The Disappearance of Emma Fillipoff.

Let's take a look into Emma Fillipoff's disappearance. Emma, a 26-year-old woman living in Victoria, British Columbia sadly vanished on November 28th, 2012. Emma, a trained chef, was originally from Perth, Ontario, relocated to Victoria, B.C. in 2011 for work. She briefly worked at the Red Fish Blue Fish, a seafood restaurant on the Inner Harbour in Victoria,B.C., but since the work was seasonal, the job ended on October 31st, 2012. Emma had promised her coworkers that she would return in the spring of 2013.

Police believe Emma was preparing to move back to Ontario. She called a tow truck to tow her 1993 Mazda MPV from Sooke to the Chateau Victoria parking garage on November 21st. Emma had been staying at the Sandy Merriman House, a women's shelter on and off. Despite the fact that reports claim she had enough money in her bank account to cover rent. Her family didn’t know that she was staying at the women’s shelter. On November 23rd, Emma was seen repeatedly entering and exiting the Victoria YMCA as if she was trying to dodge someone outside.

Emma kept a diary, but nothing in Emma's diary suggested that she was being followed or harassed during her time in Victoria. It did suggest that in the days leading up to her disappearance, she might have been depressed but not suicidal.

In the days before Emma’s disappearance she called her mother Shelley in Ontario several times. During one of the phone calls she asked her mother if she could come home. At first she asked her mother to come to Victoria, B.C. and then told her mother not to come to Victoria,B.C. It was during one of the calls that Emma's mother learned that Emma had been staying at the women's shelter. Despite Emma's request that her mother stay home, her mother made arrangements to fly out to Victoria, B.C. The last thing Emma said to her mother was, "I don't know how I can face you." Her mother arrived at Sandy Merriman House at 11:00 p.m. on November 28th, about 3 hours after Emma had been last seen.

Emma can be seen on CCTV from a 7-Eleven on Government Street in the morning of November 28th. She went to the 7-Eleven to buy a prepaid cell phone; footage shows her hesitating to walk out of the store and she kept checking the street but eventually she left the 7-Eleven. She later returned to the 7-Eleven to buy a $200 prepaid card. It’s believed that Emma left Sandy Merriman House around 6:00 p.m. on November 28th. Shortly after she left the shelter, she hailed a cab to Victoria International Airport. Despite having a $200 prepaid card, she got out of the taxi because of a lack of sufficient funds.

Emma was seen in front of the Empress Hotel by witness Dennis Quay, who happens to be an acquaintance of Emma. He saw her shortly after she got out of the taxi. She appeared confused when he saw her. She was standing at a crosswalk and refused to cross the street. He asked her about her health and whether someone was watching or following her. Emma told him she was fine. Unsure of what to do, Dennis went into a nearby restaurant and called 9-1-1, to report a woman pacing in front of the Empress Hotel, confused and troubled. He expected that the cops would come and take Emma to a safe place.

Victoria Police arrived, they asked Emma's name and spoke with her for 45 minutes. They determined that she posed no threat to either herself or anyone else and let her go. Police met with Emma’s mother at Sandy Merriman House later that evening, by midnight she was classified as a missing person.

More than 200 leads were investigated, but little information was found. The majority of evidence suggested she was planning to go home to Ontario, but there’s no proof that she ever left Victoria, B.C. Unfortunately, she never activated the prepaid phone she purchased. It could’ve been used to track her. One of the last individuals to see her, Dennis Quay, took a polygraph test and passed.

On November 29, investigators found her red 1993 Mazda MPV parked in the Chateau Victoria parking garage. Some of Emma’s belongings, including her laptop, books from the library, her passport, and her library card were found in her car. On the side of a road north of where Emma vanished, next to the Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre, Emma's credit card was found. A stranger used it to buy cigarettes.

It's pure coincidence, according to a man who was interested in Emma when she resided in Ontario, that he moved to Victoria at the same time as Emma. Police found no reason to suspect him.

Joel and Lori Sellen, owners of a store in the Gastown neighborhood of Vancouver ,B.C., said that a guy entered their business in 2014 and threw out a missing persons poster with a $25,000 reward for information leading to Emma, telling them that Emma was not missing and was in fact his girlfriend. He said she despises her parents, so she fled. The store's surveillance cameras captured the man, but he has never been identified.

A witness, called William, came forward in the summer of 2018 with fresh details. While driving to work on November 29th he saw a woman fitting Emma’s description. The woman seemed afraid of something. William offered to give Emma a ride, she got in the car. Emma asked for a ride to her friend’s place in Colwood, B.C. Since William was running late for work he offered to take Emma closer to Colwood, B.C. At 5:15 a.m. William dropped Emma off near a Petro Canada gas station at the intersection of Craigflower Rd and Admirals Rd in Victoria, B.C.. In December 2018, a search of the View Royal area was organized as a result of the report. There were no new leads found throughout the search.

On November 29th, 2021, police released additional images of Emma and the art she made. They hoped this would create new leads.

In November 2022 in an effort to find further leads, authorities shared an age-progressed image of Emma.

Also in November 2022 a trailer for a docuseries created by Emma’s mother Shelley and director and producer Kimberly Bordage, called “Barefoot in the Night: The Search for Emma Fillipoff”, was released.

There are some contradictions in Emma’s case, like supposedly she had money for rent, but was staying in a shelter at the time of her disappearance. She got in and out of a cab because she didn’t have the money to pay for it, but she had bought a $200 prepaid card the morning of her disappearance.

As of 2023, Emma’s been missing for more than 10 years, it’s unknown if she’s still alive.