Teen missing from Kelowna for 20 years, plea for information renewed

Photo: Kelowna RCMP

Twenty years ago, Ashleigh Pettman-Wilson vanished.

It's been 20 years since Ashleigh Pettman-Wilson disappeared without a trace.

The 18 year old had gone out with a friend, and never returned home in circumstances that remain unknown to this day. No crime scene, no remains and no witnesses offered any insight into what may have transpired on June 5, 2005, the last time she was known to be in Kelowna, the city she recently made home.

In turn, the investigation into her disappearance remains cold.

“This is one of those ones that it's really difficult,” retired investigator Darren Feist said Wednesday morning at the Kelowna RCMP headquarters.

He’s been working on figuring out what happened to the teen for several months and has seen little advancement in that aim. He wasn’t left with much to start with. Pettman-Wilson wasn’t reported missing until weeks after her last sighting in Kelowna’s City Park, so any trace of her had long gone cold by the time a file into her disappearance was opened.

“There was some initial follow up with friends and acquaintances and family in regards to her going missing but it’s that typical missing persons file where you're usually brought in after the fact so there’s no real crime scene,” he said.

It’s not an ideal scenario but may offer a more truthful view into the world of cold case investigations. Despite being the focus of countless movies and television programs, Feist said they are difficult to crack.

Even with advances in forensic technology, breakthroughs are rare, particularly when, in cases like the one at hand, there’s not even a crime scene.

Feist is hopeful he can make a difference but he needs those who knew the teen to come out from the shadows of history and offer some insight into what could have happened, offering closure to her long-suffering loved ones.

Until then, he’s doing what he can.

“There was some avenues of investigation that were left open over the years, but that’s been just following up with people who may have known her, trying to track them down,” he said Wednesday.

“People move and circumstances change, and I'm hoping maybe something's changed for somebody who had some contact with her or, maybe, even knows what happened to her.”

He agreed to an interview about the case so he could make an appeal to anyone who may have had any information to come forward.

“All I can do is appeal to the public right now, and hopefully people who remember her from when she was downtown or other places in Kelowna will reach out and, just maybe, can provide us a little more information about what was going on with her at that time,” Feist said.

“If anybody out there has any further knowledge of what happened or where we could find her, that would be a very important person to talk okay,

Pettman-Wilson didn’t have the strongest ties to Kelowna when she disappeared. She’d lived in the valley when she was younger but only moved back from Alberta in February or March of the year she went missing and was living with her grandparents on the westside.

“She still had some friends and associates here from when she was younger and attending school,” Feist said.

“She was spending time in the downtown core area prior to her being reported missing, and she was just a very young girl. She was only 18 years old … I think she was finding her way in life at the time.”

Pettman-Wilson was five-foot-four, 94 pounds, and had green eyes and brown and blonde hair.

On a social media page dedicated to finding answers about her disappearance, Pettman-Wilson was remembered by a friend for being “bubbly” and her family continually ask for answers.

Feist said that anyone with information should simply call the RCMP and ask for him.