‘As long as you’ve got a breath in your body’: Lisa Maas’s father is still searching for his daughter — and her killer
Amateur sleuths plan to sift through tons of rubbish on the Niagara Escarpment in hopes of finding the remains of Lisa Maas, a 22-year-old woman who vanished from the Owen Sound area after leaving a party early in the morning of Sunday, July 17, 1988.
Maas, 22, was five months pregnant with her first child when she vanished after a large house party in the tiny rural community of Woodford.
The search runs from Saturday until Thursday in a crevice in the Niagara Escarpment about 10 minutes east of Meaford, near Owen Sound.
The OPP had no comment on the civilian search.
In a telephone interview, Maas's father, Ken Reimer, 96, said that he assumes his daughter is dead and deeply appreciates the efforts of the searchers to recover her body, and find her killer.
I'm very pleased that it's happening," he said, adding: I don't think people should quit on anything."
As long as you've got a breath in your body, you may as well keep plugging along," Reimer, a retired jeweller and watch repairman who was a member of the RCAF in the Second World War, said. You've got to keep moving."
He describes his daughter as: Very friendly. Very helpful. Athletic. Very small. She was quite energetic. A friendly person."
Maas, who was four-foot-10, less than 100 pounds and blond, was a member of a national championship lacrosse team and played high school soccer.
Her nickname - Mouse" - was tattooed on a shoulder and she was wearing a light blue Mickey Mouse sweater when last seen.
She felt a little bad about being so small and I think that gave her that fighting spirit," Reimer said.
Maas, who didn't complete high school, was hanging out with a rough crowd at the time of her disappearance.
She vanished during a turbulent time in her life, and had just moved back in with her parents after splitting with her boyfriend.
Six months earlier, she'd broken up with her husband of two years.
The volunteer Niagara Escarpment searchers run the website pleasebringmehome.com, which has the goal of soliciting anonymous tips that might solve missing person cases and bring people like Maas home.
They say they have received numerous tips through their website that Lisa's body may be hidden in a Niagara Escarpment crevice, the type of information they say they share with police.
The OPP searched the Niagara Escarpment in September 1989, but not this far south.
We've had several tips for this area," said Matthew Nopper, a former Owen Sound Sun Times reporter who's leading the search with personal support worker Nick Oldrieve.
The volunteer group did an initial search of the crevice last year, and found a purse that may have belonged to Maas amidst discarded metal, glass, auto parts and farm equipment.
They believe the prime suspect in Maas's disappearance was familiar with the site.
We believe very strongly (their suspect) knew about this area," Nopper said.
Nopper noted that many of the OPP searches have at crevices and dumps.
This location matches both - It's a crevice where people dumped ... There's a common theme there."
The area they're searching is remote and accessible by vehicle, Nopper said.
Nobody would have seen them coming in or out - especially around 5 in the morning."
It's the latest in a series of searches for Maas.
Police have helicopters outfitted with heat-seeking sensors and ground-penetrating radar in their attempts to find Lisa.
Officers have climbed into old farm wells and edged into rocky crevices.
In 2004, OPP tactical officers rappelled into a chasm on a well-travelled section of the Bruce Trail at the top of the Niagara Escarpment. The officers brought a police dog trained in sniffing out cadavers.
They've used pneumatic devices for breaking rocks to reach previously inaccessible areas.
They also conducted hundreds of interviews.
Two days after Lisa vanished, her car, a green 1976 Plymouth Fury, was found stuck in a farm lane, hidden from view, about a kilometre southeast of the nearby community of Annan.
The car had been ransacked.
The trunk and doors were open.
Clothing and paperwork were scattered about.
One thing was clearly missing from her car - her black leather purse, which had little money in it.
Almost three weeks after the discovery of her car, during a search by community members, her driver's licence was found in a ditch a few kilometres from where her car was discovered.
In 2008, Owen Sound Sun Times reporter Scott Dunn reported that he was told by an OPP officer that police originally had seven suspects, but pared the list down to one, eliminating her ex-husband and her former boyfriend.
Police have never identified the remaining person of interest," although he is believed to be someone known by Maas.
The Star has learned that this man is still alive in southern Ontario.
Police have never speculated about a motive for her death.
Some facts are clear.
On the final full day of her life, Lisa and two girlfriends and a man drove to a large house party in Woodford.
Early the next morning, Lisa left the party with someone police have called a male companion."
She disappeared shortly after she was driven by him to her car nearby, police were told.
The volunteer searchers have already gone through old farm wells and searched under a log cabin.
They previously devoted much time to a searching a farm property in the area, using donated excavators, ground penetrating radar, and cadaver tracking dogs.
In July 2018, their group dug through at site in the Annan area in sight of where Lisa was last seen, sifting through dirt, rocks, wood and discarded bottles and metal.
They found bits of bone that turned out to be from an animal.
The group's also now gathering information on other missing people, including Lois Hanna, 25, who was last seen on July 3, 1988 after attending a dance in Lucknow. Hanna disappeared two weeks before Maas went missing.
In 2010, Lisa's parents marked her disappearance by taking out an ad in their local newspaper, which included four photos of Lisa as she was growing up.
Lisa's mother June died in March 2019 at age 91, after 72 years of marriage.
Their newspaper ad included the poem Little Angels," which Lisa wrote.
It included the lines:
... no heartache compares with the death of one small child
Who does so much to make our world
Be Wonderful and mild."
Lisa's father thinks she would have gone into teaching, had she lived.
He's putting together a book for his family that will include Lisa's poetry, including Little Angels."
It's constantly on my mind," her father said. I have her picture that I look at every day, along with my wife's picture. Those are all part of my life and will remain with me until my passing."
Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him via email: pedwards@thestar.ca