One of the first steps in any cold case investigation is to scour through the initial media reports.

It's a good way to develop timelines and recover the sorts of seemingly insignificant details that are easily forgotten over time.

Perhaps some such detail, some long-lost line of inquiry, could be the key to unlocking the mystery?

More often, it's what didn't make it into the papers that makes all the difference.

In June 1972, the news reports coming out of the Ottawa Valley went something like this:

A five-year-old boy named Adrien McNaughton was out fishing with his father and siblings, when he wandered off into the woods and was never seen again.

But there's an important piece of information that wasn't present in those initial articles, or in any of the subsequent reports about the case.

The McNaughton's weren't the only people on the lake that day.

Danny Ring, or Donnie as he's more commonly known, was also fishing with the family that day.

And yet, he's never been interviewed by the media.

Ring is still living in the area, and in episode two of SKS, host David Ridgen tracks him down at his home in the backwoods of Eastern Ontario, not far from where Adrien was last seen.

Someone Knows Something is an episodic series, best listened to in order. Click here to listen to Episode one: The family.

Show notes

Map of the last known location of Adrien MacNaughton:

Newspaper clips from the summer that Adrien McNaughton disappeared:

The Ottawa Citizen: June 17, 1972

Barb and Murray McNaughton (2nd and 3rd from the left) sit helplessly and wait, as army searchers' socks dry after missions in the forest quagmire. (Lynn Ball, Ottawa Citizen)

Excerpt from the story:

"...We also had to climb several steep hills, and clamber down rocky cliffs.

"The whole area is a mass of swamps, frog ponds, hills and rock drops that are really hard-going for an adult, let along a frightened five-year-old boy..."

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The Ottawa Citizen, June 14, 1972

A clipping from initial news reports of the extensive search for Adrien. (Ottawa Citizen)

Excerpt from the story:

"...The volunteers searched tirelessly. But each crew returned to the shore of Holmes Lake without finding any sign of the small boy.

"Sitting in the clearing where she had waited since hours after her son was lost, Mrs. McNaughton said Adrian wasn't one to wander off..."

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Material republished with the express permission of: The Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.