Clean and Elegant

Clean and Elegant

Monday, 5 October 2015

Where is Emma Fillipoff (Seven)



previous segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff


FOUR: Mental illness runs in the family. SIX: Okay. So I'm dead.

Seven: She ran away because she fucking hates her parents
 
At this point, the best case scenario may very well be that Emma vanished of her own volition. In May of 2014, friends, family and police felt that they might have finally reached a turning point in Emma’s case. Owners of Hitz Boutique in Gastown, Vancouver reported that a “creepy” man walked into their clothing store. The man had short black hair, a mustache and goatee.  Both of his forearms were covered in tattoos which looked like swirly outlines of flames. He carried a crumpled up poster and asked the store owners to throw it in the garbage. “It’s one of those missing persons posters,” he said. “Except she’s not missing. She’s my girlfriend and she ran away ‘cause she fucking hates her parents.” Disturbed and concerned, store owners Joel and Lori Sellen called the police. Yet again, the tip has led to nothing. Since the incident in Hitz Boutique, there have been no reported sightings of the man in the green t.shirt. We have no way of knowing if he was telling the truth.
 

Man in Green T. Shirt
Seen in Hitz Boutique, Gastown Vancouver.
May know where Emma is.
If you see this man, 
please call the police. 

“I just don’t believe that Emma is hiding and is in her right mind,” says Shelley. “She would not do that to us.”

Could Emma have forgotten who she is? Could delusions or schizophrenia have made her terrified of her family, and her past? Or does she simply hate her parents, as the mysterious man in the green t. shirt suggested?

Whether or not she’s in her right mind, the fact that she hasn’t touched her bank account remains troubling. Two to three thousand dollars goes a long way when you’re trying to exist off the grid, or start a new life. Or if you’ve ended up on the street, with the myriad of horrible circumstances this can entail.

Shelley fears that Emma has “completely lost her mind…  And if she’s mentally ill enough she could have amnesia. That makes her prey to any creep who comes along who might say, hey I’ve got this stuff it’ll make you feel better. She could be doing meth, she could be into prostitution, she could be doing anything.”

“It’s gonna take Emma to find Emma,” Emma’s father James says this to Fifth Estate cameras, his face stained with tears. Who knows what it will take. It is rare that someone gets lost for so long, and that a search yields nothing but incongruous and inconclusive clues.
End of Part Seven.

Written by Erica J. Schmidt. 

A reminder that this man may know where Emma is.
If you see this man, please call the police.
Where is Emma Fillipoff
Read More:
 
(NEXT SEGMENT) EIGHT: Safe Until She Returns
 

NINE: A Perfect, Beautiful Family

  
HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA?
Please Share Your Stories and Tips
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group
Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com
(contact form below)
Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com
Call the police.

Finding Emma on the Fifth Estate

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
 

 

 

 


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Where is Emma Fillipoff (Six)


previous segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff


FOUR: Mental illness runs in the family.
Six: Okay. So I'm dead.
It has been more than one thousand days. Many people suggest that not knowing what happened is probably worse than knowing that Emma wasn’t alive. “Wouldn’t you rather have closure?” people ask. Shelley seemed baffled by this idea.
 
“What are you going to do? Close the book on your child’s life?”
 
And yet, Shelley has certainly considered that Emma may not be out there anymore. Given Emma’s fragile state, suicide has emerged as a possibility. Back when Emma was giving away her stuff, staff at Sandy Merriman suspected Emma might be suicidal. They’d made one phone call to a mental health organization who told them to call again should Emma’s condition appear to worsen. From their perspective, Emma’s state never merited a second phone call. During the days before Emma’s disappearance, Shelley asked the shelter staff if they felt Emma was in danger and if she should come even though Emma told her not to. The staff had answered, “No, she’s in no danger.”  Despite their earlier belief that Emma had been suicidal, and her recent paranoid behaviour.

But there are parts of the suicide theory that don’t add up. After throwing out bags of her belongings, Emma went back to the dump to retrieve a toy she’d had since she was an infant. And she’d gone to the trouble of selling a bunch of her things which doesn’t meet the profile of someone planning to end her life.
As we’ve mentioned, it’s unclear as to why Emma was at the women’s shelter in the first place. Shelley speculates that she might have been trying to save money to go to Japan. To me, this seems like a drastic method for saving money, especially since she had two to three thousand dollars in her bank account, and a car. Up until the end of October, Emma had worked at a fish and chips restaurant called Red Fish Blue Fish. The restaurant had closed for the season, but Emma’s employment would resume in early February. She never showed up.
 
In any event, Emma hadn’t been out of a job for very long, and she wasn’t totally broke. Shelter staff said that she didn’t fit in at all with the other people at the shelter, many of them drug addicts, prostitutes and victims of abuse. Why was Emma there? Was she hiding from someone, either real or in her mind? Did she feel she was a threat to herself?
 
On Emma’s laptop, police found a note addressed to “Everyone, from Dead Emma.”

"To Everyone.
I figure someone will be on this computer at some point and will read this.
Okay. So I'm dead.
Floating about on energy or not.
Watching dying stars
Reviving stars and dreaming milky dreams and shadow dancing on your time lines
Or whatever
Good luck, everyheart.
I love you, Em."
                   -Emma
 

Emma and her camera

This may look like a total red flag; however, experts agree that there is nothing in here to suggest that Emma had any intention of killing herself. According to the specialists consulted for the Fifth Estate documentary, the letter lacks the specificity and plan that are typically present in a suicide note. They concluded that it was more of a last will and testament, however morbid and unusual that may seem for a 26-year-old. Emma’s mother and close friends insist that Emma loved life far too much to end her own.  Based on the fluctuating nature of Emma’s mind and people’s minds in general, this probably isn’t enough to rule out suicide.  But if Emma were going to kill herself, why did she buy a prepaid credit card on the morning of her disappearance? And what about the cell phone?

On December 5, 2012 at 11:17 a.m. a man used Emma’s pre-paid credit card to buy cigarettes at a Petro Canada in Victoria. The man claimed that he found the card on the side of the road near the Juan de Fuca Rec Centre. This is between 10 and 12 km from where Emma was last seen depending on which route you take. About a two hour walk. Although the man who found the credit card passed a polygraph, he later called Shelley to confess that he’s really not sure if he actually found the card where he said he did. He told her that he was an alcoholic and he doesn’t remember finding the card. So we can’t be certain how he came across the card: if he found it, if Emma gave it to him, or if he stole it.
When Emma bought the cellphone at the 7-11, she was wearing green, black, white and grey camouflage pants and a grey hooded jacket. She carried a bright orange purse. If Emma died, at her own hand or accidentally, you’d think at least the orange purse would turn up somewhere. But apart from the credit card, nothing has emerged.  
Willing to try anything, Shelley has accepted offers from mediums, dowsers, psychics and voyantes who claim they can use their spiritual powers to discover Emma’s whereabouts and physical state. They all believe that Emma alive, though Shelley admits that this is “better for business” if they want her to book another session.
Livid, Shelley believes that they could easily have obtained more answers had police sent out cars immediately after Emma was reported missing. Weeks later, divers thoroughly searched the Victoria harbour in attempts to uncover a body, or any sort of evidence. Their efforts brought us no closer to finding Emma. Typically, people who commit suicide are found rather close to where they were last seen, especially when they are on foot. Drowning is a common method for women. Even with the lag time of a couple of weeks, the search and rescue expert on the Fifth Estate claims that had Emma ended up in the water, divers should have come across her body. And if not the divers, then the public. The sheer lack of significant evidence is highly unusual and perplexing.
That said, Victoria is home to extensive forest. Emma always loved nature. Shoeless in November, she didn’t seem to have her own safety at heart. Given the possibility that she could have wandered off the road, and off the trail, the possibilities of her whereabouts are overwhelming, or as Shelley puts it “sickening."
End of Part Six.
-Written by Erica J. Schmidt.
 
Where is Emma Fillipoff
Read More: 
 
(NEXT SEGMENT) SEVEN: She ran away because she fucking hates her parents.
FIVE: A Mother's Instinct 
 
 

HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA?
Please Share Your Stories and Tips
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group
Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com
(contact form below)
Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com
Call the police.

Finding Emma on the Fifth Estate

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor


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Where is Emma Fillipoff (Five)



previous segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff
 FOUR: Mental illness runs in the family.

Five: A Mother's Instinct
 Erica: "People say, oh you’d know if your kid was dead, but how would you know? People get news all the time that they didn’t know before they heard it."

Shelley: “I really don’t know. I don’t have a gut feeling. My gut is dead. People want to know, ‘What’s your gut? Your instinct? What’s your gut feeling?’ Well, my instinct, my gut is hope. I’m hoping that she’s okay and alive and that we’re gonna find her... My whole life has been by instinct. I raised my kids instinctively, I taught instinctively. I did everything by instinct, with my heart… I never thought about it, I always felt about it. But I can’t say what my gut is about this because… it’s dead. My instinct is gone. Because there are too many possibilities. And I’m too sick over it.”

During the months after Emma was last seen, Shelley stayed in Victoria, devoting her life to a relentless search. In the coverage on Emma’s disappearance, Shelley is at the forefront, handing out and hanging up posters, talking to the media and to anyone who might have seen or known her daughter. It rained every day, aggravating Shelley’s fibromyalgia. Divers searched the harbour for Emma’s body and found nothing. None of the tips or clues led to anything substantial. With each day, it became increasingly less likely that Emma would simply turn up, emerging from around a corner, or behind a tree. Still, Shelley remained single-pointed in her quest to find Emma. I asked her if she cried a lot. During those first two months, and since. The answer is no.


Shelley handing out posters on the West Coast
Source: cbc.ca
“I very seldom cry which is weird.” Shelley had been searching for Emma in Victoria for two months when she finally let herself weep. Her ex-husband James had called her to say that Emma’s dog Oscar had died. “I thought for a brief second, oh my God, maybe Emma just died.”

Back when Emma had called Shelley, asking her to come get her, in attempts to keep Emma on the phone, Shelley had said, “that’s wonderful. When I get off the phone, I’ll let Oscar know.” Emma had replied, “Oh that’s okay mom. Oscar already knows I’m coming.”

Shelley: “You know? She was like that. So when he died, I cried and I cried and I cried.”

End of Part Five.
-Written by Erica J. Schmidt
 
Where is Emma Fillipoff
Read More:
 
(NEXT SEGMENT) SIX: Okay. So I'm dead.
 
 

HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA?
Please Share Your Stories and Tips
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group
Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com
(contact form below)
Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com
Call the police.

Finding Emma on the Fifth Estate

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
   

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Where is Emma Fillipoff (Four)


 



previous segments of Where is Emma Fillipoff

Four: Mental illness runs in the family.

"Mental illness runs in the family." Shelley whispers this sentence to the camera in one of the earliest t.v. clips after Emma’s disappearance. The most prevalent theories of what happened to Emma involve some sort of mental breakdown or psychotic break. Leading up to her disappearance, Emma showed signs of paranoia and depression. Is this why she’d chosen to stay at the women’s shelter? A former roommate reported that one time in the middle of the night, she’d woken to find Emma outside, totally out of it and tripping out on the grass, and the stars. The friend had informed Emma’s father James about this odd behaviour. Although James had offered to pay for a plane ticket home,  Emma insisted that she was fine and could take care of herself. Intensely private, Emma had been mortified to learn that her friend had called her father. Shelley never heard about the incident until much later. Had she known, she says she would have flown out.
After significant probing from Shelley, staff at the Sandi Merriman House admitted that Emma often acted very paranoid. They said that Emma went through a period of selling all her stuff. Following this, she began to throw things away. She would carry both her own stuff and objects from the shelter first to the lawn, and then to the curb. A lamp, a fan, a chair. When staff made her bring the objects back, Emma would protest. “It’s making too much noise,” she’d say. “It’s saying things to me.” As soon as the items were back inside, Emma would try to get rid of them again. The second time she would haul them across the street to the courthouse.  
Video surveillance footage from the 7-11 and the YMCA reveal that Emma often seemed afraid to go outside. And on the day of her disappearance, a witness saw Emma standing at a crosswalk, but refusing to cross. For years, Emma had been a manic walker. She almost always walked barefoot, clutching her shoes in her hands, refusing to put them on. Her feet would become bloody from walking so far. Thin and conveniently vegan, people hardly ever saw Emma eat. Shelley thinks she developed an eating disorder. Whether this was the cause or result of her mental distress, we don’t know. Shelter staff also reported that Emma used to overhydrate, consuming gallons and gallons of water at a time. This is common for people who undereat. Rarely, overhydration depletes your body’s electrolytes and causes something called water intoxication. The condition can be fatal. Interestingly enough, symptoms of overhydration mimic psychotic tendencies, including “inappropriate behaviour, delusions, hallucinations, confusion, and disorientation” (Source: Farrell and Bower, PMC). And yet, it is impossible to conclude that overhydrating led to Emma’s psychological deterioration. Quite often the symptom appears as part of a mosaic of unusual and compulsive behaviour.
A year before she was last seen, Emma had returned home to Perth, Ontario. A congenital knee condition had been giving her back problems and she was looking into treatment. In retrospect, Shelley realizes that during that time, Emma was acting “way too happy… it didn’t look drug induced… it looked like she was avoiding life, wandering around Perth all day and all night.” She stayed with friends and with her father, often cooking for him though rarely eating herself. Whenever she ran into her mom, she’d say she was on her way somewhere.
“Can’t stay,” she’d say. And off she’d go, fanatically walking. With her mother, Emma maintained a certain distance. Perhaps she was afraid that Shelley would see through the happy, flighty façade. Her father James didn’t ask as many questions. Like Emma, he is non-confrontational and secretive. Though he worried that Emma never ate, he felt she deserved her privacy. Very seldom would he ever bring up his concerns with Shelley. When Emma was in her early twenties, James divorced Shelley for a younger woman. The divorce was pretty brutal and Shelley is quite open to the fact that around that time she suffered from a full-blown mental health crisis. For three years, she had to quit teaching and go on disability. She describes lying on the bathroom floor all day, trying to will herself up in time for when her youngest child got home from school. Emma had been around for part of the separation and witnessed some events that must surely have traumatized her.
Shelley: “I really lost it Erica, not only did I have a breakdown but I went after James. I did a lot of things that really really disturbed Emma and I didn’t have a chance to give her my side. To tell her I was sick. That it wasn’t her mother acting in that manner… Something had really happened to me. I never had the chance to explain it to her. So she witnessed quite a violent attack on James one night at his house and she had to call the police and have me removed… Emma couldn’t handle that. Someone who was non-confrontational, even verbally. To see me going bezerk. I mean I was bezerk, I had a knife in my hand. I was really gone. I wasn’t going to hurt him.”
Emma: “My parents’ marriage in shambles.
My father turning to me.
My mother hating us both.
And me. Always the good listener.
Too nice to say that it hurt me too."

Shelley and Emma never ended up talking about what happened. Soon afterwards, Emma moved to Victoria, limiting her contact with her mother to cryptic flowery emails and vague elusive phone calls.
 
Shelley and James are on much better terms now. They often have family dinners together with their other children. Emma’s absence is blatant and painful, but seldom mentioned.  
 
“No one will tell me what they think,” says Shelley. “Because I know what I know.”  Throughout the case, the rest of Emma’s family has kept a low profile. Behind Emma’s posters, Shelley is really the face of the search, though both Emma’s father and youngest brother agreed to interviews with the Fifth Estate. Ultimately, the Fifth Estate did not include the younger brother’s interview in the documentary, but this was the CBC’s choice. Apart from Shelley and Emma’s youngest brother, the family refused to watch the program. Perhaps it is too heartbreaking. Especially if they allow themselves to consider at all the fact that they advised Shelley not to go get Emma. Shelley had always been the disciplinarian parent and they didn’t think Emma would be able to cope with this. In any case, everyone had Emma’s best interest at heart. Nobody intended for things to come to this.
 
“I wish Emma were here to see how well you get along,” Emma’s older sister said to her parents one night at a family dinner. “How everything turned out just fine.” Except Shelley’s not really fine and Emma’s not there.
End of Part Four.
-Written by Erica J. Schmidt

Where is Emma Fillipoff
Read More:
(NEXT SEGMENT) FIVE: A Mother's Instinct
 


HAVE YOU SEEN EMMA?
Please Share Your Stories and Tips
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group
Email Erica: ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com
(contact form below)
Email Shelley: fillipoff(at)hotmail(dot)com
Call the police.

Finding Emma on the Fifth Estate

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Erica on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor



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