had insisted on going instead, it was Sharon’s belief that Maria was extremely unlikely to leave the apartment for any length of time. It was the place where Maria had lived so long with her son, B.J. Sharon told him that Maria had a strong sentimental attachment to her son’s possessions that were stored there. Stored, Cummings knew, was hardly the operative word. B.J.’s bedroom had remained essentially unchanged from when he had last slept there, except that Maria had turned the room into a shrine for her lost child by adding items including candles, flowers and a memorial Bible given to the couple at B.J.’s funeral.
Sharon also shared another reason why she doubted that Maria would be likely to go away without telling anyone. She said Maria was very excited because Sharon’s daughter, Angela, was expecting twins and Maria was going to be the godmother. Sharon said that Maria’s close attachment to Angela—although Maria was Angela’s aunt, after B.J.’s death the two of them had become more like sisters—and Maria’s concern about Angela’s difficult pregnancy meant that Maria would be unlikely to leave without telling someone or to stay out of touch for any length of time. Sharon also reported that David and Maria had stood up with Angela at her wedding down in Fredericton, and upon their return, Maria had said that she didn’t like being away from home and she was done with traveling.
Following their conversation on the morning of the 27th, Detective Cummings called David again that afternoon to see if there had been any word from Maria. He couldn’t reach David, so he left a message confirming that they would meet the following day for an interview. While he waited to interview David, he continued to speak with many people who knew the couple. The nature of the information coming in, and David’s unavailability, created an increasing sense of urgency.
After his visit to Sharon Carroll, Cummings went to speak with Maria’s best friend, Darlene Gertley. Darlene and Maria had been close friends since becoming neighbors in 1998. They called each other “girlfriend” and normally either saw each other or spoke on the phone daily. There was even a chair in Dave and Maria’s living room nicknamed “girlfriend’s chair” which was where Darlene sat when she was visiting.
In the Fall of 1997, Darlene had moved to Miramichi from Prince Edward Island with her husband, who was a chef. Her husband worked long hours. She was pregnant and isolated, living in a new province and desperately lonely. Darlene and her husband rented an apartment next door to Maria.
“I used to look over, when I put my dog out, and I’d see this brown-haired lady tossing a bone to my dog,” Darlene said. “And I was lonely and I used to think, ‘Gosh, I wish you’d toss me a bone someday.’ Then, after I gave birth to my son, when he was about six weeks old, I decided to take a walk down to the store on the corner, and I took my son in the stroller, and I walked down and I walked past their house and she said hi and I said hi and I looked down and didn’t say anything more ’cause I’m really quite shy, and I was pushing the stroller up onto the porch and I dropped the baby’s blanket and didn’t notice that I’d done it, and I was unlocking the door and there she was with the blanket.
“From that day on, we became friends—would you like to go for coffee, let’s go for a walk, you know. She was beautiful. She was thoughtful. She had a large heart. She loved her husband. She loved her son. She loved me as a friend. At that point, I had lost my twin brother. I’d lost him in a car accident, and Maria knew I needed friendship and someone to talk to. I’d moved to a French place, and I spoke only English. I was shy and housebound. Maria was the only real friend I had, and she was constant.”
By the time she spoke with the detective, Darlene had become deeply concerned about Maria’s well-being and had become convinced by David’s behavior and his responses to her inquiries about Maria’s whereabouts that something awful had happened to her dear friend. She had already shared those concerns in phone calls to Maria’s sister, Sharon, and to Maria’s ex-sister-in-law, Cindy Richardson, neither of whom initially shared her anxiety. Now, relieved that she finally had someone to share her concerns about Maria’s absence with, she spoke very frankly with Cummings. She told the detective that she was deeply worried about her friend and had been for many days. As the days progressed, she had been making increasingly anxious phone calls to David and to Maria’s friends about Maria’s long absence. Then she shared the chronology of her last contacts with Maria.
She had been in Prince Edward Island (PEI) from January 10th to the 13th, visiting her terminally-ill mother, and she had borrowed money from Maria for a rental car to make the trip. She said Maria’s relationship with David had been deteriorating recently because of David’s increasing drug use. Because Maria was so very depressed and constantly anxious about her failing marital situation, Darlene had urged Maria to come on the trip with her and get a change of scenery. Maria had declined, saying she didn’t want to leave her house or David, because she was concerned about David’s drug use and thought she ought to be there in case he needed her.
On the day Darlene returned, January 13, she had stopped by Maria’s at around 6:30 in the evening. David and Maria were both home and Maria was in her pajamas. On the 14th, Darlene had been next door visiting Maria’s neighbors, and decided to drop in to see Maria. Maria was fine, but David was on the couch with one of his migraine headaches. There was tension in the air and it appeared that the couple was not getting along, so Darlene left.
Darlene told the detective that Maria had been quite depressed for about a month, because she felt that her relationship with David was worsening. David had been getting more deeply into drugs, they had been fighting about his absences and the money he was spending and Maria was doing everything in her power to stop him. Darlene explained that Maria had long believed that because she’d been able to kick her own drug habit through willpower, David could do the same with her help. Her lack of success was sapping her energy and she rarely left the apartment.
Darlene said that she had returned the following day, January 15, for coffee with Maria, at which time the two of them made plans for a shopping trip on the 17th to return some unwanted Christmas gifts. That evening, Maria was complaining about a sore thumb, the result of a scuffle she’d had with David over money the night before. On leaving, Darlene gave her a kiss and hug and promised to repay the money she owed when they got together on the 17th.
The following day, January 16, when Darlene stopped by to visit Maria, David answered the door. He told her Maria wasn’t home and that she’d gone to a christening with Pauline and Sandy. David’s statement puzzled Darlene. Maria had not mentioned attending any christening when they were together the previous day, though it was something Maria would normally have shared, and Darlene thought she knew Maria’s friends and didn’t know of anyone named Pauline or Sandy. At his request, she gave David a ride to his friend Donnie Trevors’s house.
On the 17th, when they were scheduled to go shopping together, Darlene called Maria several times to make arrangements but got no answer. She left messages and when they weren’t returned she went to the house but found there was no one home. She continued to telephone her friend or visit Maria’s house daily, but Darlene’s calls weren’t answered and she never found Maria at home.
The interviews by Constable Seeley and Detectives Cummings and Dewey Gillespie in the days after David reported Maria missing produced numerous other dates and stories about Maria’s schedule and the time of her departure. They also produced some disturbing revelations about David’s behavior regarding Maria’s property in the two-week interval between the date Maria allegedly left for Saint John and the date when her husband reported her missing. The Miramichi detectives hoped that the information they would learn from David’s interview would explain the discrepancies and finally give them a set of hard facts to go on in their search for Maria Tanasichuk.
To improve their chances of locating Maria, at the same time that they were interviewing witnesses and trying to obtain a detailed statement from David, the Miramichi police sent Maria’s description and what details
