RCMP on Vancouver Island have announced the renewal of search efforts near Sooke, B.C., for a woman who’s been missing since late last year.
Melissa McDevitt was reported missing to the Victoria Police Department on Dec. 10, 2022. Her vehicle was found at the Charters River/Hatchery parking lot on Sooke River Road in Sooke later that day.
Sooke RCMP said McDevitt’s case has continued to be an active missing persons investigation and officers have remained in contact with her family.
Nearly seven months after their daughter’s disappearance, parents Tom and Maggie McDevitt reported in June a “monumental shift” in efforts to find her, including confirmation of her recent hiking routes.
Sooke RCMP said Thursday that the Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue Team will re-deploy to a concentrated and refined area of interest that was searched in December.
Search and Rescue efforts are planned to begin again on July 8.
Tom and Maggie moved from North Carolina to Vancouver Island in May to continue searching for McDevitt with a growing community of residents — skilled hikers in the Greater Victoria area — who regularly scour the trails to find their daughter. Their collaboration has now led to a breakthrough, Tom said.
“The process led to a lot of brainstorming. Because of my knowledge of Melissa’s email logins for different accounts … we were able to get into her Garmin-based website,” he explained.
Tom said the searchers had been analyzing McDevitt’s Facebook page and noticed that she recorded all of her hiking routes using a Garmin watch she sported in recently posted photos. He knew Melissa had been talking about getting a new watch and shared that with the community.
“They researched all the competitors of Garmin, of which there were about a dozen, and they started going to all their websites and trying her login information that she (used) with Garmin and her password that I provided. Seven or eight didn’t work, and then, like the ninth one worked,” he explained.
“Got in, went in and it was — my terminology — a treasure trove of information. If (search and rescue) had had that information on Dec. 9 and 10, I truly believe they would have found her,” Tom said.
Sooke RCMP said Thursday that there has been an outpouring of support for the McDevitt family since Melissa went missing.
The RCMP and Melissa’s family sincerely appreciate the public’s assistance and continued efforts to find Melissa to this point,” Acting Sooke RCMP Detachment Commander Sgt. Kevin Shaw said in a release. Given the specialized and focussed nature of the renewed search efforts, however, we are asking people to please avoid the area this weekend to accommodate Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue efforts.
Anyone with information on Melissa McDevitt’s disappearance is asked to call the Sooke RCMP at 250-642-5241.
– with files from Global News’ Elizabeth McSheffrey and Kylie Stanton