This YK COLD CASE is the first of a three-part series exploring what happened to Angela Meyer.
The night before Angela Meyer went missing, her mother remembers she wanted pasta.
Kathy Meyer had just finished work and drove straight to Stanton Territorial Hospital to sign out her daughter, Angela, for dinner with the family on a Friday night.
The 22-year-old was receiving treatment on Stanton’s psychiatric ward for schizophrenia and myriad other health issues.
“We wanted her as much as possible, to make her life as normal as possible,” Kathy said. “We didn’t like the idea of being in hospital.”
Kathy and Angela met with her sister Candace and younger brother Brett at Diamante Restaurant on Range Lake Road. Angela’s father Dean and older brother were out of town.
Angela ordered her favourite cannelloni and sipped a diet soda — always diet — Candace told Yellowknifer.
“She was kind of in a state, again, not saying much. Quite passive. But she ate her supper. She had a big appetite because of her medication,” said Kathy referring to Angela’s cocktail of antidepressants, anti-psychotics and insulin. “She’d go days without talking, sometimes just saying yes or no. But she loved her family.”
Over dinner, they made a plan for Angela to sleep over the next night at the family home and watch Saturday Night Live, her favourite show.
They also discussed her upcoming move to an independent living home in Edmonton.
“She liked the idea of living in a city but she was scared.” Kathy said, reminding her daughter that her work at the airline meant she could visit Angela often.
Despite appearing withdrawn, Angela seemed to look forward to these plans.
SEE: YK COLD CASE: What happened to Mary Rose Keadjuk?
After dinner, Kathy signed Angela back into Stanton just before the wing’s 8 p.m. curfew.
On Nov. 27, 2010, the next day, after Candace finished her shift at Buffalo Airways around 12:30 p.m., she signed Angela out at Stanton for the sleepover, as planned.
The two were close: born “one year, one month, and one day apart,” said Candace.
Coffees on Saturday was their thing, so amid all the change and stress that Angela’s illness brought, it felt good for the sisters to be doing something routine.
The two arrived at the Meyer family home on 52 Street around 1 p.m., a cozy white cottage with red accents, and a front and side porch.
At about 1:20 p.m., Kathy gave Angela a cigarette and she stepped out on the side porch to light up.
“Candace went to check on her just a few minutes later — she’s still there,” Kathy recalled.
About five minutes later, when Angela hadn’t returned, Kathy checked the porch.
Angela was gone.
Kathy’s motherly instincts kicked in. Something was wrong.
“So I started scouting all over the place; yelling her name up and down the road,” said Kathy.
From the porch on 52 Street, Kathy ran 150 metres around the corner to Bruno’s Pizza on 53rd Street.
“Have you seen Angela?” Kathy asked the worker. “No, no. Haven’t seen her,” he replied.
It was -20 C and Angela was in black yoga pants, short grey boots, and a brand-new white Helly Hansen jacket that her parents helped pick.
“How far could she have gone? She wasn’t even dressed for the weather” said Kathy.
Plus, she didn’t like the cold and left her medication.
At that point, Kathy’s biggest lead was that Angela would talk to anyone.
“She would ask people for a smoke and usually they gave her one,” she said.
From Bruno’s, Kathy ran another 60 metres to Dorset Apartments.
A lady was smoking outside and Kathy asked her if she’d seen Angela.
The lady said yes — she gave Angela a cigarette.
Kathy ran back home and called the hospital, figuring that Angela may have become overwhelmed and walked there.
“She’d wandered off a few times before,” said Kathy.
Kathy said the nurse on duty told her to delay reporting Angela as a missing person. They advised her to call the RCMP at 5 p.m.
She started pacing. No, I can’t wait that long, she decided.
Less than an hour from when Angela went missing, Kathy picked up the phone and called the RCMP.
Twelve years later, Angela is still missing.
The family is trying to piece together those final hours in fragments: a possible sighting, the white jacket, that she wanted pasta the night before she went missing.
“It’s such a lonely thing, for each of us,” said Kathy. “What could have happened?”
Anyone with information on Angela Meyer’s disappearance or any open investigation is asked to contact the NT RCMP Major Crimes Unit at RCMP at 867-669-1111 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
Do you know of a YK COLD CASE you’d like us to investigate? Email: anna.james@nnsl.com
