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July 9 marks the 14th anniversary of Courtney Struble’s disappearance

The investigation into what happened to Courtney Struble continues, 14 years after her disappearance.
Courtney Struble
Courtney Struble

The investigation into what happened to Courtney Struble continues, 14 years after her disappearance.

Courtney vanished in the early morning hours of July 9, 2004, after watching a movie with friends at the Estevan Veterinary Clinic on the west edge of the city. Her friends offered her a ride home, but she decided to walk.

She was last seen at approximately 12:30 a.m. in the vicinity of Highway 39 and Woodlawn Avenue North (now Sister Roddy Road).

Initially her disappearance was treated as a missing person case, and foul play was not suspected. But in 2010, the RCMP’s Historical Case Unit (HCU) took over the investigation from the Estevan Police Service, and a short time later, the HCU started treating her disappearance as a homicide.

Cpl. Rob King with the Saskatchewan RCMP’s media relations division said the investigation remains active. Whenever some new information comes in, investigators act upon it.

“If anyone in the public has any information, if they haven’t already brought it forward, we definitely encourage them to come forward and supply us with that information to hopefully give us new leads and new things to investigate,” King told the Mercury.

King couldn’t divulge specifics into how many calls they have received, how frequent those calls have been or the information contained in those phone calls.

He said it’s hard to say whether they’re any closer to finding out what happened to Courtney.

“Right now we can only act on the information that we have, and we always need more,” said King. “So we want more information to come from the public.

“Somebody out there knows something. Somebody out there, who may not even know they know something, knows something. So we need those people to come forward and be able to speak to us, because it gets things going again.

“It gives you that glimmer of hope, and that avenue to start looking in that different direction that maybe you weren’t able to look before.”

The anniversary of a missing person often puts the case back in the spotlight, and King said that can be beneficial for investigators. It can jog someone’s memory.

The HCU has visited the Estevan area over the years to follow up on information regarding the case, and has performed searches since she went missing in an effort to find her.

The HCU has stated previously that it believes her body is somewhere in the Estevan area, or a nearby rural community.

Courtney was five-foot-three and weighed between 110 and 125 pounds when she vanished. She had a birthmark on the nape of her neck, and a 1 1/2-inch scar on her left shin.

The night that she disappeared, Courtney was wearing a grey hoodie, blue jeans and running shoes.