As the new year brings hope that some clues could surface in 2025 about the disappearance of Lisa Marie Young, information has come to light about the whereabouts of the last person seen with her over 22 years ago.
Christopher William Adair has lived in Turkey for the last several years, residing in Fethiye, a seaside tourist location since 2017. While on the Turkish Riviera Adair has run a consulting company specializing in immigration and residency matters. Adair also spends time in the Philippines, as was reported on Dec. 30 from the newspaper Türkiye Today.
His residency in Turkey has been confirmed by veteran journalist Laura Palmer, who has spent years delving into Young’s disappearance. Palmer produces the Island Crime podcast, and devoted its first season to the mystery of the missing Tla-o-qui-aht woman.
Cyndy Hall, a friend of Lisa Marie and a longtime advocate for her, has also confirmed the information about Adair’s whereabouts. She managed to track him down a few years ago through online means.
“We want him to speak to the police in Canada again, and we want him to tell us what happened to Lisa, because he is the last known person with her,” said Hall.
“I know he knows something, but he wouldn’t talk to anybody,” said Lisa Marie’s aunt Carol Frank. “Of what we know of, he was the last person to be with her.”
Lisa Marie Young has been missing since June 30, 2002, a case that Nanaimo RCMP are now treating as a homicide. On the evening of June 29, 2002 the 21-year-old was out with friends, first visiting a Nanaimo nightclub, where accounts indicate she met Adair for the first time in the parking lot. Driving a red Jaguar, Adair offered to take the group to a house party, then soon went with them to another party in Nanaimo. At approximately 3 a.m. on June 30 Young was seen leaving the party with Adair to get something to eat.
This was the last time the young woman was seen, followed by a 4:30 a.m. text message from her phone to one of the friends that read: “come get me, they won’t let me leave.”
Since that evening over 22 years ago a police investigation has received hundreds of tips, interviewed hundreds of witnesses, conducted ground searches and produced over 15,000 documents related to Young’s disappearance. On one occasion Young’s mother, Marlene ‘JoAnne’ Martin Young, was asked by police to attend an interview with Adair, according to Frank. JoAnne Martin passed in 2017 at the age of 54.
“My sister had to go to the police station, bring some of her pictures of [Lisa Marie] when she was a little girl and items that Lisa had, just to try to get him to talk,” said Frank of JoAnne’s encounter with Adair. “He just said he was sorry he couldn’t say anything.”
Court records show a long list of criminal convictions matching Christopher William Adair’s name, indicating that he had already been incarcerated before encountering Lisa Marie, and would serve jail time for another incident afterwards. Convictions listed include the unauthorized use of credit card data from an incident in Edmonton, Alberta from 2000, theft, fraud and assault in Kamloops B.C. from 2001, as well as assaulting a police officer in Yorkton, Saskatchewan in August 2002.
Although in a past media report Adair had been named as a person of interest in the case, Nanaimo police declined to acknowledge that this is currently the case.
“To date, no one has been charged in this investigation,” wrote Const. Hayley Pinfold in an email to Ha-Shilth-Sa. “Investigators have not and will not be publicly naming any suspects on the investigation, as it remains an on-going investigation.”
Despite the lack of progress over the years, Frank said police have kept her family updated on efforts to find out what happened to Lisa Marie.
“They’ve been doing interviews, but nothing’s come up, no solid leads or anything,” she said. “They’re still active in the case. We’re able to email them or call them, meet with them.”
Meanwhile memorial and awareness events have been held regularly, including an annual walk from the Nanaimo RCMP detachment to Maffeo Sutton park that takes place around the time of Lisa Marie’s disappearance. In October the City of Nanaimo planted a tree in her honour at Departure Bay, with participation of family including Lisa Marie’s father, Don Young.
The young woman’s disappearance has become part of what many consider an epidemic affecting Canada’s Indigenous women. Lisa Marie’s case is in an RCMP database of over 1,100 missing or murdered Aboriginal females.
Hall hopes that the publication of Adair’s whereabouts will somehow lead to answers in the disappearance of her friend.
“I’m hoping what comes of it is we find Lisa,” she said.
Any information related to the disappearance of Lisa Marie Young can be reported to the Nanaimo RCMP at 250-754-2345.
With files from Denise Titian
