Long-suffering Denise Allan is giving it one-last-final-and-desperate shot.
An online GoFundMe campaign has been started to raise $2,500 to help find out what happened to her son, Charles Horvath, who vanished into thin air in Kelowna 34 years ago.
The GoFundMe is organized, on behalf of Allan, by Vancouver-based Recover Agency, a private organization that offers free help to find missing persons.
The money will be used to update an age-progression sketch by forensic artist Tim Widden, set up and maintain an independent tip line, print and distribute an updated poster across North America and cover expenses of volunteer investigators to travel to Kelowna and conduct interviews.
The campaign https://www.gofundme.com/f/
Of course, all this kind of investigation, tip gathering, age-progression sketches and publicity has been done before.
But there have never been any answers as to how and why the 20-year-old Englishman disappeared without a trace in Kelowna in May 1989.
While it is considered very much a cold case, the Kelowna RCMP keeps the case open under serious unit file No. 1989-21784 and the police urge anyone with any information to call 1-800-222-8477 or go to www.crimestoppers.net.
Grieving Denise Allan, who has already made 15 trips to Kelowna from England over 29 years pleading for information and keeping the case in the news, is making this last-ditch effort separate from the RCMP in conjunction with Recover Agency and GoFundMe.
Denise is now 73 and in declining health and wants to make this final attempt to find out what happened to her son and bring his remains home to be buried beside family members at a cemetery in Cambridge, England.
Denise is no longer after vengeance or justice.
"I know that someone murdered Charles (while he was in Kelowna in 1989)," said Allan the last time she was in the city in September 2018 for a news conference at Kelowna RCMP headquarters.
"His remains are out there somewhere. I know there are people out there who know what happened to Charles and are afraid to come forward. I'm appealing to them personally."
To this day, Denise believes one of the strongest leads in the case is also one of the first.
While Charles was staying at Tiny Town Campground, which became the parking lot beside Gyro Beach that is now the site of a condominium development, a gang of bikers from the US stopped to stay and party on their way to the Falkland Stampede.
A tip later alluded to a polite Englishman being killed by a biker trying to earn a gang patch.
Denise remembers Charles as a young and naive dreamer who set off from England to backpack across Canada.
When he arrived in Kelowna in May 1989, he found a place to stay at Tiny Town and landed a job at Flintstone's, the long-defunct amusement park that was at Highway 97 and McCurdy Road.
Charles last contacted his mom via fax on May 11, 1989.
The last time he was ever seen was May 26, 1989 at the Royal Bank at Orchard Park, cashing a paycheque from Flintstone's.
All of Charles' belongings were still at Tiny Town, a strong indication his disappearance was suspicious and possibly murder.
The case has baffled police, Kelowna and the world since.
It is rare that a case goes unsolved for 34 years without the person being found -- either dead or alive.
As such, the name Charles Horvath and his disappearance, has entered Kelowna's consciousness.
If you live in Kelowna, or have lived in the city at any point over the past 32 years, you've repeatedly heard of the case of the English lad who vanished without a trace.
Denise now simply wants some sort of closure in finding her son's remains.
