UNSOLVED MYSTERIES: Nick and Lisa Masee’s disappearance

NORTH VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s been 20 years since a North Vancouver couple vanished without a trace and now their family is appealing for your help.

Nick and Lisa Masee appeared to have been happily married and well-off. Nick was a retired investment banker, who had a lot of friends in high places.

In August, 1994, the couple was supposed to meet a new business associate who claimed to have the potential to make them a lot of money at the Westin Bayshore in Downtown Vancouver. Corporal Gord Reid says it’s unclear if they ever showed up.

“We have some people who believe they were at the Westin Bayshore and some people who don’t. Of course, they weren’t reported missing until several days after this happened. I think it’s a little uncertain as to whether they actually went there or not.”

“The next morning, the day after they were supposed to be meeting at the Bayshore, Lisa called her work — she worked at a beauty parlour — and she said she was going to be away for a couple of days. The people who she worked with didn’t think that was suspicious; they just thought that for some reason she couldn’t go to work for a couple of days,” adds Reid.

The call, he tells us, proved Lisa was still alive, but why the gap in reporting the two missing?

“Nick didn’t go to an office anymore and they didn’t have kids [living with them]. It was a few days before Loretta, Lisa’s sister, thought it was suspicious that her sister hadn’t called her back. Several days later, Loretta went to the house and realized they weren’t home and something was amiss,” says Reid.

It was also discovered the two had gone to the Cayman Islands months before their disappearance to meet with a lawyer. But due to confidentiality laws, the police can’t access what the meetings were about.

“Something was planned, yes. But what was planned, we don’t know. Whether or not they were in the process for whatever reason to put their old life behind them, to start a new life somewhere… it could have been that. Whatever happened, there was some element of planning; it wasn’t something that happened in a minute clearly.”

After 20 years, you may assume the two are dead or were killed. But without a crime scene or hard evidence, Reid says you just can’t make that assumption.

“I can speculate on the motives because Nick worked in the world of high finance. It’s entirely possible that he could have upset somebody and figured he had to leave or something like that. It’s also obviously entirely possible that he could have upset somebody that decided to do him harm.”

“The police have pursued a whole lot of tips that have become dead ends and there are a couple of mysteries among those tips, but sometimes the trail just fades and you can’t conclude. You don’t know if the lead was a good lead or not,” he notes.

“I’ve re-interviewed a few people and following press releases, we tend to have a few calls. We’ve had a couple of people who’ve called because they believe they’ve sighted them, but we’ve able to determine those sightings were not Nick and Lisa.”

North Vancouver RCMP are in regular contact with both sides of the Masee family for updates.

“I’d love to know what happened, but it’s got to be more frustrating for Nick and Lisa’s families — I’m sure they’re very frustrated,” says Reid.

“I’d be lying if I was said we had a suspect,” he adds. “There are cold cases where we really think we know who did a bad thing but we don’t have enough evidence, but this isn’t one of those. This is one where we’re wondering what happened.”

A statement to News1130 from Nick Masee’s son, Nick Jr.:

From an overall standpoint, my family and I, as well as Lisa’s family are all pretty realistic here. Identifying that a crime was committed and bringing anyone potentially to justice is a distant second on the priority list. What all of us want first and foremost is to have closure, which may be a tip pointing to where remains could be found. The fact is both families continue to have to live with this painful tragedy.

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