A Girl I Never Knew, Whose Disappearance Changed My Life

I never met Tania Murrell. I don’t know her family. We lived in different provinces on opposite sides of the country we shared - Tania in Alberta, me in Nova Scotia. We were both eldest children in our families - Tania had one baby brother, I had two. I was in grade two, Tania was in grade one. We both attended elementary schools in our neighbourhoods, and we both walked home from school for lunch. But on January 20, 1983, I made it home for lunch and Tania did not.

In 1983 a picture of this little girl popped up on my tv screen. I related to her right away: she was posing for her school picture, and looked so happy, even her eyes were smiling. Her blonde/brown hair was pulled back into a braid. She looked a lot like me, I thought, except her eyes are brown, and mine are blue.

Tania Marie Murrell - missing January 20, 1983 - age 6, Edmonton, Alberta

And then the newscaster provided me with information that would change the way I saw the world.

All I remember processing in my then eight-year-old mind was that Tania was missing and that no one could find her - not even the police or her own parents. This shook me to my core.

Read the details about Tania Murrell's disappearance here

From that day forward, I never stopped wondering if they had found Tania but had no real way to find out - until the invention of the internet. In my late teens/early twenties I would check the internet regularly for any news on Tania and was shocked she had not been found. I saw pictures of other children missing in Canada - Michael Dunahee, Nicole Morin, Joanne Pedersen. I went to the library to track down newspaper articles about Tania's disappearance. In doing so I learned about the murder of nine-year-old Sharin Morningstar Kennan. She was abducted only 3 days after Tania - on January 23, 1983 - but in a different province (Ontario). All of these innocent children. I wanted to help but I didn't know how; I wasn't a police officer or a private investigator. I didn't have any special tools. But I cared - deeply. And over time, I realized that caring isn't meaningless. Caring is where everything begins.

That's when We the Missing was born. It was, in many ways, a tribute to Tania - and to all the children like her, who disappeared without answers. I am still not a trained specialist but I know this for sure:

We cannot find someone if no one knows they’re missing.

And this:

The cases with the most attention are the ones that are less likely to go cold.

Raising awareness matters. Repeating names matters. Keeping their faces in the light matters.

So no — I never met Tania. But she’s the reason I do what I do. She was the first child I knew of who vanished. She is my "why." And after 40 years, I have never forgotten her.

I started We the Missing for her — and for every child who’s still out there, waiting to be found.

When interviewed on the 25th anniversary of her daughter's disappearance Vivian Murrell said that she believes Tania was placed on this earth so that missing children will be recognized.

#doitfortania