Andy Warburton, disappeareD July 1, 1986. Body found july 9, 1986. Tucker Lake, Beaver Bank, Nova Scotia, Canada

Revised January 2024

Doreen and Tom Warburton from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, took their two sons, Gary and Andy, to see relatives in Beaver Bank, near Dartmouth in Nova Scotia, in July 1986. Andy disappeared whilst swimming with other children from the area, and despite an extensive search, he was not found. His remains turned up eight days later. What happened to Andy that day?

The trip to Beaver Bank

The Warburtons stayed on Tucker Lake Road with Aunt Helen and the Bulger family.

On July 1, 1986, Andy (9 years old) and Gary decided to swim with the twins at the Carr residence on the same road near Tucker Lake. Violet Carr, the twin’s mother, told the children at 3.40 pm that they could go swimming for 20 minutes. Three of the four children headed towards the lake, but Andy was delayed for some reason, and the others left without him. They were wearing their swimming outfits.

Just behind the Carr house is a pathway to Tucker Lake through woodland with a fork, the right heading towards the lake and the left fork moving deeper into the woods. Violet saw Andy at around 4 pm on the back step of her property, but after that, he vanished. Never to be seen alive again.

The search for Andy Warburton

Helen and Doreen started dinner and noticed that Andy was nowhere to be seen, and the other children did not know where he had gone, as they had not seen him at the lake.

The family checked with neighbours, the path and the lakeside then called the RCMP, and officers arrived at 5.45 pm. The RCMP saw a young boy, Hobb Mcdonald, who had just returned from summer camp that day and said he had seen Andy earlier by a stream called Beaver Bank River. He had apparently taken his tennis sneakers off, crossed the water, and put them back on. But Andy's mother was surprised at this story as he was scared of the river because he had been covered in leeches the last time he went there. Andy was never far from the twins, but the RCMP never questioned them for some reason.

At 6.30 pm, tracking dogs went into the woods, crossed the river and circled back. They were never taken in the area of Tucker Lake. Waverley Search and Rescue arrived with around 100 searchers in the woods, most of them across the Beaver Bank River. 

The Canadian Emergency Measures Organization (EMO) coordinated the search, directed by Bernie Marshall, which was only his second search in the role, and he had no formal training.

During mid-afternoon on day 2, July 2, it started raining, and the temperature dropped to 53 degrees F (12℃).

On day 3, searchers were looking in ever-widening circles. There were three separate accounts that Andy was seen or heard north of Hamilton Lake, on the Chesapeake road, and directly west of Tucker Lake, focusing the attention of rescue teams. Searchers reported seeing a boy running away from them and being "Spooked". But these reports were possibly false, and the calling of porcupines could be mistaken for a boy screaming or a fawn running through undergrowth, which was common in the area.

By day 5, fourteen organized search and rescue teams were deployed but not sufficiently coordinated using different maps and radios. Furthermore, hundreds of volunteers turned up to help but were often left waiting for instructions.

On Day seven, the military was finally dispatched to the area, and Andy's sneakers were located.

The discovery of the body

On Day 8, after 165 hours of search operations, Andy's body was finally found north of Square Lake in Rasley Meadow, a 3-mile (4km) walk from the area of Tucker Lake, at around 5.30 pm. The searchers had never thought to look in Rasley Meadows during the initial search period.

The body was in an alder thicket in a gully of marshy ground and outside the primary search area in a curled-up fetal position, with severe scratches on his legs. The coroner reported he probably died on day 4 or 5 based on the autopsy results.

What happened to Andy Warburton?

Expert trackers say the average person leaves behind two thousand clues for every mile traveled, from broken twigs to footprints to twisted blades of grass. A team of well-trained searchers spaced ten feet apart can usually pick up ninety-five per cent of these clues. But they found nothing.

Professor Ken Hill, a child psychologist from St. Mary's University in Halifax, was asked by the RCMP to help in the search by providing information on how a child would behave when lost. After Andy was found dead, he was determined to do more research into disappearances. He used the data of William Syrotuck, a researcher in the United States, and conducted interviews with survivors to ascertain the psychology of those who get lost. 

He found that many children between seven and twelve years are "Stranger Resistant" and won't respond to rescuers and will tend to run, usually covering between 0.92 and 1.7 miles. They often fear punishment and won't answer searchers until they are cold and hungry.

The search for Andy Warburton was criticized for being chaotic and unplanned. Stranger Resistance may have been a factor, but the primary search area was also wrong because of reports of sightings near Hamilton Lake. The mystery is What happened near Tucker Lake and why Andy ended up in Rasley Meadows. It is a distance of 3 miles, which is further than most children his age would travel when lost.

Why did the other children take so long to notice that Andy was not with them swimming in Tucker Lake, particularly his brother Gary?

Despite thousands of searchers and hundreds of hours, the effort failed to locate Andy in time. What kept Andy hidden for so long?

It is a sad and disturbing tale that led to further valuable research into missing persons by Hill and Syrotuck, which helped subsequent search and rescue operations.

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Sources

Documentary 8 days in July https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1xyP2CopHY

The Survivors Club: The secrets and science that could save your life by Ben Sherwood

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=h0vL7ZPS6QkC&pg=PT139&lpg=PT139&dq=andy+warburton+tucker+lake&source=bl&ots=5i_yY1kenT&sig=AiF6ycKIDEyLGovN3uH9isUw_NE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRtoP8p-HZAhVPF8AKHRarDOwQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=andy%20warburton%20tucker%20lake&f=false