The Mysterious Case of Mekayla Bali Families all over the world send their children
off to school each morning, confident they’ll be watched over throughout the day until they
return home safely. But on April 12, 2016, this was not the case
for 16-year-old Mekayla Bali. When Mekayla’s grandmother dropped her off
at Sacred Heart High School that morning, no one could have predicted that by day’s
end, Mekayla would be reported as a missing person. Security footage of Mekayla recorded at 12:02
pm that afternoon would become the last confirmed sighting of the teenager in nearly four years. In this video, we’ll examine the unusual
and heartbreaking disappearance of Mekayla Bali, and explore the most intriguing theories
about why and how she vanished. An Ordinary Day In April 2016, Mekayla was a 16-year-old student
at Sacred Heart High School in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. Mekayla lived with her mother, Paula Bali,
her maternal grandmother, Margaret and her two younger siblings - Joshua and Eliyora. Mekayla’s friends describe her as quiet
but popular, sweet, sometimes shy, and a good listener. She loved music and reading. She also played violin and had become interested
in the drama program at her school. Mekayla was a big fan of The Hunger Games
series and video games like League of Legends, and had hoped to become a teacher or a vet,
inspired by her love of both children and animals. Mekayla was, according to her mother, an ordinary
teenager, which made her disappearance all the more extraordinary. Paula would later tell investigators that
nothing unusual had happened in the hours before Mekayla vanished. In the morning, Paula and Mekayla put on makeup
and listened to music together in the bathroom, chatting casually about their upcoming days,
before getting into the car with Mekayla’s grandmother, Margaret Niebergall, who usually
drove Mekayla to school and Paula to work. Margaret dropped Mekayla off at Sacred Heart
High School between 8:10 and 8:20 am. When Margaret returned to the school in the
afternoon to pick Mekayla up, the teenager wasn’t waiting for her. When Margaret went into the school to look
for her granddaughter, she was told that teachers and friends hadn’t seen Mekayla for much
of the day. Margaret drove to Paula’s office and informed
her that Mekayla was not at school. Paula first wondered if her daughter had left
early to go to a music lesson she had scheduled. She had a violin recital coming up and had
been practicing for it just the night before. But Mekayla wasn’t at her lesson, either. Back at their home, Paula checked a “cash
fund” that she kept in the house in case of emergencies. Mekayla had access to the money, and if she’d
planned to run away, Paula thought, she would have taken it with her. But the cash had not been touched. That evening, Paula reported her daughter
missing to the Yorkton Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Investigation Begins By the next morning, investigators were beginning
to trace Mekayla’s movements before her disappearance. Family had been trying to reach Mekayla since
realizing something was wrong, but by 7:00 am. on April 13th, her phone had been turned off. Over the next several months, thanks to footage
from security cameras, cell phone records, and the cooperation of Mekayla’s friends
and family, a comprehensive timeline was assembled following Mekayla’s activities on April 12th. Mekayla had walked into school after her grandmother
dropped her off. She had logged onto Sacred Heart High School’s
Wi-Fi network around 8:08 am, but by 8:26, the 16-year-old had exited Sacred Heart through
a back entrance. Mekayla was next seen on a surveillance camera
at a nearby convenience store; the footage showed her walking along local railroad tracks. She made her way to a TD Bank branch, arriving
there before the bank had opened its doors. She waited outside, talking on her phone,
then hung up and went inside at 8:55. She withdrew $55 from her bank account. Mekayla then walked to a nearby pawn shop,
Terry’s Pawn and Bargain. The owner, Terry Heddon, reported that Mekayla
wanted to find out the value of a silver ring. Heddon told her that the ring wasn’t valuable
enough for him to buy from her. Heddon said Mekayla didn’t seem upset or
in distress. She just left the shop. Mekayla’s next stop was a combination Tim
Horton’s/Wendy’s restaurant, where surveillance cameras recorded her buying a drink and taking
a seat in a booth, facing away from the entrance. With her backpack beside her, Mekayla sat
in the booth and used her phone for around 13 minutes, turning every so often to look
toward the restaurant’s doors. Oddly, she appeared to take her phone apart
and reassemble it during this period. At 9:23, Mekayla left the restaurant through
one of the exits, but immediately turned back to walk through the area again and use a different
exit. A hardware store’s surveillance camera showed
her walking north until she was out of frame. But around 20 minutes later, at 9:42, she
appeared on the camera again and made her way back to Tim Horton’s. When she walked back inside the restaurant,
she appeared to be on a phone call. She chose a new seat at a booth closer to
the window, and this time she sat facing the doors. “I Need Help” At 10:12 am, Mekayla sent a text to her friend
Shelby Hnatuk, one that puzzles investigators and Mekayla’s family to this day. It read, “Hey I need help.” Within half an hour, Mekayla texted Shelby
again: “Nevermind I figured it out.” A short time later, Mekayla left the restaurant
a second time, only to come back in again after just a couple of minutes. She took another phone call, and looked expectantly
around the restaurant at 10:39. By 10:43, she had hung up and approached an
older woman sitting at a nearby table. That woman told police that Mekayla had asked
her for help, too, specifically if the woman would help her rent a hotel room. Mekayla didn’t name a particular hotel. The woman told Mekayla no, and the teenager
returned to her seat and made yet another phone call. Just a few minutes later, she left the restaurant
for the final time. Mekayla walked back to Sacred Heart High School,
texting Shelby “I’ll see you at lunch,” and arrived at the school at 11:59 am. While there, she reportedly told two fellow
students that she was going to take a bus to the city of Regina for a vacation. By 12:02 pm, Mekayla was seen walking back
out of Sacred Heart. Surveillance footage captured her rounding
a corner and disappearing from view as she walked away from the school. These are the last known images of Mekayla Bali. Though security footage of Mekayla only confirms
her whereabouts until 12:02 pm, eye-witness accounts next placed her at the Trail Stop
Restaurant, about a mile from her school. The restaurant is connected to a bus station,
and witnesses there saw Mekayla buy and eat poutine for lunch. An employee at the bus depot remembered speaking
with Mekayla, who wanted to know what time the bus to Regina was leaving. The employee told her - 5:00 pm, but said
Mekayla didn’t purchase a ticket. Mekayla reportedly left the Trail Stop Restaurant
around 1:45 pm. Possible Plans While the surveillance footage and text messages
gathered by investigators provided a very clear picture of what Mekayla had been doing
the day she disappeared, they also raised many questions. Mekayla had obviously spoken with someone,
possibly more than one person, on the phone throughout the morning, and her behavior in
Tim Horton’s indicated she may have been waiting for somebody. She asked for help renting a hotel room, but
then told classmates she planned to take a bus out of town. What exactly was Mekayla’s plan that day? Paula Bali maintains that her daughter was
not the type to run away from home, and nothing Mekayla would need for a trip was missing
from the Bali house: her makeup, phone charger, and medicine were all left behind. But revelations from Mekayla’s friends complicated
the case even further. On April 11th, 2016, the day before she went
missing, Mekayla had gone to a fast food restaurant for lunch with Shelby Hnatuk and another friend,
Oksana Yakiwchuk. Shelby and Oksana later told investigators
that at lunch, Mekayla spoke about traveling somewhere such as Moose Jaw or Prince Albert,
or possibly Saskatoon, all cities within Saskatchewan. Shelby also asked Mekayla on April 11th about
a boy named Josh, who Mekayla had talked about before, but Mekayla did not respond. Another classmate of Mekayla’s, Amy Liang,
told investigators that Mekayla had told her a man named Christopher was traveling to the
province to meet her. After school on April 11th, at 4:35 pm, Mekayla
texted Oksana and asked for a ride to the bank the following day. According to phone records, Mekayla also called
TD Bank’s customer service line three separate times that evening, checking her balance and
making a transfer of $25. Throughout the evening of April 11th, Mekayla
texted Shelby, Amy, and an ex-boyfriend. She asked Amy for help, a sentiment she would
echo the following day in her text to Shelby, but didn’t respond when Amy asked her to
explain. Her texts to Shelby and her ex-boyfriend were
about being unhappy. She told her ex she was thinking about spending
a few days in Regina. Finally, on the morning of her disappearance,
at 6:41 am, Mekayla texted Oksana, “Can you take me to the bank?”, asking for help
once again with the errand she would end up completing on foot, after she left Sacred
Heart High School. Why was it so important to Mekayla to visit
the bank the day she went missing? If she was contemplating a trip out of town,
as she suggested to some of her friends, her withdrawal of $55 wouldn’t get her very far. And why would she leave behind essentials
such as makeup and medication if her intention was to board a bus and head to a different
city? In the nearly four years since Mekayla was
last seen, no concrete answers to these questions have been found. Theories, A Suspect, and A Sighting Since 2016, Mekayla Bali’s case has gained
attention across Canada and even in the United States, with many online sleuths speculating
about where she may have gone, with whom, and where she might be today. A popular theory is that Mekayla had been
communicating with someone online and was planning to meet that person on April 12th, 2016. Even Paula Bali said of the Tim Horton’s
security footage - “This is absolutely unusual behavior for Mekayla... It seemed like she was waiting for someone.” Shelby Hnatuk told CBC News that Mekayla had
connected with people online in the past. She remembered at least four, but said that
the interactions never lasted too long. She recalled - “I never liked the idea of
her messaging guys online because it's kind of sketchy but she wouldn't listen to me. She did her own thing…’.” Shortly before she disappeared, Mekayla had
told her friend Oksana that she had $5000 in her bank account, but records show she
had a much smaller amount. Some have theorized that Mekayla’s preoccupation
with getting to the bank that day, as well as checking her balance the night before,
may have been because she was waiting for someone to deposit money into her account
to help her leave Yorkton. In a huge setback for the investigation, the
phone calls Mekayla made throughout the morning on April 12th didn’t register on her Telus
mobile network account. This is usually the case when calls are made
through social media apps. Mekayla’s friends reported that she used
apps to communicate, including Snapchat and Instagram, and possibly Kik, an anonymous
messaging app. Messaging platforms like Kik have become popular
in recent years, but their anonymous nature and lack of parental controls, have made them
an attractive method for predators looking to communicate with possible victims. U.S. privacy laws often prevent the chat logs
on these apps from being released, which can be a setback for investigations. It’s even been suggested that Mekayla may
have been in possession of a second cell phone, possibly provided to her by someone she was
planning to meet as a way to avoid detection. Similarly, neither the Trail Stop Restaurant
nor the bus station had security cameras, something a predator might have taken into
consideration when planning to meet a young girl. The investigation briefly led to a man named
Rick Breit, who lives in Saskatoon and believes he may be Mekayla’s father, though this
has never been confirmed. Police got in touch with him by phone just
days after Mekayla disappeared, and a few months later, they visited his home to search
and take DNA samples. But officials have said that no evidence points
to Breit being involved in Mekayla’s disappearance. As for Mekayla’s mother, some online sleuths
have wondered if Mekayla’s home life was as typical as Paula has claimed. Pointing to the family’s possible money
problems and the lack of a father figure in Mekayla’s life, some have suggested that
the Bali family was struggling and Mekayla chose to leave her home. The RCMP have never named a suspect in this
case, but they have released information about a person of interest reportedly seen at the
Trail Stop Restaurant when Mekayla was there. The man has a large tattoo of a cross on his
forearm, and the RCMP hope to identify him with the public’s help. Though sightings of young women matching Mekayla’s
description have trickled in over the years, a possible sighting in August 2019 infused
the investigation with new hope. A man called Paula Bali on August 8th and
told her he believes he spoke to Mekayla in Edmonton, Alberta, more than 500 miles from
Yorkton. The man reported that he spoke to a young
woman for a few minutes outside a pool hall called the Highrun Club in March of 2019. When he saw a social media post about Mekayla
sometime later, he recognized her. Unfortunately, there is no surveillance footage
from this reported encounter; the club does have security cameras, but by the time the
man reported his sighting of Mekayla, the footage from that day had already been taped over. The man told Paula that the woman he spoke
to seemed naive and sweet, and out of place in the rough area, like she didn’t belong
there. Paula says this description matches Mekayla,
telling media outlets - “She is a very gentle soul and she comes across that way.” Paula reported the tip to the RCMP. Social media is at the center of this case,
and Mekayla’s accounts remain intact, frozen in time. Before she disappeared, she had an Instagram
account that featured plenty of selfies and photos with her friends, but another account
reportedly exists under her name. This profile has many followers, but no photos. The “About Me” section consists of one
word: “Goodbye.” Shelby sent Mekayla a message on Snapchat
the day she went missing. Three months later, Shelby saw the message
had been read. She sent another message on graduation day
- when Mekayla should have been at the ceremony with her. That message has never been opened. Paula Bali continues to diligently search
for anyone who might have information about her daughter’s whereabouts. There is a $50,000 (Canadian) reward for Mekayla’s
safe return to her family. What do you believe happened to Mekayla Bali? Did she perfectly plan and execute her own
disappearance, or did she walk out of the Trail Stop Restaurant and into harm’s way? Did someone help her get out of Yorkton? & Above all, where is she now? Share your theories and thoughts in the comments
below. Numbers to call with information: Royal Canadian Mounted Police tip line: 639-625-4100
Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-8477
