W5: Shocking twists in the bizarre disappearance of a N.S. toddler

[Music] ctv's w5 the whole world fell apart right there a child vanishes and a desperate search begins i'd do anything to get that time back anything we didn't expect people to to reach out like they have been but soon suspicion turns to the grieving family it felt as if like everybody just you know turned on me there were pieces in her story that i'd be a little concerned about did you have anything to do with the disappearance of your son here is avery haynes welcome to w5 if you've ever lost sight of your child even for just a fraction of a second you know the terror that sets in now imagine living with that feeling for a year and a half tonight a one-hour special into the disappearance of a three-year-old boy in truro nova scotia how the mystery has fractured a family divided a community and raised some serious questions about the way the case was investigated [Music] it's the relentless search for clues any shred of evidence so i think the plan today is we're going to check this entire area in case we missed anything it's the wide awake nightmare of losing a child he said dylan's missing and i said what and the whole world fell apart right there i hit the ground started crying it's the anguish of not knowing we don't know if he was taken we don't know if he if he drowned we just we don't know if he's alive we're stuck in limbo ashley and jason have been in that limbo since may 6 20 20. tonight still no sign of dylan the heartbreaking search for a missing three-year-old boy how's everybody making out pretty good the day of this search marks 16 excruciating months since three-year-old dylan ehler vanished if you're happy and you know clap your hands and if you're happy you know i clock your hands gone almost without a trace in truro nova scotia it feels like day one over and over and over i just want him to come home official search and rescue missions have long been abandoned there we go [Music] but since he's banished sometimes two or three times a week dylan's dad jason and a small group of volunteers have been desperately searching and hoping the only time i feel at peace is when i'm searching for him i can breathe when i'm not i can't breathe dylan's mother ashley is living a life suspended in time when i walk through this house i see signs of dylan everywhere his job chart his photographs his drawings it keeps him present here he keeps him with us so that we can feel him sorry that was a very emotional question it means everything does to have his stuff here and be surrounded by him it's just here waiting for him to come home can i ask about these presents in the corner so those are all dylan's christmas presents birthday presents and um my presents because i won't open a present again until he's found tillen's still missing there's no god i've prayed so many times like there's just nothing ashley and jason have been praying for dylan to come home since that day in may of 2020 when he was dropped off at his grandmother's home for a visit i gave him a hug and i kissed i told him to be good i loved him [Music] dylan was at his grandmother's residence on queen street playing outside his grandmother became briefly distracted and turned around for a moment and when she returned back dylan was no longer in the air [Music] so many what ifs woulda shoulda coulda's like and that'll probably be with me the rest of my life dorothy parsons is ashley's mother dylan's grandma on that last day when you were with dylan what was he like he was a very happy little boy that day very happy i'll never forget that little smile i'd do anything to get that time back anything this is the last place where dylan was seen can you walk me through what happened on the day dylan disappeared i decided to bring him outside to play so we come over to here and i just kind of get the dog and i get like i got her chain and then after i got her hooked up i turned around and he's nowhere the police immediately focused on a brook behind her neighbor's backyard search and rescue crews battled high waters and raging currents before making a discovery that evening dylan's rubber boots one was found in the brooklyn leopard brook probably closer to the property that the family owns and then one was found further down the brook when the chief came in he had a picture of boots on his phone and when i see them i just i knew they were his and and that was it i just i started bawling and knew that they were dylan's boots was it like this when dylan went missing no there's nothing like this the grass is much higher the water much lower than it was the day dillon disappeared oh so the creek is right here yeah the creek's right here the brook leopards brook jason leads us to the exact spot where the boots were found so one boot was found here where was the other one found in relation to where we are now um the other one was actually maybe 500 meters down the brook and it was emerged underwater also but it never made it to the river so this feeds into salmon river yes and then what happens with salmon river salmon river feeds into the bay of fundy and then into the atlantic the police were working on a theory early that dylan bolted from his grandmother's house towards this brook that his body was swept down to the salmon river and out to the bay of fundy a mannequin the same weight and height as dylan was used to see if it was possible for a boy his size to be pulled down the creek and out to sea but by then the water levels had dropped significantly and the mannequin didn't float freely without getting caught in debris they tried it must have been half a dozen times what does that tell you tells me the brook didn't have enough power to push out some boots but it pushed a 32 pound child out nothing makes sense the science doesn't even make sense to it the official search lasted six days before being called off my dreams are horrible my dreams are nightmares every dream i have i'm searching and i find her but i can't get to him i just see him from beyond so i just forget to it's like day one all i want to do is pick them up take them to my house the mystery of what happened to dylan has consumed his parents and the small town of truro population 12 000. in the early days the community rallied around jason and ashley leaving boots out on their front porches creating a memorial with dylan's favorite toys and blankets volunteering for searches this is ashley one week after her son disappeared we didn't expect people to to reach out like they have been it's a small comfort that people are out there helping and you know want to bring them home as much as we do the days and weeks dragged on without any signs any clues beyond those rubber boots one month after the disappearance jason and ashley announced a crowdfunded ten thousand dollar reward in the event that dylan had been abducted please bring him home because i need him we miss him um he's everything but soon after the tide of support for ashley and jason whiplashed from sympathy to suspicion there were people that were saying that you know we must have sat up all night and and rehearsed what we were gonna say and you know they i just think that i should be crying more and then when we do cry you know it's crocodile tears public scrutiny intensified after word got out that all was not right in the eeler home that four days before dillon vanished police had been called after i got laid off from work for covid reasons you know all of us were in the house together and it it got stressful you know we were arguing and it just escalated and and then the police were called i threatened her i said i'm gonna kill you i didn't mean it it was instead of anger and you were both charged with domestic violence yes and why was ashley charged because she punched me that was enough for online sleuths to start combing into jason and ashley's past and then they believed they hit pay dirt you ever just look at somebody and think to yourself this mother gonna be the reason i go to jail this is a tick tock video ashley made and posted just weeks before dylan disappeared it was i believe from the show the tiger king dylan was on my lap during that video and and people ran with it and thought that it was inappropriate and they found a second strange video on social media as well come on we can't delay what did you do no one can see him on the floor get him out the door before he can't decay the second video was a parody song of frozen was a parody of you helped me build a snowman and it was will you help me hide a body i need to ask you straight out did you have anything to do with the disappearance of your son no i love my son more than anything coming up they never treated dylan's case like a criminal investigation frustration with police procedure they waited three hours before issuing an alert that a three-year-old was missing [Music] if you're happy and you know it clap your hands if you're happy and you know i clap your amps not long after three-year-old dylan ehler disappeared in truro nova scotia no one can see him on the floor strange tick tock videos featuring his mother surface you ever just look at somebody and think to yourself this mother gonna be the reason i go to jail posted a couple of weeks before the toddler vanished in may of 2020 it sent the rumor mill into overdrive fueled by the allegations of domestic violence and the fact that little evidence had been found dozens of groups started popping up all posting theories wilder than the last ashley and jason just had a fight only a few days before then all of a sudden dylan goes missing sounds too much of a coincidence and fishy for her not to be put in the hot seat you are a disgusting [ __ ] i hope you get it in jail making tick tocks with your son is saying that type of thing what kind of mother are you [Music] those videos when people look at them after your son has disappeared you can understand how they might think well these are bizarre things to post about her son yeah i can see after the fact how people could could think that but on the other side of it there's also been you know thousands of other people doing the exact same ones with their kids in the videos you went from grieving mother that everyone was trying to support to murder suspect in the eyes of of amateur sleuths and the people in your neighborhood it felt as if like everybody just you know turned on me and you know all because of a few tick tock videos that meant nothing and i don't understand it i might have some things in my history that you don't like but that absolutely doesn't make me a monster when truro police caught wind of the videos they had a new interest in ashley when you saw ashley's tick tocks when they surfaced did that tweak something in youth in terms of the criminal investigation yeah i mean that's a that was a bizarre uh tick tock let's say and just at a bad time so that was fully investigated as well dave mcneil is the chief of the truro police department i've never seen a case actually in all my career take on a life of its own such as this case police made it clear at the time that they didn't believe the tick tocks or the domestic violence charges had anything to do with dylan's disappearance but that didn't stop the accusations his mother and grandmother have killed him they are known satan worshipers this was a sacrificial ritual on the full moon to satan which is why the mother doesn't seem as remorseful as we'd expect she believed she did a good thing wow halifax lawyer alison harris has compiled pages and pages of vicious rumors that ashley and jason were negligent or worse murderers ashley talked about being afraid to go to the grocery store um i know that some of their family members would be yelled baby killer as they walked on the road what was that meeting like they came to you and said look what they're doing to us online they're accusing us of killing our baby i just knew when i walked away that i was going to find a way to help them alison harris combed through the law books and formulated a plan she would try to shut down the online groups with nova scotia's rarely used anti-cyber bullying law groundbreaking legislation that was set up after retia parsons died by suicide in 2013 after being bullied online harris targeted what she felt was one of the nastier groups a facebook site that had 17 000 members the people behind the facebook group that you targeted aren't strangers behind a keyboard that's almost the more upsetting part um realizing that these people who you know were strangers to ashley and jason didn't know them before this but are actually members of the community some of them actually showing up with searches the tragic thing in all of this is that the most salient part of this story the disappearance of a three-year-old boy seems to be lost yeah really has that's what i find the saddest part about this story you know and that's really all jason ashley wanted to focus on right from the beginning finding dylan the parents of a toddler who disappeared last spring are taking their fight against cyber bullying to court and more than a year after dylan went missing a victory in the courts you won essentially yes the administrators of the facebook page were ordered to shut it down but by then the damage had been done dillon's memorial was destroyed after rumors surfaced that he might have been buried there and phony ransom demands started pouring in well we've had about seven or eight ransoms were people actually trying to connect with you and say we have your son oh that they're gonna kill my son if we don't give them so much money a guy sent a picture of uh i think it was a picture of maybe dylan but it was all photoshopped and looked like he had bruises on his face and stuff and he wanted three bitcoin which is worth 40 some thousand dollars on traceable money there was another one where um he said he had dylan in the truck and he tossed him out the window doing 100 kilometers if i didn't send him a couple thousand dollars police were never able to track down the people behind those ransom demands and their investigation into dylan's disappearance involves questioning everyone in the little boy's circle including the last person to see him that day in may of 2020 grandmother dorothy parsons was asked by police to recreate the final moments before he disappeared this process of hooking up the the dog turning your back on dylan how long did that take seconds like they we redid it with the police and he said he timed it in about 18 seconds 18 seconds you didn't have your eyes on dylan and he was gone yep in that time dylan would have had to run at least 81 meters between the fence across a neighbor's backyard and through brush to get down to the brook once they found out how much dylan likes water they went with that stuck with that wouldn't even entertain any other scenario whatsoever even though i'm telling them that i think he was taken you told the police that right off the bat yeah i did and i said it three or four times i think he was taken while dorothy believes dylan was snatched her own daughter and jason think she's holding back vital information about what happened that day did your dog get away did you put your dog inside did you make a mistake and you're just not saying it i just know something's wrong i've felt it since day one jason and ashley both feel as though there's just something missing and that you're not sharing it because you're scared of getting charged criminally with neglect there's nothing that's a secret even i know there's something not right there's a puzzle piece missing and you don't have the piece of that and i don't have it i don't have that piece according to dorothy she took three different lie detector tests she says her version of events has never wavered are you responsible for your grandson's disappearance in my mind yes reality probably yes because he was with me and i turned my back so i'll always feel responsible like i'm just sorry that i even brought him outside and if i could get those 18 seconds back you call your mom dorothy i do why after my son went missing i can't look at her i can't speak to her i don't want her in my life i just i i don't consider her a mother anymore this has rips your life apart in every way it really has this tragedy has fractured a family and divided a small town it's also put a spotlight on the way police investigated the case of a three-year-old who vanished almost without a trace when a three-year-old goes missing that's generally alarm bells go off immediately when did police alert the public that dylan was missing 4 30 p.m how many hours after the 911 call is at three hours you're telling me they waited three hours before issuing an alert that a three-year-old was missing yeah yeah breaks my heart he i believe that he could have had a chance i think they screwed up a public alert wasn't issued until three hours and eight minutes after the 911 call it took almost two and a half hours before search and rescue had boots on the ground it's almost as if the police found the boots in the water so that's that's their answer case solved you believe they found those boots and it was from then on it was in their head he fell in the in the brook they never treated dylan's case like a criminal investigation they they just treated like a search and rescue i know that they didn't block off any streets they didn't stop the public from coming into the crime scene in the area that he went missing and they were very late on issuing alerts and and getting help you know so i think that tunnel vision did have a play in that once they found the boots and that was it that's where he went and essentially the police tell us that we need to accept it and move on remember the official search was canceled after six days so frustrated and so desperate jason began conducting his own searches sometimes two and three a week he also scraped together enough money to hire a private investigator i can accept the drowning theory if everything else has been eliminated dave warl is a former rcmp detective who spent 35 years investigating major crimes including cold cases for him there are questions about dorothy's recollections there were pieces in her story that i'd be a little concerned about especially the timeline [Music] this is the last spot that dorothy says she saw dylan now there are only two ways out of this backyard he either would have bolted for queen street this busy street here or he made his way through this gap in the fence and headed for the water the police theory is that dylan was drawn to the water and was washed away by the strong current but warrell says police didn't seem to even entertain the possibility that the three-year-old may have headed toward the street he did canvassing on queen street too because that was my concern and the police hadn't done anything on queen street police did in canvas on queen street don't think i don't think anybody we talked to said they've never been approached there's only two ways that boy could have gone you go back to queen street six months later and interview people along there prime areas of where he would have been potentially yeah and the people tell you they've never been spoken to by police that's what they told us you must have been [Music] shocked yeah i mean shocked or not surprised i mean that you know if you don't have a good team and that's all they do is go and knock on doors for the next two or six hours right then you know it could be it could have been a manpower thing dave warrell says police had initially agreed to meet him about the case but that meeting was abruptly called off what do you think was behind them canceling this meeting with you um i did you know all along there's i think there's been friction between jason and the police that tension peaked after jason organized this protest that ended up in the lobby of police headquarters here is currently route to the covert regulations ravine has to leave jason had for months been bombarding police with emails and online allegations that they weren't doing their job he filed two separate complaints into the way truro police were handling the investigation and became so alienating that police cut off all in-person contact with him citing his abusive emails voicemails social media posts and misinformation about his son's disappearance when i made my police complaint um chief mcneil called me and said you've slowed down your son's investigation you're not to talk to lead investigator and you're to get one email a week because you filed a complaint i was instantly angry what do you mean that's going to slow down my son's investigation because i think you guys did something wrong you know at the end of the day it doesn't matter what they think about us the child's missing who gives a [ __ ] about us do you think the police are punishing jason for speaking out against the way this investigation has been conducted yes you know i i understand that maybe they don't like the little rock in their shoe but this is kind of too bad it's it's our sun and i can't imagine they would act any differently if they were in our shoes coming up i wasn't allowed to be part of it a family torn apart by tragedy god that's got to hurt yup when w5 continues in the absence of facts conspiracy thrives the mystery of what happened to three-year-old dylan ehler who vanished in truro nova scotia has triggered some wild theories but one aspect has not been fully explored until now the police and search and rescue response to the tragedy [Music] on the one-year anniversary of dylan eeler's disappearance in truro nova scotia his mother ashley and father jason held a small ceremony on the bank of the leper brook where's dylan it's been 365 days without them it's hard to believe it's been a year already we made little paper boats for dylan we decorated them and we sent them floating down the save a river and i thought maybe that's something that he would like and [Music] it was hard but you know i like seeing the support and having other people come and join in too but not everyone was welcome at the one year anniversary of the memorial that was held down here everyone was all around the water and you were way back not a part of it i wasn't allowed to be part of it because you're seen as the person who's responsible for this yeah god that's got to hurt yup it does it won't be the same ever again probably the family has been ripped apart but on one topic they are united their belief that police bungled the case we're very confident in our investigation it was very thorough you know there was no stone left unturned dave mcneil is the chief of the truro police department he sat down with w5 for a wide-ranging interview about the critical hours after dylan vanished why was an amber alert not issued when dylan disappeared so an amber alert's only reserved for when there's a confirmed criminality there's a very strict criteria that's used in issuing an amber alert so this case didn't rise to that you're saying that there has to be proof of criminality before an ambulance there has to be evidence of criminality or an abduction or something of that nature amber alerts are used for only a very small percentage of cases and they're reserved for very specific cases and so what's called a non-intrusive public alert was sent out by the province's emo the emergency management office but not until 4 32 pm dylan was reported missing to police at 1 24. why would there be a delay of more than three hours before the public is alerted that a three-year-old boy is missing well the public was alerted they just the the unintrusive alert took some time to get out through emo and that's outside of our control that's with emo but the emo couldn't send out its alert until directed to do so by police the emo tells w5 they received the approved message from toro police about the missing child at 4 13 pm 19 minutes later at 4 32 the alert went out that means it took police 2 hours and 49 minutes to relay information to the emergency office that a three-year-old was missing you feel confident that the public was alerted quickly enough that this boy had disappeared absolutely local radio our local facebook pages town of churro website tanner churro facebook page police service facebook page it's a small community so those those networks are actually more effective locally than another type of alert so those were done uh very shortly after we established that the young father was missing so a a press release was sent out to all those agencies saying that i'm not i don't think a press release formal but definitely messaging on a phone call to radio and social media pages for sure in fact there is no record of any alerts or advisories on the truro police or town facebook pages on may 6 2020 the day dillon disappeared the town twitter account did tweet out dylan's disappearance within an hour there were questions online about why a public alert wasn't being issued clearly like time is of the essence in a disappearance especially of a three-year-old for sure you know that there's water around there you know that there's a busy street it seems like there was some delay in taking this seriously i'll be uh absolutely clear with you there was no hesitation police were there within five minutes of the call supervisor was there within eight to ten minutes of the call canine was there on scene within 40 minutes of the call ground search and rescue was put on standby within an hour helicopter was on scene very quickly so all the moving parts happened and it was taken very serious so i'm kind of offended that you would insinuate that we didn't take it serious because i can tell you we did [Music] here is the timeline at 1 24 pm police received the 911 call search and rescue didn't have boots on the ground until 3 45 2 hours and 21 minutes after dylan was reported missing we know what we have to do our members are trained tom fitzpatrick is president of the colchester ground search and rescue team he was in charge of the search for dylan as an outsider looking in when you see that at 1 30ish a three-year-old boy disappears and that it takes hours to get the most important people you guys out there that feels like a long time it does it does and it's and it's normal it is very much a norm we're not allowed to activate ourselves we have to be activated by a police force so why do you think police took so long to activate you they were managing the scene from what we can tell would the odds of finding dylan have been better had you guys been out there faster i would say no but could we been on the ground faster yes we could have been we could have been on the ground faster but the outcome of it i don't think would have been any different chief mcneil denies complaints that the disappearance wasn't treated as a potential crime and says the neighborhood was thoroughly canvassed after dylan disappeared jason's official complaint triggered a review of the police investigation by a neighboring police chief amherst chief dwayne pike writes that he conducted a complete review of the truro file and concludes sadly not all investigations come to a successful conclusion but by no means does that mean that the investigating agency was negligent or unprofessional a big part of your mission as chief of police is community engagement correct how would you describe the engagement that you've had with jason with mr wheeler himself obviously our heart breaks for jason he wears his emotions on his sleeve and i think he lashes out a little bit uh because he's hurting so we've we've given jason a very wide courtesy however when we update the family if it's disruptive to have someone there that's disrupting the meeting or taping the conversations secretly and then putting bits and pieces online to create a narrative that's not productive to the investigation it's not productive to the family healing we would love nothing more than to find dylan healthy and alive or you know recovered dale and forrest family this has been hard on everybody i feel for the family and it's been tough on the community [Music] coming up if there's anything absolutely anything that shows up we'd be back on the search without a trace hope fades for a broken family how can you even say that if you have no proof when w5 continues the bay of fundy is one of the seven wonders of north america it has a phenomenon known as a tidal war twice a day the leading edge of the powerful tide creates a standing wave of water that travels upstream changing the direction of the current and extending the bay of fundy's tides into the extensive network of nearby rivers and streams the bay of fundy is known for the highest tides in the world you can go out there on low tide and you can see miles and miles of mud flats you'll see a fishing boat sitting on the bottom and come back at high tide that fishing boat's now 50 feet higher in the water tom fitzpatrick is president of the colchester ground search and rescue team in charge of the search operation one of the biggest questions that we had in our minds that we really wanted to know was could he reach the influence of the tidal waters so what we wanted to know is first of all could a mannequin of that that those those parameters reach that and that was one of the big questions we had and what did you find we found it could breach it and i mean this is two weeks afterwards the mannequin did get caught up in debris along the way as jason has said but tom maintains it did eventually make its way to the bay of fundy despite the fact that on the day of the test the water was half a meter lower than the day dylan disappeared prior to dylan going missing we had two days of heavy rain so leopard brook uh on that day um was overflowing its banks how high up would it have been i would say it would have been for myself almost chest high height in some spots so up to here yeah grown firemen that are dressed and trained to work in water it was almost sweeping them off their feet and this is three to four hours after the fact that this is happening that it's still almost sweeping them off their feet what you're saying is fast that if he fell in there he was gone very quickly tom believes dylan was drawn to the raging water we take a profile for a three-year-old child missing all right some of the things we look at is what we call as a reflector things that would attract them and one of the things that would attract a three-year-old child is water it was rushing so loud you could actually hear it rushing it was so loud what i can't wrap my head around is if the boots didn't go out to the bay of fundy why do you believe that dylan did because of his size and his weight his size and his weight he would have pushed small objects away he would push small objects away where the boots got caught up actually in debris along the sides and in the water jason's vocal online and in-person criticism of the way the search was conducted has left deep wounds i have a three-year-old grandson so it's a challenge we put a lot of hours a lot of hours the members put a lot of hours ridicule and criticism on our members and that stuff that we've received has been unjustified and we feel with the family but the family's got to realize that we've done what we can do if there's anything absolutely anything that shows up we'd be back on the search when you look back at the way this investigation was handled is there anything that you would do differently no not from an investigative standpoint or a resource standpoint or calling in specialists or anything unfortunately it doesn't have the desired outcome that we want or the family wants but we're still working and we're still we're not going to give up on it ellen the lure of the water the swollen brook that feeds into rivers connected to the highest tides in the world police and search and rescue say the most likely answer to what happened to dylan ehler lies in the waters that lead to the bay of fundy it's not a theory jason or ashley are quite willing to accept you know i still have that hope that you know someday you know maybe somebody's taking care of him and maybe someday you know he can come home because it has happened some people might say jason that you're just grasping at straws that you are just looking for answers that aren't there and that the reality is dylan fell into that brook and was swept out to sea prove it that's what i'd say prove that to me how can you even say that if you have no proof you found a pair of boots someone could have tossed in off two different brittle off the train bridge or the road and so jason relentlessly continues to search two sometimes three times a week with an ever-shrinking team of volunteers scouring for something anything that might give him the proof he needs to solve the mystery of what happened to his son and this is this mental torture that you're going through every day when you're out there doing those searches it's this split right i mean you want to find him so badly but you don't want to find him i don't want to find him at the same time because then that means he's he's gone and that might end me i don't think i have anything left once that that's the they will come i don't think i have anything left in this world i have to find him either way i'm never going to stop he's my only child it's my everything while jason vows to never give up searching this tragedy has sparked a demand to change the alert system in nova scotia especially when a child goes missing we have details of a petition that's been launched in dylan's name on our website w5.ctvnews.ca [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Official W5

Views: 1,719,154

Keywords: W5, missing children, search and rescue, Bay of Fundy, Truro, Nova Scotia, Dylan Ehler, disappearance, mystery

Id: ckNbyFqvb1k

Length: 44min 15sec (2655 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 21 2021