In missing person cases, sometimes the most important piece of information is held by
someone who didn’t even realise there was anything wrong.
Some missing person cases are resolved years later, but hopefully sharing information can
help these 2021 cases be resolved much sooner.
Number 5
May 14th, 2021, was an ordinary day for Bernard Grempel.
The 29-year-old from Surrey, British Columbia, went along with his usual activities, visiting
a local store to get a drink and catching the Sky Train at Surrey Central Station at
about 10:30pm.
He was following the route he usually took to go visit his parents, and got off the train
at 22nd Street Station in New Westminster before catching his usual bus.
What happened after that remains a mystery.
Bernard was very close to his family, calling his mother every day and visiting his parents
once a week.
When nobody in his family was able to get hold of him they knew something was terribly
wrong.
He was reported missing to police but by the time they got round to checking the CCTV on
public transport, it had already been deleted.
The footage is automatically wiped every week.
Crucial to cracking the case could be figuring out where Bernard got off the bus.
It was a route he had done countless times before, so it seems unlikely he would have
gotten off at the wrong stop and gotten lost.
Some of the people who saw Bernard on the bus have come forward to the family, but what
information they were able to provide hasn’t been released to the public.
Bernard’s family noticed nothing out of the ordinary in his life before his disappearance.
He was an accountant, but had previously worked as a swim coach for a children’s team.
Bernard had been a swimmer as a child and had worked his way up through the coaching
ranks.
He was a well loved member of the community, and isn’t known to have any enemies or anyone
that would want to hurt him.
It’s also completely out of character for Bernard to disappear from his family’s lives.
His sister was pregnant at the time of his disappearance and Bernard was looking forward
to welcoming a new niece or nephew.
Bernard is described as 6ft tall, 160 pounds at the time of his disappearance.
He has brown eyes and shoulder-length curly brown hair.
He was last seen wearing a black hooded jacket and red sweatpants.
Number 4
23-year-old Alasia Hill walked out of her boyfriend’s home in Detroit in early March
and hasn’t been seen since.
2021 had not gotten off to the best of starts for Alasia.
She had contracted an infection that left her in a medically induced coma for several
weeks.
At one point, complications meant she had to have her right hand amputated but, thankfully,
she recovered from her illness.
She was back home by March 11th, the last time her family saw her.
The day before, she went with her mother to a doctors appointment so she could get the
stitches removed from the amputation operation.
She left with her boyfriend, Marlon Billingslea, and called her mother when they got back to
his place.
For unknown reasons, Alasia didn’t have a phone at the time, so she called from Marlon’s
phone.
Mother and daughter chatted for a while, and Alasia promised to call the following day.
When her mother didn’t receive a call, she phoned Marlon.
Marlon revealed Alasia had left.
Earlier that morning, Alasia had simply walked out the house without any explanation.
Marlon went after her, worried, and asked her what was going on, but she wouldn’t
reply.
It’s not known what kind of mental state Alasia was in at this point, but Marlon figured
she wanted some time to herself so he left her alone.
This wasn’t the first time Alasia had disappeared but it had never been for this long and, according
to her mother, she always made sure to contact her and let her family know she was ok, even
if it was through social media.
Alasia’s social media accounts have been silent since she vanished, something also
extremely out of the ordinary for her.
Alasia’s family are extremely worried about her, especially because due to medical care
she still needed following her stay in hospital.
Alasia is described as being 5ft4in tall and weighing about 135 pounds.
She has the name “Kayden” tattooed on her forearm and her right hand is amputated.
She was last seen wearing a tan jogging outfit and beige UGG boots.
Number 3
Sarm Heslop has been missing since early March 2021.
She was last seen aboard her boyfriends catamaran, which was moored in St John in the US Virgin
Islands.
Sarm spent much of her adult life travelling the world.
She had worked as a flight attendant in the past, but had also worked in call centres
to fund trips across the globe.
A friend suggested she sail across the Atlantic and, in December 2019, she settled down in
the Caribbean.
In July 2020, she met Ryan Bane on tinder and the two began dating.
By March the following year, they were doing everything together.
Ryan is an American citizen and fairly wealthy, owning his own yacht named Siren Song.
On March 7th, the two went for a meal at a local restaurant.
It’s not known if anything had seemed off while they were at the restaurant, but they
left the 10pm, the COVID curfew time on the island.
This was the last time anyone other than Ryan is known to have seen her.
According to Ryan they went back to his yacht, where they were staying.
The time line after this point isn’t very clear but at some point Ryan went to bed.
He woke at 2:30am the following day after the anchor alarm on his boat was set off.
An anchor alarm is a system that alerts owners if their boat drifts too far from where it’s
been anchored.
When he woke, Sarm was nowhere to be seen.
He called police not long after, and was told to call the US Coast Guard.
For some reason, Ryan didn’t call the coast guard until 11:46am.
The coast guard did a search of the island’s coast but found no sign Sarm had entered the
water.
They also interviewed Ryan on his yacht.
This would be the last time any investigators were allowed access to the yacht.
Local police and investigators have asked to do a search of the vessel, but Ryan has
refused and quickly acquired an attorney.
He has not assisted with inquiries, though his attorney has said he will if it’s legally
required of him.
In a statement, Ryan said he’s devastated.
A search of the island turned up nothing, and investigators can’t be entirely sure
Sarm had reached the yacht that evening.
It’s possible something had happened to her after leaving the restaurant.
Police would need a warrant to search the Siron Song and, as they don’t have enough
evidence Ryan was involved in Sarm’s disappearance, that hasn’t been possible yet.
A dog walker claimed he had heard a scream around the same time Sarm disappeared, but
police have said this could have come from any of the boats in the harbour and they can’t
be sure it’s related to the case.
Sarm is described as a Caucasian female, about 5ft8in tall, of athletic build with long dark
brown hair.
She has a large tattoo on her shoulder of a seahorse, butterfly, and flower.
Number 2
Tiffany Foster has been missing since March 1st 2021 after leaving her home in Newnan,
Georgia, to go shopping.
Tiffany was newly engaged and was close to graduating from Georgia Military College,
where she was studying criminal justice.
From the outside, it seemed like there was plenty to look forward to on the horizon.
Unfortunately, she hasn’t been able to experience any of it.
Tiffany was last seen by her fiance, a man named Reginald Robertson, and her teenage
daughter when she left her home to go shopping.
She sent a text message to her mother, though when that was or whether it gave any clues
as to her disappearance is information that hasn’t been revealed.
She didn’t return home that day.
Her daughter was concerned about her mother’s whereabouts, but Reginald opted not to contact
police.
It wasn’t until the following day that Tiffany was reported missing.
She failed to show up for class, which was very out of character for her.
Tiffany’s family reported her missing and police began a search for the mother of three.
So far, there has been little in the way of leads.
Tiffany had left in her car, a 2020 Nissan Maxima, to go shopping and for a while the
vehicle was also missing.
It was located seven days later, abandoned in a parking lot in College Park, 30 miles
away from Newnan.
Inside, investigators found her credit card and purse, but her cell phone was missing.
The case only got even more puzzling after it was discovered Tiffany hadn’t driven
her car to College Park.
Her fiance had.
Reginald had moved the car from where it had been left somewhere in Newnan to College Park.
This was after Tiffany had already been reported missing, and he would have known moving the
car would hinder the case.
He was charged with stealing the car, but he didn’t officially become a suspect.
Even if he wasn’t officially a suspect, Tiffany’s family believed there was something
up with her finances.
Her sister told the press she had felt like something was wrong in the weeks leading up
to her disappearance, but Tiffany hadn’t wanted to say anything.
She also said Tiffany wasn’t overly enthusiastic about her relationship, but wanted to make
things work.
Reginald was later charged with kidnapping and aggravated assault, but it was in a case
unrelated to Tiffany’s disappearance.
The charges were related to an incident that occurred in late 2020.
However, after this police confirmed he was a “person of interest” in the case.
Tiffany’s family have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts.
She is described as 5ft2in tall, weighing around 220 pounds, with black hair and hazel
eyes.
Number 1
Cynthia Bah-Traore (bah trah orr) disappeared from her home in Crowley, Texas, in February
2021 and hasn’t been seen since.
She left behind two sons and family and friends who are all struggling to find answers to
the strange disappearance.
Cynthia was last seen on CCTV at a gas station in Grandview, some 26 miles away from her
home.
According to friends she “made a scene” at the gas station, but it didn’t become
a physical altercation.
Even though she drove her own car to the station, she accidentally got into another vehicle
after leaving the store.
The owner of the vehicle told her to get out, and Cynthia apologised and claimed she had
gotten confused.
She got into her own car and drove away.
It was the last time she was seen.
Unfortunately, she left her phone in the other car so it couldn’t be used to trace her,
and it’s not known if police found anything useful on the device.
Cynthia was a kind, friendly and religious person who her friends knew as someone they
could rely on.
She worked as a prenatal counsellor, and made gift baskets for the mothers she worked with
which included all the necessities for their baby and handmade caps.
In the months before her disappearance, Cynthia was working on creating a non-profit to make
her baskets more widely available.
Unfortunately, Cynthia’s personal life was a little more disrupted than she would have
liked.
Cynthia moved to Texas with her eldest son in 2007, leaving behind the father of her
son in Nebraska.
Her fiance, a different man, joined her in Texas not long after and they married in 2008.
They had a second son together and were living happily enough until 2020.
Cynthia’s husband had an affair and, even though she was willing to forgive him, he
wanted a divorce.
He also wanted full custody of their son, something Cynthia was fighting in court when
she disappeared.
They were due back in court a few days after she vanished, but didn’t show up.
The day of her disappearance, February 3rd, Cynthia was acting strange.
She called multiple friends and seemed to be in some distress.
She told one friend she wanted to support families of missing people, and had begun
crying before her friend had to get off the phone for work.
When the friend called back later that day, she said she was fine.
She continued to chat and text with friends until around 10pm, about half an hour before
she was seen on CCTV.
The blue Mazda Cynthia was driving was found about a week after her disappearance, 55 miles
from where she was last seen, abandoned on the side of the road.
It was impounded and it’s not known if there was anything inside the vehicle that could
have explained her disappearance.
Cynthia is described as a black woman, about 5ft6in tall and approximately 160 pounds.
She has brown eyes and black hair, no visible scars or tattoos, and was wearing a blue long-sleeve
shirt and black pants when she vanished.