Edgar Latulip went missing after Labor Day in Canada in 1986. According to the missing person’s report, the 21-year-old developmentally-disabled man walked out of his group home in Kitchener, Ontario, without his medication and vanished without a trace. Latulip was said to have the mental capacity of a 12-year-old and he had a history of trying to kill himself. Thirty-years later, a man living in St. Catharines stated that he thought his real name was Edgar Latulip. Philip Gavin, a constable for the Niagra Regional Police force could not believe it. To him, this stuff only happens in fiction.
“I’ve been a police officer for 18 years and this is something I’ve seen on TV but never been a part of. Absolutely, this is quite a rare one.”
Edgar Latulip has been missing since 1986 – Recently he remembered his original identity. https://t.co/tzsbIannGg pic.twitter.com/dyBbjFF6Kv
— Simon Ostler (@SimonOstler) February 11, 2016
Constable Gavin began to tell the story of Edgar Latulip and what happened on the day that he disappeared from Kitchener.
“He didn’t have a home at the time. And in and around that time he suffered a fall that resulted in a head injury. That head injury left him lacking memory and his identity.”
Edgar had a bus ticket and was traveling to Niagra Falls. He did not have anything with him except the clothes on his back. During the investigation into his disappearance, police believed that Latulip had gone to Niagra Falls to try to kill himself again. At some point, Edgar hit his head and developed amnesia. He found his way to St. Catharines where he continued living his life under a different name. Latulip’s mother, Silvia Wilson, did not think her son had succeeded in killing himself. Silvia believed that Edgar had met with foul play. Wilson was interviewed by the Waterloo Region Record in 2014 about missing people. The conversation ended up on Edgar.
“When Edgar disappeared, I became quite sick. I had to take a leave of absence from work. I was near a nervous breakdown.”
It was not until January of this year before the cold case of Edgar Latulip would heat up. Edgar approached his social worker with the idea that he thought he remembered his name being Edgar Latulip. Instead of dismissing his claim, the social worker searched online and discovered that the name Edgar Latulip was flagged as a missing person. Local police were brought in and during their interview “he was able to talk about more pieces” of his past that were finally coming back to him. A DNA sample was taken and the case was solved.
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According to Constable Gavin, Edgar is “trying to grasp that after 30 years you realize you’re somebody else.” A spokesperson for the Waterloo Regional Police, Alana Holtom, was the person who was able to give Edgar’s mother the miraculous news. Holtom spoke about the conversation that she had with Silvia Wilson.
“They are planning to reunite. You kind of want to see this storybook reuniting thing, but I think they are going to be handling it privately.
“I’m sure she’s very overwhelmed. She expressed her worry over all this time. So for it to come to this conclusion is remarkable.”
For 30 years, Edgar Latulip stayed under the radar. Today, vanishing without a trace is much more difficult to do simply because of how much of a trace people leave in cyberspace. Holtom commented about how times have changed due to the internet.
“Nowadays as soon as we have a missing person we tweet the photo and any information we have out instantly.”
What do you think caused Edgar to finally remember his past life?
[Image Via North American Missing Persons Network]
