travel and explore had even canceled a trip to Mexico with friends and at times almost seemed too scared to even leave the shelter.
01:15:49
Speaker
Hey, so far this one's kind of what I'm leaning toward. Right. The second potential man is her friend, Julian. She was like, you're not touching me, sir. Well, no, no, that was a that was a different one. This is the one who saw her and like she didn't even respond.
01:16:07
Speaker
Oh, okay. It wasn't the one that was like, you want to hug? And she like ran away from okay. Yeah. This is a one. He sees her when riding the bus and then he goes. Well, they had had a short relationship in the past and he kind of described his feelings for her as ones that wouldn't go away.
01:16:27
Speaker
And when Emma had actually moved to Victoria, Julian followed. Okay. And he says it was just a big coincidence. And he actually admits that they weren't extremely close after they both moved to Victoria. But after Emma's disappearance, Julian sent some strange messages to Shelley Philippoff
01:16:50
Speaker
that set off some alarm bells. Like one of the messages just said that he knows she's missing and he just said he wanted to help Emma build a cabin in the woods.
01:17:02
Speaker
That's weird. Yeah. And then another message, this one was sent to Emma's father. It kind of seemed to implicate him in wrongdoing because he sent a message about music festival tickets. But in it, in this message, he said, quote, the last thing I want to do is be stalking her like I did the last time. I'm sorry, what? Yeah.
01:17:28
Speaker
But Julian actually passed police polygraph tests and he's been cleared of any involvement. And he was asked about that use of the word stalking in the Emma Philippoff is missing podcast, but he claimed that he just misused the word because English is his second language. Okay. And he's like, no, no, that's not what I meant. The third possibility,
01:17:56
Speaker
is related to an incident that happened in May 2014, so this is a couple of years after Emma went missing, and it's concerning Emma's missing posters. The Campbell River Courier Islander newspaper reported that a gentleman entered a store in Gastown, British Columbia, and he started ripping down the $25,000 reward posters of Emma.
01:18:21
Speaker
He purportedly said to the business owners, quote, is one of those missing persons posters, except she's not missing. She's my girlfriend and she ran away because she hates her parents. What? Yeah.
01:18:36
Speaker
And here's the crazy part to me, despite the store owners calling the police and capturing the man's image on video camera footage, and this is a man who like walks with a limp and has distinguishing tattoos, not a single soul has come forward to identify him. Okay, this is almost like, what was the episode you covered where the man had like a sloth or something that he carried or like a ferret?
01:19:02
Speaker
Oh, that's in the Pamela Ray. Yeah. So like it's distinguishable. People should know yet. Right. Exactly. So there are possibilities for a legitimate stalker. But if this theory is true, Maggie, I have two problems with it. Okay.
01:19:24
Speaker
I would believe it if not for the fact that her paranoia extends beyond men. True, because her furniture was talking to her. Right, yeah. She has paranoia with the furniture and the cab's dispatch radio.
01:19:40
Speaker
And second, if she is scared of men, like the other examples seem to indicate, why would Emma have willingly gotten into William's car to ride to Colwood and then seem calm after she gets into the car with him? So I'm always like, this is it. This is what happened. And then you point out something and I'm like, I'm stupid. That's definitely not what it is.
01:20:09
Speaker
I do think that it could be, it could be a stalker, but I just- You make good points though. The William thing is true. She was so calm about it. Right. Right. Um, theory four is a link to drugs.
01:20:25
Speaker
Four years after Emma's disappearance, Emma's mother and her older brother were arrested for money laundering and drug offenses. Now, I'm going to get to her mom here in a second. Some people argue that maybe this link to drugs is what Emma was running from or was scared of.
01:20:47
Speaker
But this investigation and arrest didn't happen until several years after Emma disappeared. And Shelly has always insisted that her daughter's disappearance and her son's involvement in drugs are like mutually exclusive. They're not connected in any way. And the charges against Shelly were actually dropped in November of that same year of 2016. And I do feel like
01:21:14
Speaker
she would be one of the first to admit if she thought there was a connection. Because I mean, people were already accusing her of involvement because of this drug charge. And I feel like if she really thought there were a connection, she would have admitted it because that's potential hope of finding her daughter. Yeah, I agree. And to defend Shelly a bit,
01:21:38
Speaker
She was not aware of what her son was doing and her son was living with her, which is why she got the charges as well. Gotcha.
01:21:48
Speaker
But the reaction of outsiders to those charges, they were devastating to Shelly. She said in an interview with Kristie Neese with CBC News, quote, I was very hurt. I was angered, very upset over the fact that a number of people, not people that know me, anyone that knows me has been extremely supportive. I have an extremely supportive community. People that know me know that these are false accusations, but a number of people chose
01:22:17
Speaker
Emma's Facebook page to attack me. To make negative, I know, to make negative comments in regard to the changes, or sorry, the charges against me. That page is intended for Emma and Emma only. It is to help in a search for Emma. It has nothing to do with me. So that is the most salient point that I would like to make. It was very hurtful. It was very hurtful, end quote.
01:22:47
Speaker
That, I feel like, is one of the brutal sides of social media. Everybody is on the defense and on the attack when somebody else does something wrong, but never sees anything wrong that they could possibly do. And finally, theory five, depression, suicide, or mental illness. Sandy Merriman's women's shelter staff had told Shelly Phillipoff that her daughter Emma had required, quote, physical and medical intervention.
01:23:15
Speaker
And indeed the previous winter in 2011, Emma's roommate in Victoria had already begun to worry about Emma's mental state. So this is a year prior. She watched as Emma would obsessively arrange and rearrange items like rocks or feathers or shells into patterns. And she noticed that Emma was almost ritualistic about it.
01:23:40
Speaker
One night, that same friend found Emma outside in a near euphoric state gazing at the stars.
01:23:50
Speaker
And the friend had called Emma's dad to tell him about her concern, but Emma actually got upset to find that her friend had contacted her parents behind her back and insisted that she was fine. Yeah, but that's really weird behavior. Exactly. And the sad part is that because Emma's parents were already divorced when that happened, her mother Shelly was never told about it. Cause the friend had called her dad. Oh, okay. Yeah.
01:24:19
Speaker
Even staff at the shelter began to suspect that Emma was either suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness or was suicidal because in addition to moving the furniture outside and arguing that it was talking to her and was too loud, she kept her curtains pulled closed at all times and she had just recently begun to sell and donate many of her personal belongings. Yeah, but I don't think that's so weird.
01:24:48
Speaker
See, that's what, I'm glad you said that because I don't either. Now they took it as like some sort of sign that she had had a psychotic break or a schizophrenic episode, which I get with the talking furniture. Yeah, but like I feel like she's also, she's described as giving. So she's like, like you said, bohemian and just like really simplistic. So she doesn't need a lot of material things. Yeah.
01:25:14
Speaker
Actually, if you're living in a van, you don't have room for your material things if you live in a van. Yeah, absolutely. And do you remember how I said that Emma's journal was found in her van? She wrote tons and tons in that journal, mostly poetry, like what I read earlier, but none of the entries when the police looked through them, even though they did seem to indicate depression, none of the entries contained what experts considered suicidal ideation.
Call to Action for Emma's Case
01:25:46
Speaker
So there we are. Yeah, she kind of like some of her behavior did seem kind of almost like schizophrenic sort of. Because it's just from like the little bit of research we've done on past episodes. Like it was just kind of similar to some other things we've talked about. But I don't know. I don't know that I can pick one theory for this.
01:26:13
Speaker
I know. And I almost feel like the biggest takeaway is ultimately based on whether you think Emma's disappearance is a result of depression and suicide or of foul play. Right. And I mean, for me, in cases where there's no body that's found, I lean toward foul play.
01:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, because I don't think, I mean, I don't know, but I would not be skilled enough if one day I was just like, I think I'm gonna just move to the middle of nowhere and no one's ever gonna find me. I'm just gonna live this minimalistic life. I don't think I would be smart enough to pull that off. I think that would be hard to do. And leave no clues behind. Right, exactly. You didn't even use the $200 debit card you bought. Right.
01:27:03
Speaker
It is. Some time ago, Shelly took Emma's things from the storage locker where she had kept them since Emma's disappearance and she placed them in a room in her home. She's had the time to go through the items at her leisure to try to find something, any clue, and has yet to find anything. But because Emma was so cryptic and eclectic,
01:27:31
Speaker
so too could be something that is significant. What to us looks like a feather. To her could signify a significant memory. What to us seems like a scrap of fabric. To Emma could represent fear in its worst form. The fear that was after her. The one chasing her either in the streets or in her mind.
01:28:01
Speaker
While I speak in what ifs, Shelly Philippoff has had to face in cold realities because while Emma may have been running from her fears, her mother has had to face hers head on. But even facing fear, I like to think there's still hope that the two can coexist.
01:28:28
Speaker
After all, the case of this petite, thin, young, artistic, avid reader who loved the outdoors and humankind.
01:28:40
Speaker
is still an active missing person case. And there are many out there, including you now, Sleuthhounds, who can share her story with others or even help join the Help Find Emma Philippoff Facebook page, which now has nearly 15,000 followers.
01:29:01
Speaker
I urge you, anyone who has seen Emma Philippoff or who has any information about where she may be, can contact the Victoria Police Department non-emergency line at 250-995-7654.
01:29:20
Speaker
or information can be anonymously provided through Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477. With the mind as powerful as it is, if a mind consumed by fear can be so debilitating,
01:29:42
Speaker
Imagine what a collective group of minds focused on love, hope, and the pursuit of truth is capable of creating. We have that power already in us. All we have to do is act on it.
01:29:59
Speaker
Again, please like and join our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Twitter, at casescoffee, on Instagram, at coffee cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com. Please tell your friends about our podcast so more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to rate our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon.
01:30:29
Speaker
Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.