What we learned in season one of Someone Knows Something

David Ridgen reflects on the Adrien McNaughton case

In the search for Adrien, we learned that, in the absence of factual information, humans tend to fill that void with their own narrative in order to make sense of something traumatic.

Adrien's family learned this first hand in the wake of his disappearance.

Many in the region either participated in the gigantic search for him or knew someone who had and, with this much at stake and so little information, rumours of all stripes were quickly generated.

Some of them persist to this day.

We also found that human memory, while volatile and prone to exclusion, can work better on repeat visits.

Each interview with the McNaughton family and others associated with the case brought out more corroborable information.

So when TV and radio programs conduct investigations and only interview subjects once (and sometimes you can only get one crack), we should ask ourselves, "Did they get everything that the person knows?"

I would say, "No."

From that, we should draw our own conclusions based on the facts at hand.

What happened immediately after Adrien went missing

In the immediate moments after Adrien went missing, Murray McNaughton, Donnie Ring and the other McNaughton children present that day began a cursory search of the area.

They shouted for Adrien, but Murray had them stop soon after starting, because he feared that all the yelling might scare Adrien into not answering. "Because it sounded like a wild animal," Murray said.

Then Donnie Ring says he drove for help, turning down the left arm of the bush road that brings people to the remote parking area to the south of Holmes Lake.

Donnie hit Highway 508 and turned left, whereupon he says he drove to Jocko's Motel and called the police.

He then said he returned to where the bush road meets the 508 to wait for the police and accompanied them up to Holmes Lake shortly after dark. He said they had to have their "lights on" when they arrived back.

No trace of Adrien had been found by Murray and family who had stayed behind.

The search

In the days following, thousands of volunteers from the surrounding towns and villages made their way to the Holmes Lake area in the hopes that they could find some vestige of Adrien.

Cadets and volunteer divers were replaced by Ontario Provincial Police divers and an army platoon from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa.

Two or three weeks of diving in lakes and swamps, grid-work searching, tracker dogs, and many, many sleepless hours of searching turned up absolutely no sign of Adrien.

Donnie Ring at Holmes Lake

Donnie Ring was the only other adult at the scene the day Adrien went missing and, before I interviewed him for our SKS podcast, he had never told his story in public before.

Donnie appears to have a good memory of the time and has been able to provide detailed descriptions of the chronology and happenings of that day.

He has also confirmed that he took the children fishing to another location before returning with them to the original campsite where they were fishing from. Shortly thereafter, Adrien disappeared.

That other location Donnie took Adrien and the others to is also, interestingly, the exact location where the cadaver dogs all made their indications, and where we conducted our dive. Coincidence?

One theory is that Adrien wandered back to that location and potentially drowned.

Until positive proof of Adrien's remains are found, it is difficult to say for certain.

The 1956 Dodge

A Black & White 1956 Dodge Royal Lancer or Coronet was seen by a fisherman named John Gervais in the Holmes Lake parking area on or around the day that Adrien disappeared.

It was seen close to midday along with its adult occupants (at least one man and one woman) and at least two children. There was, reportedly, a tent set up and a campfire going.

When Murray and family, along with Donnie Ring, came to Holmes Lake on late Monday afternoon, they say they did not see any car or other people.

Police at the time interviewed John Gervais about the car but never, to our knowledge, publicly released the information.

Chrysler says that black & white would have been a custom colour combination at the time and was uncommon.

Perhaps the people associated with the car can shed more light on Adrien's whereabouts?

What about the psychics?

In the aftermath of Adrien's disappearance, several psychics came forward with theories about what happened to him and his potential whereabouts.

Two separate psychics told the McNaughton family that Adrien was taken to or somehow ended up in Clyde Forks, Ontario — a remote small town less than fifty kilometres from Holmes Lake.

The Cadaver Dogs

During our investigation, SKS took four cadaver dogs specifically trained to only detect human decomposition into the Holmes Lake area.

All four made intriguing indications at exactly the same spot on Holmes Lake.

The dog handlers, the divers and I believe that the dogs are likely smelling human remains in Holmes Lake.

The sketches

The sketches are aged-progressed drawings of how Adrien may appear now, in 2016, in his late forties. SKS distributed the sketches widely to explore the theory that Adrien may still be alive somewhere.

The sketches provide hope in the case that this theory, believed by family members, may be true.

What do you think this new search has been like for the family?

It has been stressful for family members throughout the podcast, a process they knew would open old wounds.

However, my experience in this area is, that once families go through this kind of process, they are able to heal themselves better.

None of the McNaughtons, to my knowledge, are sorry they went through it.

Are you disappointed you didn't find Adrien?

It's time for the police to get involved and follow up on the leads, especially the ones discovered by the cadaver dogs.