Cold Case of Cousins Last Seen in Owen Sound and Wiarton Revisited in New OPP Report
Shawn and Leslie Jones, cousins from Neyaashiinigmiing last seen in Owen Sound and Wiarton in 1993, appear in the OPP's updated MUMIP report.
The 1993 disappearance of two teenage cousins from the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation has been revisited in a new Ontario Provincial Police report on missing and unsolved murdered Indigenous people.
Shawn Steven Lee Jones, 14, and Leslie Dwayne Jones, 15, are among 65 cases included in the second edition of the OPP’s Missing and Unsolved Murdered Indigenous People (MUMIP) report, released this month. The report is the first update since the original was published in 2015.
According to the OPP, the cousins were dropped off in the downtown area of Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation — then known as Cape Croker — on October 24, 1993, after hitchhiking from the community.
Between October 26 and 28, Leslie was seen at a coffee shop in Owen Sound with another male matching Shawn’s description. Shawn was last seen in front of a hotel on Berford Street in Wiarton. Leslie was last seen in front of a coffee shop on 9th Street East in Owen Sound. Neither has been seen since.
The report does not disclose what steps have been taken in the years since, or whether any persons of interest have been identified.
The OPP has not disclosed whether forensic genetic genealogy — a technique the force says it has applied to more than 36 cold cases through its Historic Homicide Unit — has been used in the Jones investigation, saying only that various techniques have been “explored.”
When contacted by Owen Sound Current, an OPP spokesperson responded:
“The Ontario Provincial Police’s (OPP) Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) continues to actively investigate this case.
CIB investigators have explored all DNA and forensic investigative techniques. To protect the integrity of the ongoing investigation, we cannot speak to specific details surrounding tips received.
What we can say is that the OPP takes all tips very seriously. ”
The Jones cousins are the only individuals in the 48-page report whose case descriptions place them in Grey or Bruce counties or connect them to Saugeen Ojibway Nation or the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation.
The report notes, however, that it includes only cases where families have consented to publication, and that community affiliation is not consistently identified in case summaries. Other individuals with ties to the area may exist in OPP files but fall outside the report’s scope.
Background: a stolen car, a crash, and a police chase
The MUMIP report’s brief summary leaves out key details that have been reported elsewhere over the past three decades.
According to a 2018 interview Lynette Jones, Shawn’s mother, gave to the Parry Sound North Star, Shawn left the family home in Neyaashiinigmiing alone on the evening of October 22, 1993, intending to find a ride to a high school dance in nearby Lion’s Head. Lynette gave him money before he left.
When she woke the next morning, Shawn was gone — along with $500 she had set aside for his hockey registration and her mother’s car. The car was later found crashed in Lion’s Head.
Lynette told the North Star that police told her the driver had been bleeding, though she did not see the vehicle herself.
Leslie, a distant cousin, had been staying with the family for two weeks before the disappearance. Lynette told the North Star that she had told her son Leslie would need to leave, as neither boy was attending school and the Children’s Aid Society was preparing to remove her other children from the home.
In a public statement marking the 31st anniversary of the disappearance in October 2024, Grey Bruce OPP confirmed the broad outlines of that account, saying the boys “had stolen their grandmother’s car and were thought to be heading to a dance in Lion’s Head, but they crashed the car and it’s believed they fled,” as reported by 560 CFOS and Bayshore Broadcasting.
Lynette told the North Star that police chased the boys in Wiarton on or around October 26, 1993 — a sighting she described as the last confirmed trace of either cousin.
She told the paper she searched for Shawn for two years on the streets of Toronto and travelled to Winnipeg to look for him.
“It’s been like a nightmare, not knowing,” she told CTV News in 2021. “You can accept death, but not knowing is worse than death. I really want to know what happened to my son.”
Local volunteer investigators have worked the case
The Owen Sound-based volunteer organization Please Bring Me Home, founded in 2018, has been actively investigating the cousins’ disappearance.
In July 2021, the group announced an anonymous $10,000 reward for information in the case. Private investigator Brian Follis, working with Please Bring Me Home and the family, told CTV News that a new lead had emerged: a red canoe that went missing the same night the cousins disappeared and was later found overturned in the area between Lion’s Head and Earl’s Bay.
Follis and Please Bring Me Home co-founder Nick Oldrieve also told CTV they were attempting to locate the crashed vehicle itself by canvassing Grey-Bruce auto wreckers for any trace of evidence.
In August 2024, Please Bring Me Home held an awareness walk in the Ferndale area to mark the cousins’ continued absence, according to 560 CFOS.
Information about the case is available on the Please Bring Me Home website at pleasebringmehome.com.
About the MUMIP Report
The MUMIP report’s second edition profiles 65 investigations dating from 1956 to 2024. Of those, 59 met the OPP’s criteria for inclusion: cases within OPP jurisdiction or where OPP assistance was requested, where the victim was identified or self-identified as Indigenous, and where next of kin consented to publication.
The OPP says 14 of the 59 cases involve Indigenous women and girls — five missing, eight homicides, and one suspicious death. The remaining 45 involve Indigenous men and boys — 39 missing, five homicides, and one suspicious death.
The report was prepared by the OPP’s Criminal Investigation Branch and the Indigenous Policing Bureau’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) Team. The first edition was released in 2015, before the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls began. The inquiry’s 2019 final report issued 231 Calls for Justice directed at governments, police services, and the Canadian public.
In a statement accompanying the release, OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique said the force remains “hopeful that someone holds the missing piece of the puzzle.” Ontario Regional Chief Abram Benedict of the Chiefs of Ontario acknowledged progress over the past decade but said “much work remains to advance investigations and to support families of those who have gone missing or been murdered.”
The OPP has not released figures on how many cases from the 2015 edition have been resolved in the decade since, nor has it indicated how the Jones investigation has progressed during that period.
Owen Sound Current reached out to the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation for comment. This story will be updated if responses are received.
How to share information
Anyone with information about the Jones investigation, or any case in the MUMIP report, can contact the Ontario Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at 1-877-934-6363. Tips can be submitted anonymously through Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or ontariocrimestoppers.ca.
The Hope for Wellness Helpline offers culturally informed counselling to Indigenous people 24 hours a day at 1-855-242-3310, with online chat available at hopeforwellness.ca. Support is offered in English, French, Cree, Anishinaabemowin, and Inuktitut.
The full report is available at opp.ca/mumip.
Sources:
Missing and Unsolved Murdered Indigenous People (MUMIP) report, Ontario Provincial Police
COLD CASE: Still missing, Shawn Jones left Lion’s Head school dance 24 years ago, ParrySound.com
OPP Marks 31 Years Since Neyaashiinigmiing Cousins Disappeared, 89.3 CFOS FM
Shawn and Leslie Jones case summary, Please Bring Me Home
Walk Down Highway 6 For Boys Who Went Missing In 1993, Mix 1065.ca