The Disappearance of Emma Fillipoff (Victoria, British Columbia)

Emma Filipoff took her journal everywhere she went. She has always been a creative soul- an artist and a writer.

Her life growing up in Perth, Ontario, was fairly typical, and as she grew into a teenager, she began to draw the attention of men. She was introspective, a good listener and people loved being around her. Emma was liked by just about everyone who had ever met her.

In the fall of 2012, Emma decided to leave her home, and family, in Perth and travel across the country to Victoria, British Columbia. She took a job at Red Fish Blue Fish seafood restaurant, but as a coastal town, this restaurant was seasonal and closed on October 31. Emma told her boss and coworkers she would return to work in the spring.

In late November, Emma made some calls home to her mother, who is still back in Perth. She had stated she wanted to come home, but each time they talked, she changed her mind by the end of the call and would tell her mom, ‘Never mind’.

In late November, a few different friends/acquaintances would see Emma and note she didn’t quite seem like herself. One of those friends even called 911, but officers checked on Emma and determined that she was fine, there was nothing they could do for her.

Her mom finally decided she needed to go see Emma in person and see how she was. Something was telling her Emma needed help.

On November 28th, Shelley arrives in Victoria to see her daughter and possibly bring her back home with her. She heads to the place where Emma had been staying and finds that Emma is not there.

She reports Emma missing, and the search for Emma begins.

Emma was born January 6, 1986, in Ontario to parents Shelley and James. She had a fairly normal childhood, was one of four children in the family, and lived in a close-knit community near Perth, Ontario.

Emma was said to be a quiet child, but very content. Growing up, Emma excelled in anything artistic. She was a dancer for a while and also enjoyed painting and writing.

As a teenager, her parents divorced, and Emma took it pretty hard. As soon as she graduated from high school at age 18, Emma traveled to China to teach English. It was her dream to see the world and travel, and she would do this for a few years.

Upon returning to Canada, Emma pursued diplomas in both Photojournalism and Culinary Arts.

In 2011, Emma moved to the opposite end of the country, to Victoria, British Columbia. Victoria, British Columbia, seemed a great fit for her free spirit and creative personality.

She was a private person, and her family didn’t know much about her life in Victoria, but this is how Emma had always been. She was an introspective and independent child. They, of course, worried about her, but as a young twenty-something, they had to let her spread her wings.

In the summer of 2012, Emma worked at a seasonal restaurant called Red Fish Blue Fish. When fall approached and the restaurant was shutting down for the season, Emma made sure to tell her co-workers that she would be back next spring and summer.

By the end of November, however, things changed drastically.

THE DISAPPEARANCE.

On November 24, 2012, in the middle of the night, Emma’s mom Shelley, woke up to the phone ringing.

It was Emma.

She was crying and telling her mom she needed to come home. Her mom reassured her that she was always welcome home and they could get her home. They hung up the phone and Emma said she would call her tomorrow.

November 25, 2012, the very next day, a tearful Emma called her mom back. This time she told her mom, no, she wasn’t going to go home, she couldn’t face her. Shelley didn’t know what Emma meant by that but tried to convince Emma to come home.

These calls went back and forth every day until November 28, 2012, when Shelley finally decided to fly to Victoria and bring Emma back with her. Her motherly instinct had kicked in, and she knew something was very wrong.

When her mom arrived in Victoria, however, she couldn’t find Emma. She learned that she had been staying in a women’s shelter- something she hadn’t known before- and they hadn’t seen Emma since she left that morning.

Friends and acquaintances that Shelley tracked down didn’t know where Emma was either. The problem was also that Shelley didn’t know who Emma’s friends were in Victoria.

She was able to find out that Emma had been staying at the Sandy Merriman Women’s Shelter, which shocked her. She had no idea her daughter was living at a women’s shelter and became even more panicked, worrying about her daughter’s well-being.

When Shelley went to the women’s shelter and spoke to the staff, she immediately called the Victoria Police, who arrived to take a missing persons report. It was about midnight on November 28.

Emma Fillipoff had disappeared.

THE SEARCH.

We all know how it goes when an adult is reported missing, and Emma is 26 years old at this time.

However, it seemed the police did start looking for Emma, and they did uncover some interesting clues.

A timeline of events for Emma’s movements on November 28, 2012, was created.

Emma woke up that morning at the women’s shelter and left before 8:00 a.m.

At 8:30 a.m., she is spotted on security cam footage in a local convenience store. Further investigation showed that Emma purchased a $200 prepaid credit card.

There is a chunk of time during the day when Emma’s movements are unknown, but at 6:00 p.m., she gets in a taxi and asks to go to the airport. However, she cuts this short and tells the cab driver she doesn’t have any money, and he lets her out on the street.

She enters the same convenience store she was at earlier that day, this time purchasing a cell phone. Emma had never had a cell phone before, and this seemed unusual, but that was the most confusing thing in that security footage.

Emma spends several minutes just by the front doors of the store, peering outside, almost as if looking for someone. It seemed she didn’t want to leave the store, although eventually she would.

Around 6:30 p.m., an acquaintance of Emma’s is walking by the Empress Hotel in Victoria and sees Emma standing at the corner. He stopped and talked to her, and noted that she didn’t seem okay to him. She was also barefoot. He talked to her for a bit, and then went into a local restaurant and called the police to come check on her.

Her behavior was that odd.

This friend saw the police arrive and start to talk with Emma, and he debated on staying to make sure they had handled it. He thought they would take Emma to the hospital, so he left.

As it turns out, they didn’t. The police call log does show that an officer responded and, after talking with Emma, didn’t feel she was a threat to herself or anyone else, and there was nothing he could do. He left Emma standing there, barefoot, in front of the Empress Hotel.

That was the last time Emma Fillipoff could be accounted for.

This wouldn’t be the last clue, however.

Her 1993 Red Mazda Van was discovered in the parking lot of the Chateau Victoria. Most of her personal belongings were found in the van, including her journal. Friends have said she used the van for storage, and others thought she had the intention of living in it.

Her journal did document some of her struggles in Victoria and also stated that she felt like she was being followed.

Emma also wrote that she wasn’t feeling like herself lately. She felt lost and confused.

Was this a sign of mental troubles that no one knew about?

A week after Emma vanished, the prepaid card she had purchased that day was used at a store for cigarettes. Authorities discovered the card was used by a man who said he had found the card at Galloping Goose Trail.

Police searched and combed through every inch of that trail, and found no signs of Emma, and no additional clues.

The location where this card was found was 19 kilometers, or 11 miles, from the Empress Hotel where she was last seen.

Another interesting piece of information would be learned concerning one of Emma’s ex-boyfriends. This young man was someone she had seen briefly while living in Ontario near her family, but Emma would break it off.

This man didn’t want to end the relationship, however, and admitted later to stalking her.

This same man would run into Emma in Victoria months later. This man claimed it was a coincidence, but of course, authorities were suspicious. He offered to take a polygraph and spoke willingly to the police. He passed the polygraph, and police have said they have cleared him of any involvement in Emma’s disappearance.

Emma’s mom searched tirelessly for her daughter and received so many leads. People told her Emma was living in Vancouver, or others said she was living with the homeless and that she didn’t want to be found.

But Shelley’s searches turned up no signs of Emma.

The police also spent time searching the nearby Harbor, which was just from the Empress Hotel. They sent divers and boats into the water, believing Emma might be in the water. They found nothing.

A strange clue would surface in May 2014. A man walked into a store in the Gastown, British Columbia area, upset and holding a crumpled-up piece of paper in his hands.

He told the store clerk that Emma was his girlfriend, she was just fine and she wanted to be left alone. He said she wasn’t missing and he tossed the crumbled missing poster of Emma Fillipoff into the trash can.

The employees notified the police, who retrieved the security camera footage of this encounter in the store. They put out a plea to the public with his photo in hopes of identifying him, but they have yet to figure out who this man is.

This was one of the leads that provided the most hope to family and friends. This man acted as if he knew Emma, and even though her name was on the flyer, of course, it was interesting he referred to her by name- meaning if it was a mistaken identity, it was someone with Emma’s name.

Also, he mentioned that she didn’t want to be found, which also sounded suspicious, but very possible.

Was this man indeed someone who knew Emma? This was a year and a half after Emma had last been seen or heard from.

Mysterious Man Removing Emma’s Missing FlyersPhoto byJoel & Lori Sellen

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA.

Victoria is a Canadian city in British Columbia. It sits on the southern tip of Vancouver Island and borders the Pacific Ocean. Just across the bay from Victoria, you’ll find the San Juan Islands- part of the United States.

Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia and has just over 90,000 residents.

It’s known as an architecturally beautiful city and has also been nicknamed ‘The Garden City’. Victoria also has a reputation for being an artsy city, attracting artists in the form of music, painting, and writing, a world that Emma would have certainly been drawn to.

Tourism is a major component of Victoria’s economy. There is a major cruise port within the city, bringing thousands of visitors to Victoria regularly.

Emma was last seen at the Empress Hotel on Government Street. This hotel is known simply called the Fairmont Empress. It is just across the street from the harbor and the Victoria Marina.

The Chateau Victoria, where Emma’s van was found parked, is a 6-minute walk inland.

All of these points of interest, however, are very close to each other, but we don’t know their significance to Emma.

Why was she in front of the Empress Hotel?

Why was her van parked at the Chateau Victoria?

Crime in Victoria always seems to ebb and flow by looking at statistics; however, it is and has been below the national average. Of course, that doesn’t matter to those affected by a crime, and crime is certainly not nonexistent in Victoria. Crime isn’t nonexistent anywhere, unfortunately.

Why did she tell her taxi driver she didn’t have the fare to go to the airport? By car, the airport was 40 minutes away. We know she had that $200 prepaid card she purchased earlier, but perhaps she needed that for something else. But what?

And, wouldn’t she know she didn’t have the fare before getting into the taxi? Or, was it more pricey than she had anticipated?

No one in Emma’s life while in Victoria could shed any light on her strange behavior. While Emma kept her life private from her family, it seemed she did so with everyone in her life.

It is interesting, however, that since her disappearance, staff at the women’s shelter where Emma had been staying came forward stating that ‘she needed both medical and physical intervention’. What exactly that means is unclear.

Emma’s family, especially her mother, continued to push the authorities to get answers on her daughter’s whereabouts. It was their belief, however, that Emma had likely committed suicide and possibly gone into the water- and they did search the harbor three separate times.

They came to this conclusion based on Emma’s journals in which she seemed troubled. She also wrote very poetically, so it’s hard to say what her words truly mean.

There were also zero clues or evidence that points to foul play.

Aside from suicide and foul play, the possibility that Emma left and went somewhere else and is living undetected is also a possibility. Emma felt she was being followed and acted almost as if she was in danger, perhaps she left Victoria for somewhere else?

If she is living a transient or homeless lifestyle, it’s possible her driver’s license and/or social security number wouldn’t pop up as being used. She could be completely living under the radar- which if course would be the best outcome for her family and friends.

Her family has set up a website: http://www.helpfindemmafillipoff.com/ and also a Facebook page to help spread awareness of Emma’s case.

Please give them a follow and show your support for the family. It’s been over 11 years, but they have not, and will not, give up their search for Emma.

So, what do you think happened to Emma Fillipoff?

Emma is described as a Caucasian female, standing 5’5” tall and weighing around 110 pounds at the time she was last seen in November 2012. She was 26 years old then, and would today be 37- almost 38 years old.

She had long, brown, wavy hair and brown eyes. She was last seen on November 28, 2012, wearing camouflage pants, a green jacket, and an orange purse or bag.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact the Victoria Police Department at 250–995–7654 or the anonymous Crimestoppers tip line at 1–800–222–8477.