Missing Mom Found Alive In Canada 52 Years After She Vanished

A woman who disappeared in British Columbia in 1961, and was presumed to be dead, has been found alive.

Alaska native Lucy Johnson went missing in September 1961. However, because it was not reported until four years later in 1965, Canadian police treated her disappearance as a murder and questioned her husband, Marvin, in the case. Investigators also excavated the backyard of the home they shared with their young daughter, Linda Evans, in Surrey, British Columbia, but the case eventually went cold.

Now, more than five decades later, it turns out that Johnson has been alive all along and is living in Yukon. Evans, who was only 7 or 8 years old when her mother vanished, told the Surrey Leader that she is astonished to learn that her mom is living.

"I'm still walking around in shock," she told the newspaper. "I thought she was dead because there's been no contact. Nothing."

On top of that, she also discovered that her mother started a new family and she has four other half-siblings - three brothers and a sister.

Her only other brother passed away in his teens, reports NBC News.

"I'm still walking around in shock," said Evans, whose father and brother have both since died. "I thought she was dead because there's been no contact. Nothing."

Evans said that she found her 77-year-old mom after someone saw her in a missing person report.

"We received a phone call from a woman in the Yukon who called and claimed that she had seen the picture of the missing person in the free newspapers and said the missing person we were looking for was actually her mother," Cpl. Bert Paquet, spokesman for Surrey RCMP, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. "The stars aligned, the timing was perfect."

Evans says she is seeking answers from her mother.

"I have a lot of questions. And they're all 'Whys?'"