Nicholas Marion Part 1: Beneath the Surface
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When I found out how the disappearance happened, I knew Nick so well. Intuitively, instinctively, I said, this is not right. Something is not right about this. I'm the kind of guy that I like nature. I'm the kind of guy that might go walk off into the mountains. Nick was not that kind of guy.

They set up a search team, SARS, right away, within a day, I believe. There were several people that said that they thought they saw him, but everything was debunked, basically. Every sighting was proven not to be him. But there's something that's just not sitting right about the whole story.

around 6:30 a.m. on June 30th, 2024. It's been said that 38-year-old Nicholas Marion left a property he was visiting in Yubo, British Columbia to go for a walk. However, Nick never returned, and he left his phone behind, making it impossible to contact him.

Nick and his wife Dory had traveled to Yubo, a small community nestled along the shores of Lake Cowichan on Vancouver Island. Their plan was to attend a music festival. What was meant to be a weekend of fun soon turned into a nightmare when Nick vanished without a trace.

Once Nick's family, who live in the U.S., learned of his disappearance, they quickly made plans to travel to the area to assist with the search. As search efforts ensued, which lasted for days, they found no signs of Nick except for a shirt. Several eyewitnesses reported possible sightings of Nick, but none of these have been definitively confirmed.

Nearly nine months later, the search continues, with Nick's family desperately seeking any clues that might help them find him and shed light on what happened to Nick. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 480 of The Vanished, part one of Nicholas Marion's story, Beneath the Surface.

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In late June 2024, 38-year-old Nicholas Marion and his wife Dory traveled to Yubo, British Columbia, to attend the Lake Town Shakedown Festival, a three-day event showcasing a variety of well-known artists. Held annually at Lake Town Ranch in Lake Cowichan, the 2024 festival took place from June 28th to June 30th.

and featured a diverse lineup of performers. Headlining the event was iconic pop star Gwen Stefani, with Busta Rhymes and several other artists taking the stage. The festival kicked off on Friday, June 28, but by Sunday, Nick had disappeared.

We spoke to Nick's aunt Marilyn and his sister Nicole, who also goes by Cola. Cola was back home in the U.S. when she received a call from Nick's wife Dory saying something was terribly wrong. Marilyn and Cola told us what they know of that trip and that call that changed everything.

He didn't want to go, but thinking, oh, this will make you feel better. We're going to go. So they leave. It's about an hour and a half from Victoria. And he's never been to this location ever.

She has. The person they rented this camper from owns a little coffee shop, breakfast nook. It's like the only little restaurant diner in town. You catch it right before you go into this desolate area of just woods, water, mountains. Where they were staying is you have to drive quite a bit.

They got there Thursday night. Cola got the first phone call. It was Sunday afternoon. Dory called me and she said, I don't want to freak you out, but Nick left this morning and he hasn't come back. To keep in mind, Nick has left before with a previous partner, but he'd be gone a

A day or two. I was more worried because I hadn't heard from him. And when she told me, my hope was that he just ran away, to be honest. And by the time it started getting night over there and he hadn't returned yet, and I was trying to figure out, where are you guys? And there's woods and stuff. Finding out that he just walked in the woods and it's getting night, I know my brother would not hang out in the woods at night.

We are city people. We never even went camping as kids. So I knew I need to book a flight and I need to get out there. That Sunday evening, I booked a flight to fly out Monday, the next day, so I could get over to Canada. When I got out there and it got dark, I looked around and I was like, there is no way in hell my brother would be out here at night just hanging out in the woods.

Once Nick's family learned that he was missing, several family members made the trip to Yubo to aid in the search efforts for Nick. Nick's dad, Carl, told us more.

They were actually visiting a festival when he disappeared, a festival that included a number of performing artists, one being Busta Rhymes, which is what motivated Nick to go. As Dory tells the story, he didn't really want to go. He wasn't feeling well. I came to Canada and I drove from their home to where the festival was. So it's about a two-hour drive.

They got there on a Thursday, and he disappeared Sunday morning. They were staying on the property of one of Dory's friends that had a trailer on site that they were staying in. That's about 20 to 30 minutes away from where the federal grounds were. But he disappeared from the trailer that they were residing in for that weekend. Apparently, Nick woke up at 6 o'clock in the morning on that Sunday and then said he was going for a walk.

He just never returned. No phone, no wallet or anything. It's very remote. I mean, there's campsites and stuff around, but I mean, the particular area is far out there, I guess. I mean, it's just a little island. So, I mean, he definitely could have walked a mile or so to get to where there were phones and civilization, if you will.

Nick's wife said that he had left for a walk around 6.30 a.m. on the morning of June 30th, leaving behind his phone and wallet. Nick never returned to the property where they were staying. In the days that followed, Nick's family began arriving in Canada to join the search, and they said that the search efforts went on for days. They were chasing down suspected sightings, but nothing ever led them to finding Nick.

Before we delve too deeply into the circumstances of Nick's disappearance, we want to turn back the clock and take a closer look at Nick's life. At the time of his disappearance, Nick was living with his wife Dory in Victoria, British Columbia, but he had spent most of his life in Florida. Cola shared more about their family and Nick's early life growing up in the Orlando area.

Thanks for having me.

Nick, he liked sports a lot, playing outside, football. He also took dance ever since he was a kid. He was a very good dancer. He danced for Walt Disney World during the holidays in front of the castle. My younger brother is 10 years younger than me and 14 years younger than Nick. But we were a very, very close family. We did a lot of things together. We didn't have a ton of money growing up, but we made it by and whenever we had hard times,

We spent those times together getting through it. So my mom was very big on family love and events. Even our extended family in the area of Orlando, we would get together for football games every weekend. Of course, all the holidays and stuff. So it's a very big family. Nick himself, he loves Jordans. I think when he left, he was wearing a pair of Jordans. But every Saturday growing up when the new Jordans were released, he'd be at the edge of my parents' bed. They

And

Any room he walked into, just very vibrant personality, very big and very supportive. His humor was never insulting to people. It was playful, teasing, and it was very much encouraging. I know in my life, both my mom and my brother have been my biggest supporters just for my dreams and my goals.

Nick was the kind of person who left a lasting impression on everyone he met. Vibrant, talented, and full of life, Nick had a way of making those around him feel truly seen. We also spoke to Nick's best friend, Jeremiah, whose family had been closely intertwined with Nick's long before the two were even born. Growing up, Nick and Jeremiah did nearly everything together. Jeremiah shared more about their unique bond.

The origin of our friendship is really interesting. I think it's kind of unique. We were sort of born into our friendship. And what I mean by that is that our families were very close friends. So my mother and my aunt were very close friends with his aunt, Terry. They grew up together.

They went to the same elementary school. They went to the same high school, the same church. I was born a year and some change before Nick. After Nick was born, we were sort of just there together. Reason being was because of the extent of the history that our families had with one another. This was an aunt of his, Aunt Terry, who I really considered an aunt myself, really. They were very close and she had a very big role in his life. However, in terms of our friendship, I mean, it goes all the way back.

Since I ever had consciousness, my awareness of him, he was in my life. We spent weekends together. We spent holidays together, Halloweens, Christmases. We were sort of born into this kind of best friend dynamic. We definitely spent a lot of time together.

We're from a city, Sanford, Florida. Sanford is about 30 miles north of Orlando, so it's in central Florida. I would say it's a very dynamic city. There's a lot of different cultures, a lot of different people. It's a lot of history in the city. I think when we think about Nicholas's personality, he's definitely one of a kind.

very unique, very outgoing, extroverted, although I think he had another side to him. But I think he was very extroverted and the life of the party. He was a performer. He was a dancer. He was used to being on stage. I mean, I have memories of him when we were little kids. He was a huge Michael Jackson fan. And I guess by proxy, I was a Michael Jackson fan too. But I remember being like five years old and he was four years old.

And I was at his house, family gathering of some sort, and he was doing the moonwalk in the living room and dressed like Michael Jackson. I think a lot of times there were a lot of eyes on him. Even at my wedding, he performed kind of a little special dance, a Michael Jackson dance. I think people were pretty captivated. A lot of people that were at my wedding didn't know him. That's how I would describe him. We had a lot of fun together. We would get into a lot of trouble together as little kids.

He was very rambunctious. I was very rambunctious, although he was probably a little bit more rambunctious than I was. In the neighborhoods, we would get into trouble. I mean, all innocent things, but a lot of fun. He was a lot of fun. Everyone we spoke to described Nick as a natural performer with a diverse range of talents. As he got older, Jeremiah explained that Nick's ambitions grew, and he set his sights on using those talents to become an entrepreneur.

I think that he had hopes of performing early into adulthood. I think he wanted to somehow capitalize on his performative abilities. I don't think that ever fully panned out, even though he had some things in childhood where he was on TV shows and commercials and dances and things like that.

I think he was kind of an entrepreneurial type of person. I think that he was interested in real estate. I think he was interested in business. In adulthood, he was striving to kind of manifest some business opportunities. And I know that he had a couple things and I don't know to the extent with which those things panned out. But I think entrepreneurship was really his kind of vision for his career in adulthood.

Earlier in adulthood, Nick was in a long-term relationship and had a son, Jordan. Although the relationship with Jordan's mother eventually ended, Nick remained a devoted father and deeply cherished his bond with his son. When we spoke to Cola and Marilyn, they shared more about this relationship. Jordan was born 2006 and a huge part of his life. He

Amanda is Jordan's mom. Nick and Amanda were married. They lived in Jacksonville for quite a few years. They had a separation, I don't want to say 2014, and Nick was in Texas. And then he went back to Jacksonville and was trying to make it work with Amanda and be with his son. I think they tried to make it work for about a year or

Cola recalls that it was several years ago when Nick met Dory, who would later become his wife. Dory being from Canada was the reason that Nick eventually made the move there, as their relationship progressed.

It was right before the pandemic. So they met in person here and then she went back to Canada. They stayed in contact over the phone, talking here and there. And then she came back to visit him a few months after that. And it was around the pandemic that they actually got together and were dating exclusively. Sidebar, she had a family there, a husband and two kids that she had to, I

I guess, separate from to come back here to be with Nick. I think that caused some turmoil on that end, her end. They came here to visit. It was the first time that his mom and I and the family had met Dory. Then they...

briefly went to California and then to Canada. And that's when Dory and him got married. Right before he went into Canada. So there was no record of Nick entering Canada. Somehow, some way he got into Canada without going through customs or something.

And they were staying in Washington at the time. I'm not sure how it worked, but when we talked to RCMP, they were like, we don't even have record of Nick ever entering into the country. Carl said that from his perspective, the relationship between Nick and Dory appeared to be a great match.

They stayed in the States for a year. They were all over the place. They were in Orlando with his mom for a little while. They came to Texas for a few weeks and hung out with me. They seemed like they really got along good, had similar characteristics. They both liked to talk and they complimented each other. I didn't see any red flags then. And they went back to Florida, went to California, and they were just traveling all over the place.

I guess they had some situation about getting Nick into Canada. So I think that's what kind of prompted him to get married so that he can go over. They just eloped or went to a courthouse. We did research that and found out they were actually married in Washington. It seemed like they were very happy from even postings once they moved to Canada. They were always traveling somewhere, doing something over the weekends and posting on social media.

Like her brother, Cola is also a talented artist, and their shared passion for creativity was something they often bonded over. Though Nick's move to Canada created physical distance between them, Nick and Cola maintained a strong bond and kept in regular contact. Cola opened up about what she knew of Nick's life and the changes he experienced after his big move.

Nick often would call me when he was in Canada and was like, I'm setting things up out here. I've met these producers. Come out here. We're putting together these shows. Come out here. And I would get messages even from people in Canada that were like, hey, I met your brother and we listened to your music. And he always shared everything that I made and did and took the time to listen to it. And before he went missing, he was starting to get into making music himself. He wanted to start making beats and stuff. So he and I were talking about that.

He had a very entrepreneur spirit. So he would work jobs, but it wasn't his main focus. It was kind of more to get by while he was working on businesses that he wanted to build. I know real estate was a big passion of his and he wanted to work on tiny homes. He had an LLC, but essentially he wanted to build a tiny home community for the elderly and people that are close to retiring. It was his most recent business venture.

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Nick's Aunt Marilyn mentioned that Nick and Dory were inseparable, doing everything together, both in their personal and professional endeavors. While their close partnership was evident, Marilyn also alluded to the fact that their bonds seemed almost too tight at times. It was as if Dory's presence in his life began to overshadow some of Nick's independence, as they became more enmeshed in each other's worlds.

They were very isolated, I guess, themselves, if that makes sense. They worked together. What she was doing is what he became. He just kind of mirrored, I guess. I think she was doing some reconstruction of homes type of business, painting or drywall or things like that. So he just kind of morphed into what she was or what she did. And

And I think it became a little bit of, I don't know about control for her because you could never talk to him alone. That was kind of the one complaint that we always had from the beginning. He was on speaker with our conversations and she was giving her input with everything.

everything. Even towards the very end, when I would text him, which I thought was his personal phone, I would get a response and I'd say, this isn't Nick. This isn't the way that we talk. This isn't his response. I knew it was coming from her. After he went missing, she ended up texting me on that number. And I said, please, this is mine and Nick's communication. This is our text thread.

please don't text me on this. She just kind of had control of everything. He was there living under her mom's roof when they first moved there. He had to win her over. It almost erased what he was or who he was when he moved to Canada because it became her.

Kola also observed this dynamic between Nick and Dory. It was evident not only during their phone conversations, but also when she visited Nick in Canada a couple years before his disappearance. During that trip, Kola noticed how closely intertwined their lives had become, with Dory often taking the lead in decisions and interactions.

the dynamic of the relationship. If any of us called Nick, Dory was always on the phone with Nick. Me and my brother would have two hour long conversations, three hour long conversations, and Dory would be there chiming in the whole time. Once Nick was in Canada, I wasn't able to talk to him by himself.

I went to visit my brother in Canada. I think it was about 2022 and stayed with them for about two and a half weeks or so. Like any couple, they bicker, they fight about things. I wouldn't say it was a super peaceful relationship. I think they both have really big personalities and they're very headstrong. I think there was a lot of love between them, but there was also a lot of fighting too. And I was there and it was present.

We reached out to Nick's wife Dory through social media, hoping she would speak with us about their relationship and his disappearance. Unfortunately, she never responded. In 2023, Nick's mom Kelly got sick. Marilyn shared that she and Kelly made a trip to Canada to spend some time with Nick before Kelly's health worsened. While Marilyn cherishes the special memories from that visit, she also observed some of the same dynamics that Cola had mentioned. It

It became clear that Nick seemed increasingly distant from the independent person he once was.

Kelly, his mom, was diagnosed in March 2023. And before she started chemo, I want to say end of April, we flew to Canada because Nick didn't have the opportunity to come here. So we flew out. We stayed maybe four days. They had rented an Airbnb in Vancouver. So they lived in Victoria.

But Kelly wasn't well enough to travel from Vancouver to Victoria at that time. It was smooth. At certain times in Nick's life, he did drink, which was a bit of an issue for him. And he had completely stopped. And it was very obvious how well and how healthy he was at that time. Again, the relationship was kind of in conflict.

odd relationship, a lot of love, but they would talk over each other and just continue each other's sentences. And you would try to get a word in and then they would have another story about how that happened to them. So he again, kind of morphed into her personality. Kelly and I would look at each other, his mom and just go, I'm not sure should we text them what we want to say? Because you can't get

you know, a word in, but he was very healthy, very bright. His smile just lit up the room like Nick always could. It was a very wonderful visit. I said, even at Kelly's funeral, it was the best gift that she received that she got to see him. And in her heart, she knew how well he was doing and he was going to be okay.

It almost felt like when people go on missionary trips and they feel so fulfilled. It wasn't a vacation like, woohoo, we did all these events. But it was that kind of fulfilling trip that we knew he was good. He was doing well and he really had his life in order and happy. Just his whole aura was love and patience and giving and happiness.

Jeremiah had been in Nick's life since the very beginning and knew just how close Nick was with his mother. When Jeremiah learned that Nick's mom was terminally ill, it was an incredibly heartbreaking and overwhelming moment. His mom got cancer, and the cancer that his mom got was terminal and relatively quick, all things considered in terms of her decompensation as far as her illness was concerned. So he called me about that. He was obviously very upset.

and saddened and being so far away. I think there was additional layers of difficulty due to the geographical distance as well. He was incredibly close with his mom. I think him and his mom had a very close relationship. I think like any relationship, there were maybe ups and downs through the years, but I know that they adored each other and there was a lot of love there for sure.

Kelly's passing was a devastating blow for the entire family, but Nick, in particular, seemed to struggle the most. Marilyn and Cola both remember that initially, Nick was a pillar of strength for everyone else, keeping it together for the sake of others. However, as the weight of the loss began to settle in, cracks began to show, and it became clear that he was hurting more than anyone had realized.

I think it got worse. It was a few months after my mom passed because the first month to month and a half after my mom passed, my brother was reaching out to me to see if I was okay because I wasn't in a great place. I was really sad.

I was caretaking for my mom and she died holding my hand. It was a lot to process. And he was constantly checking in with me, uplifting me, giving me positive things to read, letting me know he's there for me and to call him if I need anything. And then all of a sudden it was radio silence from him.

I agree. Leading up to periodically, I'd give them a date on Kelly after her diagnosis. So she was diagnosed March 13th, 2023 and passed March 1st, 2024. So almost a year later.

And it was periodic. Maybe every week or so, we'd have a chime in, text them back and forth. Once in a while, it would be a voice conversation. But a lot of times, it would just be, hey, thinking about you, back and forth, something like that. Immediately after, for about a month, it was constant. We were talking.

texting, it was just a constant back and forth. And then all of a sudden, it just started dwindling. And I had a thing that I tell you today, and you'd be like, what? I love you. Or it's

Something like that. And it would just be nothing. And then maybe a couple days later, oh, sorry, I was painting. But I kept thinking, this isn't him. This isn't his responses. His would be different unless he was obviously really, really struggling.

which I think is a bit odd too because before he went missing, he really wasn't on his phone, he wasn't communicating, he wasn't on social media, but things on his social media were changing, but he wasn't on his social media. In the months leading up to Nick's disappearance, Cola recalls Dory reaching out on a few occasions, sharing her concern that Nick was struggling. From memory, Cola believes these conversations took place sometime around Nick's birthday at the end of March.

She called me. She said, I worry about Nick. On Nick's birthday, Dory told me he's not responding to anybody on his birthday. He just wants a day to himself, not to talk to anybody. You're the only person he accepted a message from. Two

Two years before, that was when Simon, my son, had gone to visit him. And they just had a great time for his birthday. He enjoyed his birthday. He definitely would talk about his birthday coming up. It was a birthday month. Our family used to always joke that a couple of us would have a full month of a birthday. Being told he really doesn't want anybody to reach him on his birthday. Something's not right.

And then maybe about three, four weeks after that, she called me and she said Nick was in the hospital and I was asking what happened. And she said he wasn't talking. He said he heard voices in the wall while he was painting or something. So we went to the hospital. I said, thank you for getting them the help that he needs. I would check in. How is Nick doing? And she said better. Before

Before he went missing, she said, he doesn't really want to do anything, though. He's not affectionate with me like the way he's usually affectionate. And then she said, I think this weekend we're going to go out and do this thing to try to bond and connect. She didn't make it seem like he was still not doing OK. She made it seem like he was doing OK and coming out of whatever landed him in the hospital.

I want to say it was a month before he went missing because he went missing June 30th. In May, Jordan graduated and she said that kind of spun him into disassociation.

Nick's friend Jeremiah deeply regrets not staying more connected with Nick during this time. Over the years, their lives had taken different paths, with their careers and families pulling them in separate directions. Although they still kept in touch, Jeremiah didn't fully understand the weight of what Nick was going through. With the clarity of hindsight, Jeremiah now realizes that Nick's messages had changed after the passing of his mother, signaling that something deeper was shifting in his friend's life.

As we evolved our relationship, I mean, it was always one of those relationships where people don't see someone or talk to someone for a while and they pick up the phone and they pick right back up. Our relationship was that way. But the older we got, particularly the more we got into adulthood.

The more intermittent our communication became, the more distant our relationship became. Him being in this new marriage. Their relationship, I just didn't know about it. And I think reason being, there were so many culminating factors happening in our lives. I was going through a lot in my life with career and family.

my practice, I'm a psychotherapist, he was deep in his own life. That second chapter of his life with Dori, I didn't know much about her. I knew that he found someone and that he loved someone and cared for someone and wanted to have a relationship. But because of the distance that our relationship had in the last few years,

I don't know her. It was mysterious. I didn't know anything about his life for the most part when he moved, other than our brief conversations and small communications through text and Instagram. When I found out he was moving to Canada, the whole Canada thing to me, I just thought it was strange. Like the way I looked at it was, this is so far away. If you take where we are in Florida and the Southeast coast of the United States, and you go to Western Canada, it's just so far.

And I don't know how much of that was his relationship. I don't know if it was in combination with him wanting to be far away. I don't know the depth of his decision to make that move. He became a little bit more withdrawn. We still communicated. Obviously, he was in Canada when his mother had passed away and we had had a conversation. We would communicate messages after his mom passed away, just

prayers. I would send him links of songs like Michael Jackson songs, things that just were kind of relevant to our relationship. But there wasn't a lot of dialogue after his mom passed away. And again, I think it was the culmination of all of the things and moving him being in this new marriage, the distance, there was definitely contact, but

As a mental health professional myself, I wish I would have had the opportunity to have had more in-depth conversations with him to maybe be able to recognize. I mean, I know he was obviously grieving. He had just lost his mom. So grief is hard for anybody. And

There's not one single way to grieve. So people who are mentally stable can have really challenging grieving periods. We had kind of connected on that. My father had passed away in 2019. Then he lost his mom. And so it's devastating. He was absolutely hurting.

After Nick moved to Canada, he and Jeremiah weren't in frequent contact. But since Jeremiah was also close with other family members, they reached out to him once they learned that Nick was missing. Concerned, Jeremiah immediately tried to contact Nick directly and began searching through social media for any clues. However, something about the situation didn't feel right to Jeremiah. The more he learned, the more unsettled he became.

So I had spoken via Instagram May 12th, 2024. And it was a quick little contact through Instagram, but nonetheless, it was a contact. He disappeared June 30th. And one of the things that I thought was strange too, was he changed his Instagram name. And you know, people do that. But I thought it was just strange out of nowhere. But he changed the name to King Nico, N-I-K-O, N-I-K-O.

And I just thought that was odd. One day I noticed and probably should have said something about it, but I didn't. So I learned of his disappearance through my mother who had gotten communication through his aunt Terry. I messaged him. I just...

I just said, hey, where are you? Your family's worried about you. We're all worried about you. He obviously didn't respond back to me. So I had gotten word of it once things started coming out on Facebook. I started really kind of reading and really analyzing everything. When you're in rural Canada, you're out there regardless. But I think he wasn't an outdoorsman. Let's just say that. I'm the kind of guy that I like nature. I'm the kind of guy that might go walk off into the mountains. Nick was not that kind of guy. And getting up

leaving without your cell phone, leaving without your wallet, and just completely vanishing into thin air. Didn't sit right. Hasn't sat right. When I found out how the disappearance happened, I knew Nick so well. Intuitively, instinctively, I said, this is not right. Something is not right about this. I have never spoken to his wife directly. On Facebook, someone had said, if you need to get a hold of

of us to message her son, her adult son. And so I sent him a message. This was like the first or second day after all this happened, just kind of saying, Hey, let me know if there's anything I can do.

Carl shared that Dory mentioned Nick had become increasingly withdrawn from everyone before he went missing. Despite this, Carl had spoken to Nick shortly before he disappeared. And during their conversation, Carl said that Nick seemed fine. Nothing about it raised any alarms for him. Carl understands that the loss of Nick's mother months earlier was likely weighing heavily on his son, as it would anyone. But he didn't notice any signs that would suggest his son would suddenly walk away and vanish.

She says he was not speaking to anyone. What she said after his mom passed away about four months prior to him going missing, he hadn't been the same since. But I had spoke to him in May over the phone and

He was still getting over it, but he sounded good, speaking clearly, and spoke to me for about an hour. The other trigger, I guess, if he was in a depressive state, as she explained, which hadn't been verified, but if he was a Mrs. Sun's graduation also.

inmate. That was one of the things he did speak to me about, that he was upset that he was missing it and that his ex-wife had given him the wrong information about watching it on like a Zoom. So he logged in and it was a totally different school or something, but eventually found it and got to watch him on video. But he was still a little upset that he couldn't make it. No one else seemed to know about his state of mind or depression.

Except her. Cola previously mentioned that she believed Nick had entered Canada illegally, which seemed to prevent him from leaving the country to visit his sick mother, attend her memorial, or be there for his son's graduation. He feared that if he left, he might not be able to return. This added significant stress to the pressure Nick was already under. Cola also acknowledged that she had not heard from Nick since late May.

which was completely out of character for their relationship. Despite making multiple attempts to reconnect, she received no response until Dory called at the end of June to let her know that Nick was missing. When Carl arrived in Canada, he learned that on the Sunday morning Nick vanished. Dory had gone to the music festival after she said Nick left for a walk around 6.30 a.m. It wasn't until later in the day, when Nick still hadn't returned, that she began to grow concerned.

She had a booth at the festival doing some type of face painting. We learned this later. So she went on to the festival that Sunday. And I guess towards the end of the festival for the day, one of the other vendors, she was advised, since she hadn't heard from Nick, that she should call the police.

When Nick was reported missing, Dory informed the police that he had been struggling with his mental health following the loss of his mother. With this in mind, the search efforts focused on the surrounding area, with authorities considering the possibility that Nick might be in need of help or at risk of self-harm. Despite their extensive efforts, Nick never turned up.

They set up a search team, SARS, right away within the day, I believe. There were several people that said that they thought they saw him, but everything was debunked, basically. Gary Seiden was proven not to be him. My daughter and I, I mean, she got there on the 1st of July, and I got there, I think, on the 3rd. We were there for about 10 days.

with the search team searching her and i walked the area to see if we could find anyone with cameras the ring cameras or anything around no one had them they had the trail cameras which i guess the search team were looking into those they couldn't find anything to my knowledge so it was walkable we walked and walked and searched several areas uh the team was focused on a certain area

Because I guess Dory, his wife, reported that he was having some kind of mental depression or something. I mean, you can't diagnose it unless you actually saw him. But she said he wasn't speaking or really talking much. From what she told him, they picked him up with a plan to search a certain area, which they searched probably for three or four days. A radius of people, I guess, that had similar symptoms.

situations found, I guess as was explained to us, like that type of drone search, but no dive teams. I guess the dogs, which this has been about a month ago now, that the dogs sent it something at the end of the day, so they wanted to put a dive team in, which still hasn't happened just yet. The cadaver dogs were

was by a volunteer search team after SARS had finished their search. SARS, in fact, used the dog team at the beginning of the search. And I believe it was a tracking dog, not 100%. They didn't mention anything about any trace of tracking or a dog tracked any type of scent. They did get Nick's phone and they went through that and they didn't see anything. The only thing that officers said is,

Although the searches yielded no sign of Nick, Carl mentioned that they did find a shirt during their search.

They found a black shirt, no footprints or anything around it, just a black shirt. That was in that radius distance in the wooded area, in that first radius that they initially searched. They did do DNA on it, and that test actually just came back about two weeks ago that it was his shirt. Cola was able to tell us more about where this shirt was found in relation to where Nick had been staying.

It was a searcher who found it. It was by an old mills site. So in relation to like where the trailer was, where they were saying he walked away from, I would say probably a mile and a half, two miles. When it comes to grocery shopping and meal planning, I've got this problem. Never enough time. That's all changed thanks to Hungry Root, the easiest way to eat healthy.

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During his trip to the area to search for Nick, Carl visited the property where Nick had been staying, the same property his wife said he walked away from on the morning of June 30th. As Carl examined the situation, several things struck him as odd. It only raised more questions and left Carl feeling that something wasn't right about the whole situation.

Her friend, her husband, they lived on that site. The trailer was on their property. Her husband said he never saw Nick during that entire time of them staying there. Neither did the neighbor. But actually, when we searched the property, he came out and he actually called the owners of that property and let them know that we were on their property. So we went over and spoke with him and asked him if he had seen Nick.

Nick any of those days from Thursday through Sunday. And he indicated that he had not seen them at all and that he would have definitely recognized someone like that. When we looked at the trailer, I mean, it didn't look lived in, if you will. There was no running bathroom, toilet inside. Just didn't look lived in. They had a bunch of toys for kids inside, Legos and stuff of that nature. But it just didn't look like anyone would live in that.

My daughter and I were like, there's no way he wouldn't have to go into the main house to at least use the restroom. And he stayed at the trailer all day Friday is what was told. So definitely he would have to go somewhere to use the restroom.

How could Nick have gone unnoticed by Dory's friend's husband and the neighbor, especially given that they had been there the entire weekend? Hearing this, it might make you wonder if Nick was ever actually in Yubo at all. However, Carl clarified that Nick was seen at the festival that weekend.

We have a picture from Dory of him at the festival, his wife. Another vendor at the festival said he, in fact, saw Nick there Saturday night only. And another point is, I guess, from Thursday through Saturday, her booth was set up after the festival had already started. Like, she was running late to come in and set it up Sunday morning, the day that Nick was missing the

The same vendor says that when he got in early, Dory's booth was already set up. She wasn't there, but it was already set and ready to go. And when she came in later, she said that her and Nick had got there early and set up the booth and went back home. That's what she told the other vendor. That's turned into the RCMP because that was another red flag to us. She never mentioned that to us. So that was another discrepancy.

Dory has said that Nick stayed back at the property they were staying at on Friday, but he did attend the festival on Saturday to see Busta Rhymes perform. We were curious about when Nick was last seen by an impartial witness, and Marilyn shared that it was at the festival that Saturday evening, just before he disappeared the following morning.

Saturday, she says she convinced him to come with her to the festival. Apparently, the story is he got out for a little bit, but then wanted to retreat back to the car. Was on his phone to the point where she said his phone died. So he just kind of sat in the car and waited for her to finish. But then there was a call from the phone.

There was a concert. Lester Rimes was performing at this festival. Somehow she got him to get out of the car, go to the concert. We do have pictures that she shared with us from that concert. He looks absolutely miserable.

There's not a smile, not a glimmer in his eye, not enjoying the music, dancing or any part of that. He's just stone faced during the concert. Then she says that the car died. The car wouldn't start when they're leaving Saturday night. So they had to get somebody to jump them. But I guess she is saying that he just wasn't talking, wasn't talking.

But the person who jumped him said he was talking to him, that he was talking to them and that they had a Mercedes. In the Mercedes, it's odd the way you have to get to the battery. And he was explaining it to him and trying to assist with getting the car jumped. Technically, that was the last time anybody saw Nick besides her saying early Sunday morning he went for a walk.

When Carl and Cola were in Yubo, they became increasingly unsettled by several aspects of the situation. Tensions began to rise between Nick's family and Dory, along with one of her children. One of their disagreements was over alleged sightings of Nick, and all of this began creating a divide. Over time, communication between the two sides deteriorated, adding to the sense of unease surrounding Nick's disappearance.

Even before he arrived, there is a story that a reliable source, which was either a fire chief, something to do with fire department, saw Nick at the lake.

without a shirt sitting by the lake. It initially looked like he was smoking a cigarette. By the time we did make it to Canada, the RCMP questioned this guy. He said, well, I only saw him from the back and he looked like he was smoking marijuana. I'm not sure if that was him. So that was the funk. Nick doesn't smoke marijuana, for one. And the guy recanted his whole thing that that was him. There was another one that was the funk that he had given some guy a ride that matched...

my son's description and that he didn't speak or say anything. So, according to her account, Nick wasn't speaking, that he was barely talking. We thought it was him. We followed it up. There were cameras at the A&W where the gentleman said he dropped Nick off. But long story short, it wasn't him. They verified it was another guy. But she still talks about that ride that someone gave him. And here's what happened. She put out a post on Facebook

that basically said that all these sightings of Nick were verified. And she had already known that each one was already debunked. They were debunked when I was there. So I asked her if she could stop putting out those false reports because it's giving people false hope that he was seen here and there when all of those have been debunked by the RCMP. So please stop putting them out. And she says, well, I'm just not going to update you on anything. And that was my last conversation with her.

Carl feels that from the very beginning, Nick's disappearance was framed as a mental health crisis, and as a result, law enforcement only focused on that angle. He believes this narrow perspective has prevented them from considering other possible explanations. Carl remains in contact with the RCMP, holding on to hope for any updates, but it's becoming increasingly clear that little progress has been made on the case, at least as far as what the RCMP has shared with him.

They updated me on the shirt, but, you know, it's because I call in every week just for an update. I mean, I literally call in every week. I speak with Constable Pratt that is still in charge of the investigation. He said it was getting passed off about a month ago. As I check every week, he's still the one in charge. So he says they've done pretty much all they can do.

that they were going to have another upper officer, I guess, for lack of better words, to review everything that they had gathered and go over it and then determine what the next steps are. I'm hoping this week when I call that there's some new direction. They didn't have a sit down with Dory to really question her about accounts, solid accounts.

They said when they did initially try to speak with her, when she first reported it, that she was too distraught to really get anything out of her so that they would circle back when she was more calm and able to give them solid accounts that sit down as a

Last week still hadn't happened. I've said in the States, you know, a spouse has gone missing. You at least sit down and question the other spouse. Find out more. When she originally gave him the phone, she gave him the wrong phone and she couldn't remember what the passcode on the phone for them to open it up. A whole bunch of stuff.

They just seem to not listen to our concerns or follow up. If they're doing it on their own, it would be greatly appreciated. But to our knowledge, none of that has been done. It's just kind of frustrating. Once we asked them, I said, just at least rule it out. I mean, hey,

Can we just at least rule that out while we're here? I mean, we went every day to the RCMP. Have you spoken with her yet? No, no. She went to the hospital. She's in therapy. This, I mean, it was always something. She couldn't make it. After the 10 days I got back here, even up to last week, they still hadn't sat down and spoke with her. He said I was able to get her on the phone.

and finally get her account. And even at this point, it's like so much time has gone by that any scene could be cleaned up. And now that you've been led in this narrative so long without any solid result, you found a shirt that could have been planted there is what I told the RCMP guy. I mean, there's no traces that leads up to the shirt. You guys can track them there. You just found a shirt and it happens to be Nick's.

It could have been placed there because there's nothing else that suggests that you have anything else that we're hearing. Cola has also felt frustrated by the limited scope of the investigation. The search was confined to a specific radius based on typical lost person behavior and how far individuals in crisis tend to travel. Determined to expand the search, Cola took it upon herself to look outside that area. Her persistence paid off when she found something that she believed might belong to Nick.

I don't know if they searched the camper, but they definitely didn't search their home in Victoria. They didn't check Dory's devices. When they found the shirt, I was out looking for my brother every day that I was there for hours out in the woods, just trying to tap into some sibling connection to try to think where he would go or whatnot.

The search and rescue was only staying in the three to five mile radius looking for Nick. They weren't expanding beyond that for a week, just the same area because of the mental state that Dory said that he was in. So they treated it with somebody experiencing mental health and stayed within the same area. I said, okay, well, this is being covered by

I'm going to look in different areas that aren't being covered right now. And I found a black beanie that was farther down the road. And Dory just kept saying, Nick couldn't have gone that far. Nick's an athlete. He can run. And if he left mad, he definitely could have made it this far. With the beanie, I was with Cola with that. And I'm like, Ooh, this looks definitely suspicious. It was cold at night during this time or early morning. And

The original missing flyer said he wasn't wearing a hat. Then all of a sudden it was changed that he wasn't. This seemed like an important piece of the puzzle, but no one was interested in doing anything with it, pushed under the rug. Dory says he wasn't wearing a hat. I wrapped it in a plastic bag to not put prints or anything on it, and I brought it over to Dory. I said, does this look like Nick's hat? She said, no.

no, not really. I still brought it to RCMP. I'm not going to be like, oh, not really? Okay. No. I said, well, if you're sending the shirt off for DNA, can you send this beanie off too? Because I just found it just a little farther down the road. He said, well, Nick didn't own a black beanie. This is what RCMP said to me. I

I said, the second most recent picture that my brother sent me, he's wearing a black beanie in the picture. She said, oh, well, Dory said that she didn't pack him a black beanie. Okay, is Dory's word the gospel? Are we going to start investigating other things that may look different than what Dory has initially told you?

Right. Because now there's holes, there's things falling apart. So maybe you need to take a second look at what's going on. They pretty much told me like, we're not going to send it off, but we'll keep it here. So to my knowledge, they still have the black beanie at RCMP, but they have not sent it off for DNA testing to even find out if it was nicks or not.

Frustrated by the slow progress of the investigation into Nick's disappearance, his family decided to take matters into their own hands. They hired a private investigator to explore leads. Carl told us more. Our whole point of hiring a PI is that all the concerns that we brought up throughout our time there

Seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. He worked on our concerns and red flags. And I guess he actually did speak with Dory. And he got the same thing that she told him Nick was in a bad way and that he didn't really have a reason to doubt her.

He said the same thing about no one seen him at this trailer, not even the husband. That was a red flag and not the neighbor that before we even hired him, he went on site with us. And that's when the neighbor called and let them know that we were on their property.

He seemed to be very aware of what's going on around the area. That's why he wanted to question him. And he's like, no, I sit out here all day and I've never seen that young man at all. We brought that up to Constable Prack. And he just said, well, you know, it's one of those busy times of the year. People aren't really being aware of anybody until, you know, something happens.

Earlier, Cola mentioned that Dory had reached out to her about Nick being hospitalized, which she said happened after the passing of their mother and in the months leading up to Nick's disappearance. Marilyn said she wasn't aware of this at the time, but had the chance to ask Dory about it during a Zoom call after Nick went missing.

I didn't realize that he was in the hospital until it started coming out after he had been missing. And let me just fast forward to how I found that out. After he had been missing, we were out there, we came back home and our idea was something's not right.

There's missing areas that we can't put our finger on. So we hired a private investigator, but we thought it was appropriate to maybe do a Zoom call with her so that we could say, here's what we've done or here's what we're planning on doing. At that point, she was under the microscope, but not to the degree as now. So we did that. And I had asked about that hospital stay. I said, well, where was it?

what dates, how long was he there, things like that. And there was a plan with a lot of follow up that was never done. Medications were never filled. The follow ups with the doctors, psychiatrists were never made. I know that when we did arrive, that she said he had an appointment that

the next day or something silly, but he went missing so he never got to see the psychiatrist, which it was...

completely not true, but it was definitely a lapse in any kind of follow-up after that hospital stay. She said he slept most of the time in the hospital because I imagine that they put him on some pretty heavy medication. They were able to discharge him and that was the last of any kind of help medically or psychologically for him. The...

Only person she called was Nicole, never called anybody. And Cola had to do the call everybody else to make them aware besides what she says. And we all say he was upset when we had that meeting with her again. She at one point expressed frustration about Nick and it kind of caught us all off guard because they were about six or eight of us on the meeting with her.

But she explained that he wasn't working, couldn't work. He wouldn't get out of bed. He wasn't giving her affection, all these negative things about him. And it kind of shined a light on how things really were behind the closed doors. It brought to light. She was extremely frustrated and he wasn't working because

because he couldn't muster up enough strength to get out of bed. And then when she said he never wanted to go to the festival, and granted, I wasn't there, but I think it was, damn it, Nick, you can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this. You can at least go with me to this festival or whatever. So he definitely, whether he knew his gut was telling him or just his mental status,

had no business being drug out to the festival. But she also then said the reason she had to do these festivals was because he wasn't working and she had to have money to keep them where they were in Victoria. The tension between Dory and Nick's family continued to grow, though we must acknowledge how difficult it can be to navigate seeking help for someone in crisis. We don't know if things weren't followed up on because Nick refused help.

or if it was due to inadequate support. However, for Nick's family, the mounting concerns, or what they saw as red flags, were impossible to ignore. In a situation like Nick's, one would expect everyone to come together in the search for him. If this had truly been a mental health crisis, there would be no room for dispute. Yet we can also understand why someone who feels accused or blamed might retreat, especially when they feel on the defensive. But something happened during the search that completely caught Carl off guard.

He began receiving messages from one of Dory's sons, and the tone was filled with so much hostility that he was left utterly stunned. She was apparently going through some type of breakdown and had to go to the hospital, and her son was actually receiving all the information from SARS for being updated before I got there that we found out later had a bunch of animosity against Nick. He called me after my third day being there and

with a bunch of negative and racial slurs regarding my son, which I told the RCMP what had happened. And I told the search team that he was no longer allowed to be updated about my son at all, especially if he has these feelings about him. It caught me off guard. And that was the biggest red flag then, because at the end of that conversation, he basically said, your son is dead in the woods and you just got to deal with it. He's 24.

And for one, we learned from the private eyes that they had been estranged until this festival. We're assuming because he didn't like the fact that his mom was with my son and that they didn't get along. But all of a sudden, he's the one being updated about Nick's disappearance. And he's basically took over for his mom and said he was protecting her.

in this. That happened, I called RCMP immediately and made them aware of this and that. And for someone to be ahead of looking for my son and he has those type of feelings about him, I think he needs to be immediately removed, period. I want to be the first updated or his wife can be the first updated, but the son does not need to be updated, period.

And this is where we'll pick up next week. When Nick vanished from Yubo, British Columbia in June 2024, his family members back in the U.S. immediately made plans to travel to Vancouver Island in order to assist in the search for him. His wife expressed concerns about Nick's mental health, and the search seemed to center around that possibility only.

Authorities and search teams were focused on the idea that Nick might have simply gone for a walk, become lost, or was in the need of a mental health intervention. However, as the days passed with no sign of Nick except for a shirt, his family began to question the narrative surrounding his disappearance.

Were they being told the full story? As they started noticing inconsistencies in the accounts they were given, tensions began to build, dividing his wife and her son into one camp, and his extended family into another. Was this just a mental health crisis, or was something more sinister at play? And what did all of this mean as they continued their search for Nick? We'll explore these questions and many more in greater depth next week.

If you have any information regarding the disappearance of Nicholas Marion, please call the Lake Cowichan RCMP Detachment at 250-749-6668 and reference file 2024-1151.

The older son has made it extremely clear that he doesn't give a care in the world that Nick's missing and has said some very, very hard, rough things. I know that when Kelly was diagnosed, Nick had a really hard time with that.

He was her firstborn. They were extremely close. And he had a really hard time dealing and grasping and understanding that it was going to end. You know, it was a terminal illness. And I think at one point, the oldest son said,

get over it. Get over it. People die every day. That was kind of the relationship. He told me about his issues with Sebastian. Because Sebastian, I guess, would also say really mean things to his mom, too. It wasn't even just directed at

Nick specifically, he was pretty mean to both of them. He said to my dad on three different occasions that Nick was dead in the woods. And my dad was on the phone like, "Why do you say that? What do you know?" My dad was being calm until it got to a point where he's like, "You have poison blood. Your whole family has poison blood. That's why Nick did this and he's dead in the woods and deal with it." I was just sending it to RCMP like, "I think this is something we're looking into."

and got the same response I always do from RCMP. Well, they're going to trust the original narrative. They're not going to look into another direction. So I sent back a lot of the different red flags and things I've documented, and I was like,

I know you have a large caseload and our family, the Marion family, is very appreciative of you trying to find Nick and all of the energy and resources that you put into this. And I know that your resources are limited and there's only so much you can do. But I wanted to send you all of these things that we find odd, strange, to be red flags. And, you know, I think it's worth looking into.

That brings us to the end of episode 480. I'd like to thank everyone who spoke with us for this story. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a key submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook. You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon, where you can get early and ad-free episodes.

Be sure to tune in next week for part two of Nick's story. Thanks for listening. If you like The Vanished, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Imagine this. You help your little brother land a great job abroad. But when he arrives, the job doesn't exist anymore.

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