On the cold St. Patrick's Day of March 17, 1995, 18-year-old Chad Eric Edward Smith and his five friends, Jay Boyle, Michael Cummings, Daniel Higgins, Jamie Lefebvre, and Robert Rumbolt, vanished from their hometown of Pickering, Ontario. The group of teenagers, ranging in age from 16 to 18, had been celebrating spring break at a house party. Witnesses recall the boys leaving the party together and walking towards the East Shore Marina at Frenchman's Bay. One friend later recounted that they had mentioned plans to "goof around on a boat." This was the last time anyone reported seeing Chad and his friends.
In the early morning hours, surveillance footage from the marina captured three of the young men—Michael, Jamie, and Robbie—entering the area at 1:48 a.m. Sometime between 2:30 and 3:00 a.m., residents near the marina reported hearing a motorboat on Lake Ontario.
The following morning, two boats were reported stolen from two different marinas in Frenchman's Bay: a four-meter imitation Boston Whaler and a three-wheeled paddle boat. When the six teenagers failed to return home, their concerned girlfriends reported them missing on Friday, but a full-scale search was not initiated until Saturday afternoon, 36 hours after they were last seen. The prevailing theory held by law enforcement is that the boys took the stolen boats out onto the frigid, icy waters of Lake Ontario without lifejackets, where it is believed the vessels capsized.
Despite a massive search effort involving Durham Regional Police, the Toronto Police Marine Unit, the Coast Guard, and military aircraft, almost no trace of the young men or the boats has ever been found. Thousands of volunteers also scoured the area, but the search yielded no bodies, clothing, or wreckage. The only piece of physical evidence recovered was a gas can believed to belong to the Boston Whaler, which was found near Wilson, New York, on the opposite side of the lake. The lack of evidence has left the families with unanswered questions and has led to speculation over the years. The fact that only three of the six boys were seen on the marina's surveillance video continues to be a perplexing point in the investigation. Decades later, the case of the "Lost Boys of Pickering" remains one of Canada's most haunting unsolved mysteries, a story of six young lives that seemingly vanished into the night.Last Seen: Mar 17, 1995
