Disappearance of Richard Marlow

Richard David Marlow (born 9 February 1935), nicknamed "Pee Wee", was a nine-year-old Canadian boy who disappeared from outside his family's home on Beta Street in Etobicoke, Ontario, on 18 July 1944. His bicycle was found at the house, but no confirmed trace of him has ever been found. His is the earliest of the historical missing-child cases retained by the Toronto Police Service.

Background

Marlow was the youngest of John and Gertrude Marlow's six children. He was small for his age, leading to the nickname "Pee Wee", and was described by his family as shy and afraid of the dark. He was in Grade 3 at the time of his disappearance. He was tall and weighed about , with blond hair, blue eyes and a scar near the hairline on his right temple.

On the day he disappeared, Marlow's father was stationed outside Etobicoke with the military, while his two eldest brothers were serving overseas during the Second World War.

Disappearance and search

According to the current police account, Marlow was riding his older sister's bicycle in front of the family home on Beta Street while his 15-year-old brother Gerald was inside. Other family members had gone to a cinema. When his mother returned later that evening, the bicycle was in the yard but Richard was gone. A 1947 newspaper account gave a somewhat different version, stating that his mother had last seen him returning from a nearby shop and that he never reached home.

Etobicoke police, military personnel, relatives and local residents searched the surrounding area. Creeks were dredged, ponds were drained, and wells and outhouses were examined, but the searches produced no evidence of what had happened to Marlow. Police investigated reported sightings over the following years, including reports from Western Canada and Florida in the United States, without confirming any of them. His parents also travelled to morgues when unidentified bodies were recovered in the region, but none was their son.

At the time of his disappearance, Marlow was wearing a dark-blue nylon windbreaker, long blue trousers, a striped jersey and grey cotton socks with a yellow band. He also wore an aluminium ring bearing the letters "K L".

Later developments

Marlow's mother continued to appeal publicly for his return. In December 1947, she told newspapers that the family still placed presents under the Christmas tree for him and lit a candle in a window each Christmas. Gertrude Marlow died in 1954, aged 56, and John Marlow died in 1973, aged 80. A burial plot beside theirs at Glendale Memorial Gardens was reserved for Richard.

During the early 2010s, Marlow's niece Gayle Dykeman renewed efforts to publicize the case. It was added to provincial and national missing-person databases, and MissingKids.ca distributed his photograph and case information online and on Rogers and CIBC billing envelopes.

The Toronto Police Service's Missing Persons Unit revived public appeals concerning Marlow and several other historical cases in 2019. Police described his disappearance as Toronto's oldest missing-child case and said that they continued to investigate it. In 2020, police released a video intended to prompt memories among elderly people who had lived in the Beta Street area at the time.

Marlow remains listed as missing by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and MissingKids.ca. The Toronto Police Service case number is 1944-3968723.D22.

See also

• List of people who disappeared

External links

• Richard David Marlow at Canada's Missing
• Richard Marlow at MissingKids.ca