Friends, police detective speak out amid search for mom who vanished in 2021

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Loved ones fear a woman who vanished in London three years ago won’t be found alive, the lead detective says as a new $50,000 reward is being offered for tips in the case.

Ontario Provincial Police Det. Insp. Mike Moore said it’s extremely concerning when someone’s been missing for this long and the family of Deana Timms fears the worst.

“And rightfully so, given that this is completely out of character. We’re hopeful that she’s still alive, but obviously there’s serious concerns that the worst has occurred,” he said in an interview.

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The Ontario government is offering the hefty reward in a renewed plea for information about the disappearance of Timms, 37, who was last seen leaving a London home in late February 2021, officials said on Tuesday. Timms was reported missing by family in February 2022 and the OPP opened a dedicated tip line in June 2022.

In March 2023, police said they got a tip she’d been seen leaving a house on Vancouver Street in east London with another person and planned to return to her home in the Lambton County community of Brooke-Alvinston. On Tuesday, they said they now believe the disappearance was the result of foul play.

For Timms, not reaching out to family or friends since is completely out of character, Moore said. “That’s led us to the belief that foul play has occurred.”

Attempts by Postmedia to reach Timms’s relatives were unsuccessful.

Peter Sartori knew Timms through her job as a bartender at the now-shuttered Lizards Bar and Grill in Sarnia. He saw her about six months before she disappeared and recalled she didn’t look healthy at the time.

“I said hey and hello, she stopped briefly and we chatted, could not help notice she was not looking so well, very skinny and missing teeth,” Sartori wrote via Facebook messenger.

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Joshua Lines, who tended bar with Timms at Lizards, said Wednesday via messenger that he hadn’t seen her in about a decade.

Jackie Davies, a friend of Timms who also hasn’t spoken to her since about 2015, recalled she had been struggling for some time before they lost contact.

“She’s such a kind, beautiful person. I hope they find her soon,” she wrote over messenger.

Timms, who was from Sarnia but living in Watford in early 2021, was frequently in London and her being there wasn’t suspicious, Moore, the lead detective, said. The Vancouver Street house belonged to a “known acquaintance,” he added. Moore said they have talked to the person who picked her up that night, but couldn’t comment on whether they’re a suspect.

Timms, who police say is five-foot-four and 120 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes, also worked at Two Amigos bar, according to her Facebook profile. She went to St. Patrick’s Catholic secondary school in Sarnia, had a son, Jaxon, in 2011, and started studying accounting at Lambton College in 2012, her profile states.

Several people have expressed concern for her well-being on her Facebook page each year on July 7 – the day she was born in 1987 – and offered hopes for her safe return.

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“Happy birthday, Deana! We pray God will send a sign or give you back to us every day,” Chris Maybery, her aunt, wrote last year.

“I don’t know where you are, but I want you to know that I miss you, that I love you, that I hope you are OK! If you can . . . please reach out to someone, we are so worried!” Michelle Reeves-Richardson wrote.

The new reward is for anyone who provides information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for Timms’s disappearance, police said.

“We want people that have information to come forward and we’re hoping that the $50,000 reward will be a motivating factor,” Moore said. “That’s going to help us give some answers to the Timms family as to where Deana is and what happened to her.”

Anyone with information should call the dedicated police tip line at 1-844-677-9402 or email OPP.TIMMS.Missing.Person@opp.ca. Anonymous reports can be made to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or ontariocrimestoppers.ca.

This is the second Lambton County case in recent years to prompt a $50,000 provincial reward offer and dedicated tip line. Investigators are seeking help in the unsolved homicide of David Oliver, 29, of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, whose body was found Aug. 2, 2020.

tbridge@postmedia.com

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