The lost boys of Pickering

unsolved mass disappearances

On March 17, 1995, six teenage boys left a spring break party during which
they drank a considerable amount of alcohol. That was the last time anyone
saw them.

It is thought that in their drunken stupor the boys may have stolen a motorboat
and paddle boat on Frenchman’s Bay in Pickering and headed out onto Lake
Ontario. This theory was strengthened by a witness who told police that the
boys had told him they were going to ‘goof around’ on a boat.

Police concluded that Jay Boyle, Michael Cummins, Daniel Higgins, Chad
Smith, Robbie Rumboldt and Jamie Lefebvre likely ended up in the water after
their boats capsized and that they died of hypothermia.

However, a massive search didn’t find any bodies, boats or clothing. The only
item ever found in connection with the boys’ disappearance was a gas can
that belonged to the motorboat. Some people believed that the boys never
went out on the boats, but instead set up the whole scenario as a ploy to
disappear on purpose.

No new clues have been discovered as to where the boys may be or where
their remains might be located after DNA testing on a pair of Levi jeans
thought to have been worn by Jay Boyle, was revealed in 2018 to have
belonged to another teenager that had gone missing.