Hamilton police are searching an area of central Hamilton on Monday in the hopes of finding more tips that might lead them to 27-year-old Holly Ellsworth-Clark, who’s been missing since Jan. 11.
The search area is near Wentworth Street and Burlington Avenue, not far from the city’s waterfront industrial sector, and is connected to security video footage obtained by police that is believed to show the last known sighting of Ellsworth-Clark at around 4:50 p.m.
“We’re just trying to stitch together some kind of sense of where she actually went from there,” Ellsworth-Clark’s father, Dave Clark, told Global News. “You know, people, as far as I know, don’t just disappear. They go somewhere.”
Previously, the last known sighting of Ellsworth-Clark was in the area of Sanford Avenue and Cannon Street.
At the time, investigators said she was “in crisis” and not dressed appropriately for the weather.
The new video footage — released by police on Jan. 31 — shows a woman wearing black pants, black boots and a black garbage bag over her upper body walking northbound on Wentworth Street approaching Shaw Street.
Investigators who have reviewed the video have confirmed the woman pictured is Ellsworth-Clark.
Speaking on Global News Radio’s The Roy Green Show last weekend, Clark said his daughter’s disappearance was something “completely new” to the family.
“You know, it’s a complete surprise to us,” Clark said.
“We’ve, unfortunately, had the opportunity to learn way more about missing people than we would want to learn. But people who disappear and go missing, they’re usually vulnerable in some kind of way. And Holly was definitely vulnerable in this city just because of loneliness.”
Clark says his daughter was living in a house with other musicians that had a recording studio. The Calgary native moved to Hamilton as part of a band that had formed after her previous band broke up.
However, he said the band hadn’t made any progress, and Ellsworth-Clark began pursuing a solo project.
Clark and his wife Greta started the search for their daughter on Jan. 12 when they touched down in Toronto.
“The first day, Greta and I reached out to police in Toronto Pearson Airport when we landed, asking if they could keep an eye out for Holly,” said Clark. “They indicated that direction would need to come from Hamilton police in order to do this.”
Hamilton police confirmed to Global News they had been informed of Ellsworth-Clark’s disappearance on Jan. 11 by family members and released their first alert to the public on Jan. 13.
Friends and family have organized a number of searches in central Hamilton neighbourhoods since Jan. 11 and plastered pictures of Ellsworth-Clark on signposts across the city.
An email address, bringhollyhome2020@gmail.com, and a Facebook group called Holly Clark Search have been created for anyone to submit tips or sightings.
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