1966 PREVOST, Dianne 9/17/1966, Sudbury 2YO

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It was Saturday, September 17, 1966 at a Grundy Provincial Park camp site, where a family with four children and their grand-parents were camping.



The father, Bernard, 25, his father, Adolias and Claude, 4, enjoyed fishing at the dock. The mother, Claire, and Therese, the grand-mother, would usually go to water´s edge and watch Joanne, 5, and Lise, 3, play in the water. The youngest child, Diane 2, was afraid of the water and she wouldn´t go near the lake. The family would go camping at Grundy on a regular basis. They went almost every weekend.



On this Saturday in September, Bernard and Claire decided to bring the four kids to the beach while Bernard fished on the dock. Adolias and Therese decided to take a nap while the rest of the family was down at the beach. Bernard was on the dock fishing. Claire, Joanne, Claude and Lise were looking for frogs on the shore and Diane was playing in the sand. Diane wanted to return to the campsite to be with her memere and pepere. Bernard said he would bring her back as soon as he got the line untangled. He turned around a few minutes later and Diane was no longer playing in the sand. Thinking that she had returned to the trailer, which was parked 500 ft away, Claire ran back to the trailer. Claire returned in a panic because Diane was not at the campsite. Bernard, Adolias, Claire and Therese started looking for her. They looked for about one hour thinking that she had just wandered off. They then decided to call the Ontario Provincial Police (O.P.P.) when they couldn´t find her.



The parents were scared that they wouldn´t find their baby before dark. Bernard wanted the police to call the USA and Canadian borders to advise them of his missing daughter but the police said they would find her in the park. The park was officially closed but people could still camp. The Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) would come by at night to collect the camping fees. The gates to the park were left open. The police started looking, but to no avail. Night fall arrived and Bernard told the police to close the gate of the park so that no cars could go in or out of the park during the night. The police would not agree. They didn´t want to close the gates. Both Bernard and Claire were devastated that their little girl was not found before night fall. How hopeless they felt. How could a two year old baby survive the night in the woods at night? All through the night the father and grand-father drove around the park looking for her. They yelled and shouted Diane´s name but they didn´t find her. They just wouldn´t give up looking for her.




The next day the O.P.P. brought in divers to search the lake. The father kept telling them to search the park, Diane was afraid of the water and would not go near it. Still Diane was not found. The police dragged the lake and no body was found. The news was out that a child was missing in Grundy Provincial Park. This was the first missing child case in Sudbury district. It attracted a lot of media attention. People from Sudbury, Noelville, Britt and Parry Sound came to help with the search party. The Prevost family was well known in the town of Noelville where they were born and raised. Bernard and Claire lived in Blezard Valley and Bernard worked at Inco as a miner.



The police kept the search party at Grundy Park for four weeks. They didn´t find Diane. Bernard and Claire would not give up. They wouldn´t give up hope of finding their daughter.



Two years later bones were found in an outdoor toilet at Grundy Provincial Park. The media covered the story claiming it was Diane Prevost that was found. Forensic testing revealed that it was bones from a dog and not a human.



To this day the family has not given up hope that one day their daughter will come home to them.
http://www.dianeprevost.info/

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http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1479074

Whatever happened to Diane Prevost?
Posted By DENIS ST. PIERRE, THE SUDBURY STAR
Posted 2 days ago


Back in the 1960s, Blezard Valley's Prevost family spent many happy summer days at Grundy Lake Provincial Park.

Saturday, Sept. 17, 1966, was supposed to be such a day, with the Prevost clan -- children, their parents and grandparents -- enjoying a late-season excursion to the popular park, about an hour south of Sudbury.

"We would all go there ... for fishing, swimming," recalls Lise (Prevost) Nastuk. "My grandparents had a camper and we would go there with them often."

On that late-summer day in 1966, Bernard and Claire Prevost took their four young children, ranging in age from two to five, down to the beach at Grundy Lake. Grandparents Therese and Adolias Prevost remained behind at the campsite, taking a nap.

It was a typical, relaxing day, with dad Bernard fishing from the dock and mom Claire on the shore with youngsters. While Joanne, Claude and Lise searched for frogs at the water's edge, the youngest of the four kids, two-year-old Diane played in the sand.

Eventually, little Diane told her parents she wanted to return to the campsite to be with her grandparents. Bernard told his daughter he would take her back as soon as he untangled his fishing line. But during a brief moment that the mother and father had turned their heads, Diane disappeared into the adjacent woods.

Initially, the parents assumed the toddler had taken a head start in returning to the family's nearby trailer. But when Claire Prevost ran back to the campsite, her daughter was nowhere to be found.

It didn't take long for panic to set it, as parents and grandparents began searching frantically for their little girl. When they didn't find her they called the Ontario Provincial Police. Police officers, natural resources officers and other campers soon joined the search, but by nightfall Diane remained missing. The girl's father and grandfather search throughout the night, to no avail.

By sunrise the following day, dozens of searchers had arrived at the park, assisted by a tracking dog, a police airplane and scuba divers. The search r four weeks, without result, leaving the Prevost family shattered.

For more than four decades, "there's been a void in our lives," says Nastuk, who was 3 1/2 when her sister disappeared.

"People cannot imagine what this does to a family," she says on a website recently created to revive public attention to Diane's case.

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"I don't know how my parents have survived this tragedy," Nastuk says. "This pain has never gone away, even after all these years. There is no closure; it's an open wound that won't heal."

The Prevost family has always believed Diane was kidnapped. Their only hope has been that Diane, who would be 45, survived and that her abductors' motive was to raise the girl as their own.

"Over the years, we have tried different attempts at finding her without any success," Nastuk says.

After nearly 43 years, the family's hopes have been rekindled by its new website and the help of internationally recognized forensic identification artist Diana Trepkov.

The Ajax-based Trepkov recently completed an age-progression drawing showing what a 45-year-old Diane Prevost might look like today.

Trepkov has helped police and families in dozens of cases of missing and unidentified people in Canada and the United States. During a recent appearance on the nationally broadcast Canada AM program, she made a brief reference to the Diane Prevost case.

The Prevost family contacted Trepkov after learning of the artist's work on a kidnapping case in the U. S. Trepkov readily obliged, not only creating the age-progression drawing of Diane Prevost, but also offering to help the family publicize the case with media organizations.

"Everything was dormant for so long, the family didn't know what to do, so they asked for my help," Trepkov says. "The more help we get from the media and the public, the better, because there is a chance that she is alive. You never know."

Trepkov used childhood photos of Diane, as well as photos of the girl's siblings and parents, to create the age-progression drawing.

Lise Nastuk says the drawing of her sister as an adult initially evoked surreal feelings.

"It took me a few days for it to sink in, that she is an adult, because we've always thought of her as a baby," she says. "She looks like my older sister (Joanne); we see the resemblance there."

The Prevost family also learned recently that the OPP had lost track of Diane's case over the years and could not find the file.

However, the OPP has reopened the file, assigned an officer to it and is committed to doing what it can to bring attention to the case, Nastuk says.

"Diane's picture is going to be on the police website and she's been added to their missing persons database."

Meanwhile, Diane Prevost's parents and grandparents have mixed feelings about the latest developments, says Nastuk.

"My parents and grandparents are getting up in age and so far there's been nothing, nothing to say what happened," she says. "They're not hoping for anything, but really they are."

While the family received tremendous support at the time of Diane's disappearance, it also endured unfounded accusations and scorn, particularly from anonymous phone calls, Nastuk says.

With Diane's case receiving renewed attention, her parents "are a little leery, because back in '66 there was a lot of support, but there was a lot negativity around the case.

"There were some mean people out there."

To learn more about the case or to contact the family, visit its website at www.dianeprevost.info.

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http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...pic=42938&st=0&

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1NHjNMQlVA

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http://www.missing-u.ca/qryUI_Intro/MPDeta...%3e%3c%2fkey%3e
On Saturday September, 17, 1966, Diane Prevost disappeared while the Prevost family was camping at Grundy Provincial Park. Diane was playing on the beach, and would not go near the lake, as she was afraid of the water. Diane wanted to return to the trailer at the campsite, which was about 500 feet from the beach. Her father indicated he would take her back, but when he turned to do so, she was no longer on the beach. The family began to look for her immediately, and after an hour contacted the police for assistance. Despite and extensive search of the park and the lake, Diane was not found and has not been seen since.
MPUB Case No. 20080210
Name Diane PREVOST
Last Seen 9/17/1966
Date Of Birth 1/2/1964
Age At Last Seen 2
Gender Female
Race Caucasian
Height (Metric) cm. to cm.
Height (Imperial) From ft to ft
Weight (Metric) From kg. to kg.
Weight (Imperial) From lbs. to lbs.
Build
Dentition *
Hair Colour Colour: Brown; Length:
Hair Description
Facial Hair Beard: No; Moustache: No; Sideburns: No
Facial Hair Description
Eye Colour Brown
Eyewear
Features Injury/Trauma, knee, Indent on opposite knee., Scar, foot, Scar on one foot. *
Clothing *
Personal Effects *
Location Description Diane Prevost was last seen on the short of Grundy Lake in Grundy Lake Provincial Park. *
Police Service Missing Persons Unidentified Bodies Unit OPP


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A reward may be offered for information leading to the successful resolution of this case.

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COLD CASE: Diane Prevost vanished 43 years ago
Forensic sketch offers family new hope
Posted By ROB LAMBERTI, SUN MEDIA
Posted 16 hours ago


Almost 43 years have passed since two-year-old Diane Prevost, of Blezard Valley, vanished during a family camping trip.

On Sept. 17, 1966, the toddler disappeared after telling her dad she wanted to return to the family trailer, about 150 metres from the dock where her father was fishing.

When her dad, Bernard, turned about a minute later to walk with his daughter, who was afraid of water, the little girl was gone, never to be seen again.

And yesterday, forensic artist Diana Trepkov, who helped solve murders and disappearances with her art on both sides of the border, showed off her sketch of Diane as she would look today.

Far from the idyllic camping trip the family anticipated, that day led to a lifetime of not knowing what happened to the child after her mysterious disappearance in to Grundy Lake Provincial Park between Sudbury and Parry Sound.

"It's the not knowing," said sister, Joanne, who was five when Diane disappeared.

"You never know what happened."

For her parents, Bernard and Claire, "every time you look at a kid, (they asked) 'Is it mine? Is it her?' " Joanne said.

"We just believe she's still alive," her other sister, Lise, 46, said yesterday.

The family always believed the little girl was abducted and raised by whomever took her.

Diane's mom believes that to be the case.

"It started off as a nice weekend, but it ended up as a nightmare for us," Claire said, before turning away.

"A lot of people remember because it was the first incident of child abduction in the north," Lise said. "A child just doesn't disappear within a minute. Someone was watching us that day. She was there one minute and gone the next, so somebody had to be close by and was waiting for an opportunity to take her."

OPP searched the park and divers scoured the lake. They took apart the dock. Nothing was found.

The case has been revived with the posting of Diane's disappearance on websites, including Facebook and missing-u.ca.

Divers searched again in May but found nothing, OPP Det.- Insp. Jeff Bahm said yesterday.

"It's a case that's still open," he said.

Trepkov, who was contacted by Lise by e-mail, also feels that Diane is alive.

"When I read (the e-mail), automatically I had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to help," she said.

"I feel very good. Hopefully, good closure.

"Facial age progressions are 75% science, 25% art, so it's important the artist doesn't get carried away with the artistic side," Trepkov said.

"One important thing I concentrate on are the eyes. I believe the eyes are the mirror of the soul and I keep them," she said.

After a certain age, "gravity takes over, and at 40, the double chin starts to appear, the nose gets droopier, the ears get larger," said Trepkov, the only Canadian among 26 forensic artists certified through the International Association for Identification.

"We have hope that someone will recognize her," Lise said. "I don't know if we'll be successful, but we have hope
http://www.thesudburystar.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1694561

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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/679203
Still looking for missing Diane, 43 years later

RENÉ JOHNSTON/TORONTO STAR
A forensic artist envisioned Diane Prévost at 45, using old photos and features of Diane's siblings. Email story
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Family gets glimpse of what toddler, 2, lost on camping trip, might look like today

Aug 11, 2009 04:30 AM
Lesley Ciarula Taylor
Staff Reporter
Bernie Prévost was trying to unsnag his fishing line at the very start of a late-summer camping trip to Grundy Lake. Three of his children were clustered at the shore, trying to catch frogs.

Diane, 2 1/2, hung back, afraid of the water. Prévost and his wife, Claire, looked over at her, playing in the sand by the edge of the trees, then glanced back at the stubborn fishing line.

When they looked again, Diane had vanished.

Forty-three years later, not a trace of her has been found around the lake north of Parry Sound. Not a shoe, not a bit of clothing, not a bone. Nothing.

"I wonder if she's married, if she has kids," Diane's sister Lise Nastuk said yesterday, examining a forensic artist's reconstruction of what Diane would look like today.

The family is unshakable in its belief that Diane is still alive.

"Somebody must have been watching us," said Claire Prévost. "Somebody took her."

Nastuk started a website for her sister, dianeprevost.info, a year ago. She reached Diana Trepkov, who lives in Ajax, through contacts at Laurentian University in Sudbury, where Nastuk works. Trepkov is the only certified forensic artist in Canada, one of only 26 in the world.

After working with the family, Trepkov has come to share their conviction that Diane is still alive.

"I had a wild feeling inside about this case," said Trepkov. "I've done other cases where I had a sense the person had died. I see her alive."

In the hours, days, weeks and months after Diane vanished at 5 p.m. on Sept. 17, 1966, Claire tried to tell police they wouldn't find her around Grundy Lake, at what is now French River Provincial Park.

But the search was painstaking, involving dogs, divers and Royal Canadian Air Force patrols. Dozens of men – police, relatives, friends, acquaintances from around Blezard, Ont., where the family lived – walked abreast through every inch of the 2,480-hectare park, 80 kilometres north of Parry Sound.

The dogs – bloodhounds, according to one of many stories in The Sudbury Star – trailed back and forth from the spot where Diane vanished to the family trailer. They scented no other trace.

"They kept going until late in the fall," said Claire. "But even the dogs gave up, too."

On Nov. 25, 2008, the Ontario Volunteer Emergency Response Team brought its dogs, trained to sense remains through snow and earth, back to Grundy Lake. Nothing.

Now, inspired by the drawing of a 45-year-old Diane, the family is hoping once more.

Trepkov matches 21 "key identifiers" of a face for a reconstruction.

She aged Diane's face through a series of sketches, using family photos and capturing features from her brothers and sisters.

The eyes never change, said Trepkov, but gravity moves the eyebrows, nose, neck and jawline. In Trepkov's drawing, Diane's high cheekbones are still there, as is her curly brown hair on one side. On the other side, it's straight, in case she styles it differently.

The present-day Diane is shown wearing a lace blouse. Her mother and sisters remember that, even at 2 1/2, she had a fashion sense.

"Everything had to match and she could be pretty stubborn about it," said Claire.

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Ajax woman hoping to help solve 43-year-old missing child case

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Forensic artist creates age progression drawing of child who disappeared in 1966
Aug 13, 2009 - 04:30 AM

By Reka Szekely

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AJAX -- An Ajax woman is hoping her skills as a forensic artist will help solve a 43-year-old mystery, the disappearance of a little girl in northern Ontario.

South Ajax resident Diana Trepkov is a certified forensic artist and she recently completed an age progression drawing for a Sudbury-area family still hoping for news about their lost child.

Lise Nastuk says her sister Diane Prevost was taken from Grundy Provincial Park near Sudbury Sept. 17, 1966, at the age of two and a half.

"At the time when it happened, we were on the shore and she was afraid of the water and we know that she would never go near the water," said Ms. Nastuk, who was flanked by her sister Joanne Remillard and her mother Claire Prevost as she told her story in Ms. Trepkov's living room.

She said Diane wanted to go back to see her grandparents who were at a nearby camper and her father asked her to wait a minute.

"My mother turned around and she had disappeared," said Ms. Nastuk. After searching for her, the family called the OPP for help.

Ms. Nastuk, who was three and a half years old when it happened, says the police dogs tracked Diane's scent to the road, where it disappeared. Divers were also called in, but no sign of the little girl was found in the lake or anywhere else.

Just last year, a friend created a web site for the missing girl and Ms. Nastuk contacted police and asked for her sister's file, only to be told the records no longer existed and Diane had never been entered into databases for missing persons. After her enquiry, she hoped the police would commission an age progression drawing, but when they didn't, she contacted Ms. Trepkov.

"There's a void in our lives because she's not with us," said Ms. Nastuk. "We've always had hope that maybe one day we'll find her."

After hearing the details of the case and seeing the photos of the young Diane, Ms. Trepkov said she had an overwhelming feeling.

"I couldn't sleep for two nights, this is my 101 case that I've been involved in," she said. "Other cases I have not had feelings like this, this is a different kind of feeling."

Ms. Trepkov said forensic art is 75 per cent science and 25 per cent art, but after looking at pictures of Diane and her family members, she had a clear picture in her head of what her drawing would look like.

"I believe the eyes are mirror of the soul, as long as you always follow the eyes, it doesn't matter how old you get," she said. "If you look at pictures when you were young you're going to see your eyes have travelled all through the years. That's what makes you look like you."

Ms. Trepkov then incorporated the ageing process at more than a dozen points, including adding lines to the neck and softening the jaw. The final product, says Ms. Nastuk, bore a strong resemblance to one of Ms. Remillard's children.

The drawing is now in the OPP missing persons database and an officer has been assigned to the case. Police took DNA samples from the Prevosts earlier this year.

Ms. Trepkov, who has helped solve five cases including three last year, said the key is not only to create the picture, but to get it out to the public as well, which is why the family was in Ajax speaking to local and national media.

But the search has been tough on the family.

"It was very hard then and I guess it's still pretty hard now, just talking about it is pretty intense," said Ms. Prevost of her daughter's disappearance.

For more information on the case, visit http://www.dianeprevost.info.
http://newsdurhamregion.com/news/article/133069