Tim Marczenko, author of Gone Cold: Death and Disappearances in the Northwoods, has been investigating the disappearance of Agnes May Appleyard for more than six years.
He said with the case becoming inactive, he started doing his own research which included interviewing family, neighbours, investigating officers, search and rescue, Freedom of Information Act submissions, and visiting the location.
“Because of the pressure and attention I brought to her disappearance, I was able to put the spotlight back on May Appleyard and get police to reopen the case, in which familial DNA was finally collected after all of these years,” he told Doppler via email correspondence. “Just recently, police relocated the missing skull of Appleyard (it was lost years previously) and confirmed it belonged to her, a suspicion that myself, the family and the police had.”
Marczenko said he believes he played a part in reigniting the case which recently led police to issue a press release confirming the human remains found on the property where Agnes May Appleyard lived, did in fact belong to her. The release speaks to the fact that In 1988, as a result of the investigation, an 82-year-old male was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. That individual, who is now deceased, was acquitted in court. You can find that release, HERE.
“I am proud to play a part in reuniting this forgotten woman back with her family after a long, painful 37 years. I put my heart and soul into telling her story accurately and gave her a chapter in my book outlining all the details to preserve her memory,” noted Marczenko.
Gone Cold: Death and Disappearances in the Northwoods was published in 2022. In his spare time, Marczenko investigates unresolved cases. He said he chose to investigate the circumstances surrounding Appleyard’s disappearance for the same reason he chose all the others. “There was almost zero information and no one was looking. Her family became aware of my involvement in 2019 and I have communicated with them and interviewed various family members since.”
Below is an excerpt from Marczenko’s book:
“I had come across her name, like so many others, on the Canada’s Missing website. Her name was part of a collection of over 1,000 strangers that ran down the page like some heartbreaking “to-find” list. A single, inaccurate sentence summed up her life and the details of her disappearance. Sifting through what crumbs of data I could recover, I realized that there was more to the story than was initially released. Only after a lot of persistence did a more complete version come to light. And it was a very ugly one.
By all accounts, May Appleyard was a lovely woman and a hardworking mother and grandmother. She inherited the homestead in Emsdale from her parents and lived in the area all her life. Newspapers of the time would refer to it as a “shack.” In fact, it was an 18-by-20-foot cabin, with a total of three rooms, one door and a small, attached porch. The property was isolated and the road leading in was described as “impassable” unless you had a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The nearest neighbour was the Godfrey’s, 2.5 kilometres away.
There was no hydro, no telephone, no indoor plumbing and whatever comforts they enjoyed were achieved by hand. Appleyard and the children used to fetch buckets of water from a spring about 100 yards away. It was a hard, yet simple lifestyle carried out in the seclusion of the dense forest, where they received no visitors or attention from the outside world. Until the day she vanished.”
The book also references Agnes Appleyard’s husband, Sydney Appleyard, who has since died. He was charged with her murder and acquitted because there was almost no physical evidence linking him to her disappearance, explained Marczenko.
Gone Cold: Death and Disappearances in the Northwoods is available on Amazon and independent bookstores across Ontario. It’s also available as an audiobook.
Agnes Appleyard was 71 years old when she was reported missing.
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