(ominous music) - I wish I knew what happened,
you know, like I just wish. I wonder will I ever
find out what happened? Like what could have happened? I just feel, you know, will it just be one of life's
mysteries that's never solved? I think for a long time, everyone thought he just took
off, because he traveled, you know, like he liked to
have adventures and explore, but that's different, you know, you just don't
commit to something and then just pick up and leave. So I know in my heart that
that's not what happened. (somber music) - Somebody knows what
happened with Kenley. There's no doubt in my mind somebody knows what
happened with Kenley. People don't just vanish. People do not just vanish. (suspenseful music) - So my memories are
that it was this corner that I last saw him and he was on the other
side of the street, walking into town this way and I was going
back towards campus. And because I thought
I'd see him later on on the floor, Crowell Tower. I just gave him a
wave and that was all. So it's very strange
to think of that as the last time I saw him. - [Producer] The last time
anybody saw him really, it's the last reported sighting. - And of course the last report of any recorded sighting of
him, which is just bizarre. (suspenseful instrumental music) (gentle music) - I remember the day
Kenley and Kayrene both left for Acadia. I remember crying that day
and I don't normally cry and that is one of the few
times that I remember crying. - Kenley and I had
decided, you know, we're both going to
Acadia that year, so we were both gonna
be first year students. I just felt like we
were at the beginning of this really cool adventure and something we were
gonna be doing together. We had my Uncle
Johnny Angus's van and it was packed
full of things. - About mid-morning, maybe
10 o'clock, they left. It was a beautiful,
gorgeous September day. - As we got closer, you know, the feeling was like maybe
a little heavy for him and rather than on
the excited side. - Kenley wasn't overly excited
about going to university. He was very, I won't say anxious, but he was very concerned
about frosh week. - I think both of us were
a little apprehensive and not sure what to expect. - [Tom] He didn't wanna
be victimized in any way. He didn't wanna be picked on. He wanted to fly below the radar and he did express
that to his father. - Kenley indicated,
you know, he said, "Well, you know, you
could just drop me off at the airport on the way by." So you could sense that he was
definitely having some doubts about committing
to going to Acadia. (somber music) - [Todd] Kenley, you know,
you think back on it, you know, compared to the
other first year guys, this guy was, you know,
a fourth year student. The other kids, it was
their first time away from mommy and daddy. This guy had hitchhiked, planted trees in the wilderness. I was like, wow,
hats off to you. (all singing) You sort of start seeing, you
know, who pairs up with who. Tom Gordon. If there was one guy that
Kenley hung around with a lot, it was him. Those two were pretty tight. - My name's Tom Gordon and I came on exchange to Acadia
University in autumn, 1992 and I met Kenley on ninth
floor of Crowell Tower and we became good friends. We hung out. We had another friend,
Kirsten, who had a car. We used to take off and see
a lot of the local sites. - My name is Kirsten
Tomilson and in 1992, I met Kenley during my
first year at frosh week. There was a barbecue
at my residence, Chase. There's, you know, a
nice little courtyard and they had a barbecue there to welcome the students
and Tower being, you know, just across the way, I think they were also
welcome to the barbecue and so he was sitting in
the courtyard off by himself and I just, I was
attracted to that. You know, I thought,
well, why don't I go over and introduce myself. Kenley was, you know,
quite a shy fellow. I'd say more on the
introverted side as opposed to the
extroverted side. - The key word I would
use would be laid back. He always wore a baseball cap, very time I saw him, he
wore the same baseball cap. - He also had, you know, a real
zest for life, if you will. And just the most
charismatic smile ever. He had a really warm
sense about him. - During those first
couple of weeks, we would often make
use of Kirsten's car and go out to a
couple of places. One was called the Look-off, which is an amazing
view over the valley. And we went to a place
called Three Pools, which was a beautiful
area where you could swim. - We'd often, you know,
go down to The Anvil and have some drinks. You know, that bar
is quite infamous. There was a certain
camaraderie amongst us, you know, on being
mature students. - [Todd] Like he
didn't avoid people unless you consider,
well, closing your door is avoiding people. But if you spoke to him,
he spoke to you back, but he'd be never the one
to initiate a conversation. And Kenley was a night owl, but he'd be up all
hours of the night. You could sit in that,
like I'd come back from walking around the campus. (indistinct) Think of it, I'd be up 'til
two o'clock the morning drinking coffee,
doing campus patrol. So I'd be wired, I come
back to the lounge. I could be sitting in
the lounge with Kenley, he wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't talk to you. He'd be happy in the
silence of watching TV. You know, in hindsight now, you might that
Kenley's behaviors would be out of the ordinary. But at the time, I
didn't think they were. I just thought he was just a
shy guy who kept to himself. (gentle music) - So this is Corkums Island. It was unseasonably warm
that year and so we came down and got on the jet skis and had a weekend
down here at my dad's. - Kirsten brought it
up that we should come and experience this
house on the coast. - [Kirsten] My house
has always been a place, you know, where my
friends have been welcome. - So we drove down,
as far as I remember, after lunch on the Friday. (gentle music) - Yeah, we came down
here on a Friday evening and then unpacked and
got a little settled and decided that
we'd go into town and go and have a few
drinks at the local bar. - And we went to a club
which was a little bit, we all agreed, sort of redneck, not the greatest, but
we had a bit of a dance and couple of drinks
and then headed back. - On Saturday, we headed
out onto the water and spent the day
on the jet skis and burning around and
having a great time. - Kenley was really relaxed. He was, you know, as
far as I could tell and as far as I remember,
he was loving it. I've got a couple of photos of
him coming in on the jet ski. He's smiling. - He liked speed too, you know, and trying
to chuck each other off the jet skis and you
know, just having a good time. It seemed like he was
up for that adventure and any adventure really. He was definitely an
adventurous spirit and I admire that in people. (charming music) - In the evening on Saturday, we met a couple that
came over for dinner and they just returned recently
from a holiday to Morocco. Part of Saturday night was
something called hot knives, which is where you
heat a knife on a flame and you put it on a
piece of marijuana and inhale the smoke
that comes off it. I think it was the first
time I'd ever seen it done. - It was very comfortable. You know, it seemed very natural in terms of the progression
of our relationship. - Sunday, we woke up and
again, it was a beautiful day. I think the plan had been
originally to go back a little bit earlier
to university, but it was just too tempting
to go and do it all again. So we went again and
got some wetsuits and we had an absolutely
amazing day again. I can remember, one
of the vivid memories that I had down in my diary, was of taking the jet
ski into Lunenburg Harbor and seeing it from the harbor and that was just
a stunning view. (gentle music) - Kenley arrived at
Acadia University in Wolfville a
couple of days prior to the first day of class. The first weekend
that he was there, he attended Corkums
Island in Lunenburg County with some friends. - Monday, September 14th, '92, we have Kenley back at Acadia. - He was back, attended
class all that week. - He and I shared
calculus class together every Tuesday and
Thursday from 8:30 to 10 and then he and his friend from
high school, Jill Archibald, shared chemistry
class together Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 8:30 and
so on their way out of class, I had my chemistry class at 9:30 so often I would
see them passing by. And I felt like we
were really starting to get into our groove. - So the week after the
Corkums Island trip, we continued to do a little
bit of local exploring. I think we went
back to Three Pools. Being at the
beginning of the year, you know, the workload wasn't
too great at that point and yeah, I think it was,
you know, another great week. There was nothing really
out of the ordinary. (somber music) - Chris was at Acadia. Chris Hartery was at Acadia and he was a friend
of ours in high school and Kenley and him had seen
each other the year before out in Vancouver. And so there was that friendship that was built from their
group in high school. They were all within
that friend group. Chris had seen Kenley
down on Main Street. Kenley was actually walking
from the outskirts of town towards the university, which was to me, it's like
an odd place to be for him. And then Chris was walking back
home as far as I understand. So they met each
other on Main Street. - So this is where the
meeting would've been if this is the correct location, this is where we would've
run into each other. This is where the
gas station was, which was a Petro-Can
or an SO I think and it would've been kind
of the building structure would've been more on this side. I was walking down here. Kenley would've been coming
through the parking lot And I think it was, I didn't recognize
him right away as he's walking through
the parking lot, or maybe as he got very close or maybe as close as these
concrete stanchions here. We made the connection
and I remember going, "Kenley, Kenley," or
something like that. I think I recognized him first or maybe it was around the
same time, I'm not 100% sure. He was not very
talkative at all. Very, very quiet. It wasn't like an easy, a whole bunch of camaraderie
to it or anything like that. I assumed that maybe he
was sewed on the Dykes, maybe he did a joint or there
was something up anyway. Just wasn't easy, he
didn't seem to be himself is the way I would put it. - I do remember talking to Chris and he was saying that
Kenley made some comment that he was doing laundry
or something like that, which I thought was very odd, because there's laundry
facilities in Tower. - So this is the laundromat, which is just up the road a
little bit from the gas station and I remember asking
him what he was doing at some point down here, probably would've been pretty
early on in the conversation and he said he
was doing laundry. That's my memory of it. Would've been weird that
he was doing laundry. He didn't have a
laundry bag with him. He was going back up to Tower, not waiting around
to get his laundry if he did have laundry here and I'm sure Tower has
their own laundry services for all the students. So it was an odd
response to the question. - I always was very confused by why Kenley was
on Main Street. Like, how far out of town he was and that he was
walking back into town. - I had told him I had a vehicle and I was going to
the liquor store and I could drive
him up to Tower to save him the hike
up the hill or whatever and so he agreed he
wanted to do that. I don't remember specifically
the trip to the liquor store or the only thing I'm thinking, is that maybe Kenley
grabbed a six pack or something like that
to go up the Tower and maybe that was
part of the attraction of getting the drive
too was, oh yeah, you're gonna the
liquor store too and go up the hill, great. At some point, I
would've dropped him off either at the entrance on the
other side or this entrance. It makes more sense that
it was that entrance, 'cause it's the
first way up the hill from the direction
we were coming. This would've been the
last time I saw him. (suspenseful music) - So the last time that I saw
Kenley was at the Tower party. - The Tower party
was a huge occasion. There was a lot of hype,
a lot of build up to it. - It was on a Friday evening. It would've been
at their residence. - [Tom] I remember it
started on one of the floors and then all the
floors congregated down in the bottom area
where the main party was and the party was
absolutely huge. - I'm visualizing him, you know, kind of standing rather
James Dean against a pole, just looking a little bit aloof. - Unfortunately, I
can't remember anything about Kenley being
in that party. - I know that like
with the Tower party, I just know that he
was pretty drunk. - What I remember is that
Kenley had done some, I guess, drinking in his
room prior to the party and when he arrived
at the party, he had had a lot
to drink already. - I don't know a
lot of the details. I, over the years, you know, had heard like there was
something in the bathroom where he was like kind of almost
passed out in the bathroom. - I was concerned and I do
remember going up to Tom and saying, "Is everything
okay with Kenley?" - Kenley, when I did see him, it did seem like he had
had too much to drink. - And I recall even going up
to Kenley and just saying, "Hey, is everything okay?" And yeah, everything's fine. Carry on. - He was, you know,
draping himself over some of the
women at the party, including my girlfriend. - I did observe him at the party speaking to a friend of mine, a girl that I had also just
met a few weeks earlier, a freshman. - I'm not sure if Kenley
realized she was my girlfriend or maybe he didn't care, but
anyway, he was hitting on her and so he and I had a
bit of a disagreement that he needed to
stop immediately. - But I just really
don't know the level of like how drunk
he was and you know, if he pissed off a lot
of people that night with his behavior. - [Mike] Didn't
come to anything. I just said I'll deal with it
with Kayrene in the morning, 'cause I didn't have really a strong relationship
with Kenley. - Well, I'm really not sure. I feel like that's a
huge mystery to me. I probably would've been there if I was at Acadia that weekend. - [Mike] Everybody
was used to Kenley being a very quiet person. His complete
personality change was, I was kind of
surprised to see that. (suspenseful music) - Sunday is when I
got back from Halifax and that's when I ran
into Mike and I was also, you know, had a plan that I
wanted to set up for the week and so I went to see
Kenley in his room around four o'clock on Sunday. When I came in,
I was planning to just kind of touch
base with him, because I felt with Mike, 'cause
Mike was a friend of mine, that I wanted to make sure
that everything was cool with like just saying like, hey, you know, he
just kind of said you were a little bit outta line and I just wanted to touch
base with him with that. When I came in, he
was sitting on his bed and I just remember him
sitting like this, you know, in his, you know, he was
just very, very quiet, almost like he knew
he had been outta line and maybe that feeling you have when you drank too
much over the weekend and you just feel
remorseful and you know, I just sort of talked to him and then we made our
plan for the week. We set up a time for Monday
night for us to get together and do some of our
calculus homework together, 'cause we had our calculus
class on Tuesday morning. - Todd Barker was the
resident assistant the year that Kenley
was at Acadia for 1992. Todd Barker did give
evidence to the police that he had knocked on the door to give him a piece of
paper he had to sign for some agreement or something and that Kenley just
barely opened the door and it looked like
he was ironing. - He's reluctant
to open the door. He cracks the door a little bit. The RA says, "I have the
impression that he was ironing." I could never put
those together, I could never see
how that fit in. - [Interviewer] I
think I read somewhere something about how there's
some anecdote related to that room agreement signing, where like you went to the door and he kind of opened
it a crack, like. - [Todd] Yeah,
yeah, yeah, exactly. I do recall that. And I, you know, I now
have gotten accustomed to, you know, Kenley's behaviors. That didn't seem abnormal to me, because that was the
mode of operation. That's how he operated. Like if you knocked on his
door, he'd only open it a crack, like he'd just
poke his head out. - [Interviewer] Was he ironing
or something that night? Do you have any
remembrance of that? - [Todd] I can't recall, no. He had no ironing board. That would go
against completely, you know, his
lifestyle, I think, 'cause like I said, he
lived pretty Spartan. (gentle music) - Nobody hardly irons
at all, but he did. This is just one of
the quirks with Kenley. He did have an iron, he
would iron his clothes. That is something he would do. - The only thing I
can take from that, is that Kenley doesn't
want anyone in that room at that time for a reason. (gentle music) - Kenley was last
sighted by a friend at a bank machine in Wolfville. - Tom Gordon, Kenley's
friend was the last person to see him on the 21st. - So having got
money out of the ATM, I headed back towards campus and the plan was to
go and have a shower and get ready for
my evening class. I reached this spot here
and my memory of that day and of the last
time I saw Kenley, was that I saw him from here across the other
side of the street. Because of the distance
I gave him a wave only, so I didn't have a personal
catch up, you know, one to one. He was wearing his
trademark baseball cap and just sort of casual clothes. He didn't look any way
out of the ordinary, like he was in a hurry or I can't remember if he
had a backpack or anything, but he certainly didn't look like he was particularly
going anywhere. Just seemed as I recall it now
to be strolling towards town on a normal Monday. (suspenseful music) - On Monday we had, well, I
had my chemistry class at 9:30 and Kenley had his
chemistry class at 8:30 and I do remember not seeing
him come out of the classroom. And if I recall, I
remember seeing Jill and just kind of quickly,
like, did you see, you know, was Kenley in class? Kind of doing like
a quick check. - The day I remember phoning him was the Monday, September 21st. And the reason I phoned was, I had got several
pieces of mail for him and I wanted to know what
he wanted to do with them, you know, if he wanted
to send them to him or that type of thing. So I phoned his number where
he lived in Crowell Tower and it was a payphone
for the floor and the person that
picked up the phone, it was about five o'clock, and the person that
picked up the phone said, "No, Kenley's gone
down for supper." And this I remember, you
know, very distinctly. - So then I tried to
contact Kenley on Monday for the study session for
calculus for Tuesday morning, but I couldn't get ahold of him. So I did call and there
I think was, you know, there was a note on his door when I did go over
a few days later. - Her and Kenley were
supposed to study together, I believe on Monday night. Kenley didn't show up. - So then Tuesday, we had
calculus in the morning and he didn't show up to class and so I don't recall
a lot from that day, whether, you know, I'm
sure I had other classes and I probably had
a lab and you know, it's like, again,
mental note, that's odd. - Up between Monday
and Wednesday, there were several attempts
made by Kenley's mother and his sister, Kayrene, to make contact with
him without success. - So then on Wednesday, I had my classes again and
Kenley was not in class and I had an afternoon class and I'm pretty sure Mike
Hussey and I shared that class. - Kayrene asked me if I
had seen Kenley and I said, "No, I haven't
haven't seen him." But she thought it was odd that
he hadn't reached out to her for the last few days,
because they were quite close - At this point, really starting
to get somewhat concerned, but not to the level of panic and he's like, "Well,
let's go check." - So we're finally on
Wednesday the 23rd. Kayrene went to Kenley's room. - You know, but I still remember just as if it's right now. You know, Mike and I
walking up the hill and just talking almost
like someone's odd behavior, you know, like, oh,
did you happen to see, you know, have you seen Kenley? You know, and like, oh he
wasn't in calculus this morning or yesterday morning and
I just remember, you know, not necessarily being all
that worried at that point. So Mike and I arrived
on that Wednesday and his room is 904
and I remember seeing
notes on the door and so the room was dark,
there weren't any lights on and you know, almost
like you can see the note on the door there. It was like one was
like, "Call your mom," and I think, "Call your sister." And then when I came
out, I looked to the left and Todd Barker, the RA,
was coming up the hallway and you could sense that he
was worried, he was concerned. And I remember that he indicated like he wasn't sure what
he'd find behind the door. And you know, to me
like what it brought up, the vision that it brought up was just like he might
have like committed suicide and don't be surprised if he's hanging in
his room, you know? I just will always remember
that vision or that feeling. I do slightly remember
the closet being open and seeing like his clothes and like the books
over on the side and the pie plate with the
like few cigarettes in there, but it didn't look like
he had packed up and left. I just remember it
looking, you know, like as if Kenley had
just gone to class. It didn't look packed up and
it didn't look put together, like as if he had
tidied up or anything. There are stacks of
books on the desk and I think the closet
door was partially opened and his toiletries
were on the dresser and you know, from what I
remember, the bed was unmade. - Nothing really stood
out to me in the room. It was just like someone
had just left to go to lunch and so nothing really looked
like it had been disturbed or there was no
changes in the room. - I remember going
back to my residence and going into my RA's room and she had a personal
phone in her room and I tried calling my
mom and she didn't answer and then I called my dad
and I talked to my dad and he came down the next day. - On Thursday, the
24th, is when Allan, Kenley's father goes
to the Wolfville police and reports Kenley missing. (somber music) - Oh, it's just so hard. I just wish somebody
would really come out and give us some information
that we don't have. I just wanna find him and
find him alive and well. - Kayrene and Kenley Matheson had both just started
their first year of university here at Acadia. Kenley was planning
to major in biology. - I think maybe he might feel if there's somewhere he
might be mixed up a bit or you know, this going
through an emotional time or I guess it's
hard to pinpoint. I really have no
positive theories where he is at or whatever. I think that's what the
frustrating part of all this. - Well, we approach
initially at, you know, once we file
the missing person, we approach the case as
a missing person file. You know, we couldn't declare
that it was a homicide. I mean, you had no
body, you had no motive. - We hoped and I
think thought that, you know, that there was
more of a possibility that he had left the
area on another excursion out west or to another country as he had done reported
to us in the past. - Here's an individual that
had acquired some experience, I think he's in Latin America, if my memory serves me correct. He also worked at
Northern Alberta or British Columbia
planting trees. - From what I recall from the
preliminary investigation, you know, we were exploring, you know, where he
might have went to as opposed to whether
something happened to him. - Foul play didn't enter my
mind at all for some reason. - Because he traveled
to Mexico and Belize and Guatemala and hitchhiked
and had a motorcycle, it was assumed that he just
decided to pick up and leave. - You know, we really didn't
have a whole lot of theories to start with. We figured it was just
a missing young man and we needed to find him. - I think it was a mystery. We didn't know what
happened to him. - We checked all the
airlines and bus routes. We had it on the news radio. - And then, you know,
we spoke to witnesses, we spoke to the family
and people that'd seen him at certain locations of
Wolfville or thought they had. - [Keith] We searched the room for any possible
clues or evidence. - [Stephen] We didn't
consider it a crime scene, so we didn't secure it, we
didn't do any forensics. - We treated Kenley
Matheson room as a, you know, a missing person room. We didn't treat that it
was a homicide clues there. I mean, we couldn't find any
trace of a struggle or blood. - There was nothing outta
the ordinary in his room. It wasn't turned upside down. There was nothing, it was
just like he just walked out the door and was
planning on coming back. - You know, I found had
a little bit of hash, but I mean, that's nothing
for a college student, university student back then. - [Kayrene] His blue Helly
Hanson jacket was gone. There was a pair of suede
loafers that were gone and a pair of his jeans
and his Lakers hat. - I asked Kayrene is there
something missing in his room? Does he have money? He was full of money
from tree planting, so I started asking
question and she said, "There's nothing
missing in his room except for his shaving kit." - I do know like his passport was still left in his room,
but his backpack was gone. - And I said, "Something else?" And she said that we've
been through the paper and there's a
Greenpeace ad missing. It's cutting from the newspaper. - So I believe I
contact somebody in
Toronto in Greenpeace, you know, the
outfit of Greenpeace and I might even
send some posters up and they couldn't confirm
that Kenley was there. - One of the questions
I always had was, in his room were
some cigarette buds. I don't know what ever happened
to those cigarette buds and I would love to have,
you know, as an investigator, I'd love to have a DNA off
of those cigarette buds. - I mean, we didn't
really, oh, we collected, you know, jotted some names
down, stuff like that. We didn't really seize
anything in the room, you know, 'cause we wanted to
leave the way he was. But we're looking for
anything out the ordinary. - Unless there's something
outrightly suspicious, then you wouldn't or we didn't,
secure it as a crime scene. - So see, the room was not
treated as a crime scene, because it was automatically
assumed Kenley was a runaway. - I think, you know,
another mistake, maybe we should've
sealed the room off, you know, got forensic
guys to come in. You know, I mean,
maybe that's... But we never thought
of doing that then, 'cause it was just
missing person. - The room wasn't ribboned off. There was no fingerprints taken. There was no list category of, you know, the items
that were in his room, like anything done at all in case there was anything else, but that, you know, he
actually just flew off and left his room and
didn't tell anybody. - I do remember my dad and I
we were back at Kenley's room and there were, as I recall, two police officers
that were with us and we were assessing
the situation and I remember Todd Barker
being out in the hallway and he was like
near the elevator and there was a couple of other
of the first year students and he was like rough
housing with them, like enough that we all
four of us kind of stopped and like, you know, looked
out 'cause it was distracting. - He's being either over
helpful or he is making jokes. He's saying things that just don't make
them feel comfortable. They're saying things
that in their opinion, are inappropriate. - And I remember
him saying like, "Oh my frosh, you're
beating me up out here." You know, making light
of whatever was going on and I just remember feeling
like that seemed odd. - We did contact the RA,
he's a resident assistant, he's responsible for the floor. So I remember, you
know, we talked to him and maybe few inquiries and he said the last time
he remember seeing Kenley, he wasn't sure of the day, day before or day
after he went missing. So he goes, "He was ironing
his shirt in his room." Looks like he was gonna
go out some, you know, ironing his shirt in his room. And the RA seemed
me a bit nervous. I don't know if he had
a conflict with Kenley, you know, but he seemed a bit
nervous during the statement. - There was always a discrepancy
on when he was last seen and so he was seen by
Todd Barker on the Monday, which would've been the
21st of September in '92. And he clearly said
that he saw him at 10 o'clock in his room. And I remember that, you know, there's a lot of
things that are fuzzy, but I know that for sure, because that was the
day that he was declared as when he disappeared, 'cause
that's when he was last seen. - Well over the years, there's, whether it was the
20th or the 21st, the Sunday or the Monday, there's been some discrepancy
there as to which date it was, you know, I can't speak or
speculate as to why that is. - And I remember
asking him afterwards, "Like are you sure you
saw him on Monday?" Because nothing added up
to him seeing him Monday. It just did not make sense
the way that the timeline was, because no one really saw him
Monday, he wasn't in class. And then all of a
sudden he is in his room at 10 o'clock ironing and Todd gives him a piece
of paper in his room. - From what Kayrene
told me, you know, and you're right there at the
time, it's the actual time and just Kayrene literally
having him by the throat, are you sure, are you sure? And he says Monday night, which
you wouldn't get confused, I wouldn't think at
that point in time. - So that was the last sighting
of Kenley for two years. So then two years later, Todd changes the date
back to the Sunday. He's like he made a
correction with the police and said that I saw
him Sunday night at 10 o'clock, my mistake. So then that was just
taken at face value. So now the last sighting of a missing person completely
changes by 24 hours. - Why is the last time
he's seen changing? Why is it that we
have an individual that says he saw him on Monday and then several years later, saying they saw Kenley Matheson,
no, no, I was mistaken, it was Sunday. And there was any multitude
of answers for that. They were trying
to hide something. They were trying to protect
something or someone. They honestly made a mistake. They're realizing that
that story does not fit with the rest of it, so now somehow we
have to very subtly but definitively
change that story. It could be any one of those. So to me, it's suspicious
that it changes, but it's not surprising. - [Todd] If I had to get a
room agreement signed from him. We had our resident
assistant meetings on Sunday, because think of it, there was always a football
game on Saturday, right? So everything going
up until that week, the Don, Stave Hassapis was completely
occupied with football. So if I had to have him
sign a room agreement, it would've been after
that meeting on Sunday. - I think I remember
even asking him, I said, "Did you have any knowledge
or anything involvement with the disappearance?" - [Producer] Do you think
that the RA, Todd Barker, may have been involved with
Kenley's disappearance? - [Mike] It's possible. It's possible that the RA was involved in
Kenley's disappearance. - Kenley was last
sighted by a friend at a bank machine in Wolfville, I believe on
September 21st, 1992 and later that day he was
seen walking westwardly on Main Street in Wolfville
down near where the arena is. And that's, I believe
he was carrying a backpack at the time, and that's the last time
that he's been reported seen. - We have someone reporting
seeing Kenley on Monday, twice, once at the bank machine and once walking out out town. The ATM on Main Street,
it was two-ish, 2:00 p.m. that they were seen at the ATM and then a few hours
later around four is when this same
individual says they see Kenley
walking out town. - There was one individual
that I had notes on that I located that said he
thought he'd seen him downtown around the Royal Bank parking
lot having a backpack on and a purple shirt. My recollection as well is that there was
another sighting of him around a bus stop. - The last person that
said they saw him, he was walking east
past, no excuse me, walking west past the
university parking lot by the Acadia
arena, Main Street. - So Tom Gordon's description,
as I heard it later, was he's seen him
around two o'clock at the Royal Bank building. Tom again sees him
at five o'clock. He has on jeans and
a cap and a backpack and a t-shirt and he
is heading out of town. And I always thought
it was towards Halifax where, you know, he would
be able to hitchhike better, catch a plane,
train or whatever, but he was heading the other way down towards New
Minas, Kentville. And Tom Gordon was
like going across over to the gym at the time, you know, they weren't
in close contact and that is the last
time that is reported that Kenley was seen. - So my Monday the
21st of September was another average day. It always involved
me walking right through the center
of the campus. On the right here, we've got
the Students Union building. That's where things
like the Ax were, which was one of the bars
that we used to go to. And my classes were all at
the bottom of the campus. So I had most likely
three classes that day. They would've all been
up until around lunchtime and then I went and
had lunch with Frank and we probably would've
gone either to Wheelock Hall or to one of the other halls, there was one more where
you could eat lunch. After lunch, there was
a tennis tournament that was taking place, the
intramural tennis tournament, so I wanted to get some
practice in for that. So Grizz and myself, Grizz
was a guy on the ninth floor of Crowell Tower, we decided
to play a game after lunch, got some practice in and I had some time free
until my evening class, so I came down here to
get money out of the ATM. It's all changed a little
bit since I was here. There used to be a post office, I think a post office
right next door to the ATM and a restaurant called Mr. B's. I remember having a couple of
dates, but all changed now. The ATM is still here,
must be this bank here. Is that a bank? I guess, right? I would've come
back from the ATM, which is a little bit further
and I would say for example, that I was standing on
the other side of the road and I would've seen Kenley
from either this corner or a little bit further, but
certainly far enough away to not stop and
have a conversation. He was wearing his
trademark baseball cap and just sort of casual
clothes, jeans and stuff. I can't remember if he was
carrying a backpack or anything, but he certainly didn't
look out of the ordinary, like he was going somewhere or
even in a hurry or anything. - [Producer] So you only saw him that one time on the Monday? You didn't see him two
separate occasions? - Not as I remember,
just that one time. Down here on Main Street, yeah. - We checked Kenley's
room at 904 Crowell Tower with myself, I was Constable
VanHerk at the time, shaving gear, face
cloth, towels gone. Spoke to Tom Gordon who'd last seen
Kenley at 2:40 p.m. at Royal Bank in Wolfville. Kenley walked past the
rink, heading west, wearing a purple t-shirt,
small black nap sack and that's exactly
what I had in my notes that I found in my notebook. - It was surreal. It was surreal, because
there just didn't seem to be a context. He didn't seem to have any
apparent trouble in his life that was obvious to anybody. Acadia student missing. Anxious Inverness County
family seeks news. It's been just over two weeks
since Allan Kenley Matheson was reported missing
by his father. Kenley, as his dad calls him, is a first year Acadia
University student who was last seen in a
university residence,
September 21st. He was reported missing
three days later. "We just wanna hear from him
and know that he's okay," his father, Allan Matheson
said from Glendale, Inverness County,
earlier this week. He's been on his own
for a couple of years and never did this before,
especially to leave college. He was pretty
psyched up about it. He was always good in
school, an honor student. He's old enough to make
his own decisions for sure. It's just the idea
of not knowing. If we just knew anything. Kenley's 20 years old, he's
five feet nine inches tall, weighs 150 pounds and has
green eyes and brown hair, which he wears short on the
sides and slicked back in front. He wears a gold hoop
earing in his left ear. When last seen, he was
wearing blue jeans, a purple t-shirt, a blue
Helly Hanson mountain coat, dark brown suede loafers and
a purple LA Lakers ball cap. Kenley's sister, Kayrene,
18, is also at Acadia. She was the last
member of the family to have contact with him the
day before he disappeared. "Then they were supposed to
have a math assignment done and she couldn't get ahold
of him," said Mr. Matheson, "Everybody's worried, so
far we've heard nothing." - Well, at the time
everyone had a theory. - By this stage, everyone
has started to talk about it. - It was a mystery
what happened here. - There was like the TV
reports that were on TV and it just seemed like very
surreal to me, all of it. - The common
hypothesis at the time, was that he had tried
Acadia for a few weeks and then decided to leave
and go out on his own. - People speculating, you know, that he went to South America. I remember that one,
went to south America and just wanted to get
lost type of thing. - The posters went up
and there was just, I think a lot of
like misinformation. - [Tom] I've had friends
that have told me, Kenley was involved
in the drug world. - [Steve] Suicide was a rumor. - [Bob] I believe in my
mind, he was hitchhiking. - He pissed off the wrong people and maybe those wrong people
followed him here to Wolfville. - [Tom] Could he
have run into someone with a very violent past? - Might've been beaten
the death or something or some foul play like that. - [Bob] He got down
back to Corkums Island and something happened
there with that place. - Could he have run into someone who was a suspect
in other crimes? - That he had wandered
off on the tidal flats or had gone to some
place like Cape Split. - [Steve] Three pools? - The Dyke system. - [Mike] Blomidon? - The Bay of Fundy
is right there, so. - [Anna-Maria] The highest
tides in the world. - Highest tides in the world. - There's human trafficking. - Counties.
- Rogue cops. - There was an individual
that had a reputation for being far more aggressive
than he needed to be. - You know, another theory, maybe something
happened at the dorm, the residence and someone
tried to cover it up. - [Stephen] Maybe he did get
in a disagreement with someone about maybe a girlfriend
or something like that. - There was a very
strong possibility that Kenley was bisexual. - A homosexual encounter
that had gone wrong. - Is it possible that Kenley
may have been at a party and made a move on
someone or vice versa? - Maybe he was hit
on or picked up, because he was homosexual. He got into the wrong car
with the wrong person. - I did hear last year
from a couple of friends that they had heard that
he never left the valley and I took that to
mean he was killed and buried up in the
valley somewhere. (distant music playing) (people chattering) - Thank you.
- You're welcome. Thank you. (crowd chattering) (lively music) ♪ And so much more
than a slice of life ♪ ♪ Pizza the dog ♪ (lively music) - [Producer] Have you ever
heard of Kenley Matheson? - No, that name is not familiar. - [Producer] He was
in Acadia student who went missing about 25 years. - Oh, at Three Pools? Yes, okay, now I, yeah,
okay, that's his name. - [Producer] What have
you heard about him? - Well, he just
just disappeared. We actually did
a search up there to see if we can find
any remnants of evidence just two years ago. It's still active, I mean, we
still haven't found anything, but case is still
open as far as I know. (lively music) - [Producer] Have you ever
heard of Kenley Matheson? - Matheson? - [Producer] Yeah. He was an Acadia student who
went missing many years ago. - Okay. - [Producer] Have you
ever heard of that story? - No. ♪ Did you find another twig ♪ ♪ Did you find another twig ♪ ♪ Taking it all on,
ain't nothing too big ♪ ♪ Pizza the dog. ♪ (lively music) ♪ Is it still a
little too high ♪ - [Producer] Have you guys
ever heard of Kenley Matheson? - Who, sorry?
- Kenley Matheson. - No, I can't say I have. - [Producer] He was
an Acadia student who went missing many years ago. Have you ever heard of
him, he lived in Tower? - I don't think so. ♪ Pizza the dog ♪ ♪ Pizza the dog ♪ ♪ Pizza the dog ♪ ♪ So much more than
a slice of life ♪ ♪ Pizza the dog ♪ (lively music) - [Producer] People
remember in Wolfville, Kenley Matheson and
that disappearance or has it sort of gone out
of the memory of the town? - Well, there are a few
people that still know, but I would say it's
probably disappeared, but there are a few people. I was here last year and
somebody remembered it. So nobody this time while
I've been selling tickets, but last year, definitely. So yeah, there's
some people around. ♪ So much more than
a slice of life ♪ ♪ Pizza the dog ♪ - Thank you. (crowd applauding) - My wife and I started
this store in 1971, calling it The Market, because it was called the
Wolfville Meat Market. So we stripped off Wolfville
and we stripped off meat and we left market, 'cause we couldn't afford a sign and we initially started
out as a hit shop. Selling pipes and papers and all kinds of
hippie paraphernalia. And we just expanded that
into clothing and into music and other things as
the years went along. (indistinct) Some of my old customers. Kenley Matheson disappeared
from Wolfville in 1992. A very strange,
very odd situation. That's never been
anything occur like this that I've ever heard of before. We hadn't had a
murder or anybody, something strange like that
happen since 1879 in Wolfville. We had a local town police
force that was very competent in checking doors and
being on the street and being aware
of the community, but as far as being able to
work on serious crime cases that involved more than
just a local knowledge, I think they were overwhelmed. - [Tom] I think it
was typical of any, I'll say small
town police force. - It was a big file for us. We were a small
municipal police service. - My recollection that it
wasn't handled specifically by one or two officers
and being investigated, I think it went from shift to
shift by officer to officer. - I wish we had more
resources at the time, 'cause it was just myself
and maybe another constable. - Everybody in the
department had done something at one time or another in it, but the chief, I guess he
would've been here daily, so he would've done
that, John McCloud. - And then I remember
I saw a few psychics. - The consistent things from all the different
psychics have been. - Kenley may have
been near water. - Water, railway line. - [Kayrene] A lot of
times in the woods. - And maybe close
to the highway. - And like a blow to
the back of the head. - [Mike] The psychic in
Bedford was really good. She said, you know,
Kenley's alone by this dump. - She said like he is no longer like with his bones
and his teeth. - [Mike] Kenley's, you
know, he's among the dead, he's in an old junkyard. - There's been none of them
that have said he's still alive. (suspenseful music) - There was rumors
that Kenley went to the local bar here
in town, The Anvil, which in the 80s and
early 90s was a rough bar. It was a work tradesman's bar. It was where people went on
a Friday night after work to have a few beers,
but almost invariably, The Anvil was a spot
where disagreements were settled with fists. But the speculation locally was that he had had a
confrontation in the bar with somebody or
a group of people and whether or not they
had something to do with his disappearance or not, that was always the speculation. - It isn't that hard to
hide a body in Nova Scotia if you know where to hide
a body in Nova Scotia. - My speculation is,
and I'm just saying this with just speculation, he pissed somebody
off about something and whoever he pissed
off was mad enough and man enough that they
did something about it. I say, man enough, I don't
mean that in that way, but I just mean man, you know,
testosterone fueled enough that if this person made
him mad for some reason, then he acted on it and
perhaps acted went too far and then there was
no coming back. - Nova Scotia has
a lot of farmland and especially the
Annapolis Valley. I was having a conversation
with a friend last year who is a farmer and I
said to him, I said, "You know, where do
all these people go? Why are these
people disappearing and where are they
disappearing to? And why is it that
20 years later, we still can't find some
of these dead bodies if they're in fact dead?" And he goes, "Bev,
look around here. See that land over
here, way, way back, I own all that land. Other farmers can say the same
thing about their own land. You can go missing
on that property and no one will ever find you. You might be in
some gully somewhere and you can be buried and no one will ever
find your body." - Somebody knows. Somebody somewhere
knows something, but if nobody ever talks or
nobody ever says anything, then it's all just speculation. - [Blair] At the time,
we didn't do a search. We were criticized for that. - You know... When somebody goes missing,
is a life involved. You have to go out right
away looking for that person, not do paperwork. One dog, one good bloodhound would do a job of 100 people. - We did receive a
call from a Leo Caldi who has a search and rescue dog. - I was hoping to
have a scent article belonging to the person, have the opportunity to
take the dog in his quarters where he lived and let
the dog do the job. - He did some of his
own searches, I believe and did report it to us,
but there was nothing, nothing was found. - I never put my dog over there. This is false. They said, "Leo Caldi,
93-03-28, Leo Caldi, use a tracking dog. No. No. What a joke. - Kenley wasn't a local man, so the local community, although we were interested
in what happened, I don't think there was
the same sort of urgency or the same sort of... The community wasn't as
upset as it would've been if it was some local person
that had disappeared, there would be the family here, there would've been
the relatives here, there would've been, I think, a bigger push to have
found the information about what happened or
what might have occurred. - I believe if they will give
the opportunity to my unit, we will find the person. We will find him if they will give
the opportunity, but they did not give
us the opportunity. They brush it off. Everything under control. We are in charge. And this is how
the story ended up. - There is a bit of a mentality that people who are students are going to come and go and people who aren't rooted
into the life of the valley are gonna come and go. Maybe that affects the
outlook of some people in terms of their empathy and the compassion they are
able to extend to others. I hope not. It certainly wasn't
the case for me. I don't consider anybody from
Cape Breton to come from away. In fact, I consider Cape Breton to be pretty primary to the
history of this province. - Locally, it was
a story in the news and people were
talking about it, but after it kind of went off
the news, it just disappeared. - And then over the
next weeks and months, it was just a matter of, I remember going to the
Wolfville Police Department, you know, walking
down there by myself and it just seemed like very
surreal to me, all of it, and just trying to
cope with everything. And then I know that my
dad, him and his wife, Myrtle came down to
get Kenley's stuff, which would've been
about November. And there was no inventory,
no pictures taken of his room. I mean, the police, like
they truly didn't treat it as a crime. - His whole disappearance
was just taken as, again, young kid blew off
into the wilderness. - [Tom] It was just assumed
because of his history, because of his lifestyle,
that Kenley just decided he didn't want to play
anymore and he left. - There was never any
suspicion of foul play. Anyone who gave a statement, like nothing was really
followed up on to make sure that it was authentic. - With missing persons,
if there's no crime scene or if there's nothing
to create suspicion of a person being missing,
then evidence could be lost in the initial report of
somebody being missing. - And looking back on it. You know, I think it
was just a combination of the Wolfville
Police Department like not knowing
how to handle it and also there's jurisdictions,
'cause at that time, the RCMP were not part
of the Wolfville police. So then they don't
come in and assist, even though it would've
been a proper step to do, because it's the
right thing to do. - And Kenley's case was
certainly one of the ones that fell through the cracks,
along with countless others. If you could turn
back the clock, you know, being there,
you'd always wish you could have done more, knowing if there had to
have been something else that stuck out, you know, the case should've been
treated differently. (somber music) - I definitely believe
that Andrew Johnson had something to do with
Kenley's disappearance. - What if Andrew Johnson
was there that weekend and what if him and Kenley
got to meet each other, create some type of friendship
and what if you know, Andrew Johnson came
to Acadia a week later and called Kenley casually and
hey, you wanna go hang out? And what if Kenley
goes down the stairs and hops in this guy's car and he's never seen
or heard of again? (suspenseful music) - [Producer] Did you
kill Kenley Matheson? (lively instrumental music)
