Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue Historical Archive1948–2026

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Search continues for woman missing in Sooke area after car found

Times Colonist13 December 2022p. A3JDF SAR era

“Search continues for woman missing in Sooke area after car found”, Times Colonist, p. A3, 13 December 2022 ref-only

Summary

The search for a 38-year-old woman last seen in surveillance video on the Friday continued. Melissa McDevitt spoke to her parents in North Carolina on the Thursday night, then failed to board a flight as planned out of Vancouver on the Friday to [visit] them. Family members were believed to be on their way to the capital region, said Sooke RCMP Sgt. Kevin Shaw. McDevitt's vehicle, a 2015 grey Subaru Forester, was found on the Saturday at the fish hatchery parking lot after a joint effort by [police and volunteers]. Surveillance video of McDevitt from just before 2 p.m. on the Friday was located that shows her approaching trails from the parking lot; she was wearing a burgundy long-sleeved top and blue pants and carrying hiking poles. Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue personnel, a Saanich police dog and RCMP air services were brought in to help look for McDevitt.

Written from the article text only. Where the scan is hard to read, the summary was taken from the page image rather than the OCR.

Details

Headline“Search continues for woman missing in Sooke area after car found”
PublicationTimes Colonist
Date13 December 2022
PageA3
EraJDF SAR era
Document typenews report
Original articleProQuest — the scanned page in the Times Colonist digital archive ↗
SourceProQuest Digital Times Colonist via GVPL (bulk export 2026-07-16)
Accessed2026-07-16
Licensingref-only
Record confidenceconfirmed

Archivist's note

The fuller inside-page account from the same day as the front-page report. The detail of the surveillance video and the smartwatch data that later reopened the search in July 2023 make this the most technologically documented search in the collection. This page was recovered from inside the ProQuest bulk export already held in the archive, where it had been listed as referenced but not held.

The clipping

Scan of Times Colonist, page A3, 13 December 2022 — the full page, shown because the article region could not be verified
The full page. The article region could not be verified automatically, so the whole page is shown rather than risk a clipping that cuts off the article. the whole page is shown; the article region within it has not been isolated.

Read the original online

These links leave this archive and point at the publisher. They may change or disappear — the scan held here is the archival copy.

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Full page scan (PDF)

Archive notes

This is a full newspaper page and carries unrelated stories as well as the article summarised here. The text is the OCR made from the ProQuest bulk export during the 2026 research phase, not a fresh pass. Recovered from page 50 of the bulk export.

Record id 2022-12-13-times-colonist-pa3-mcdevitt-search. Original file in the project archive: 02_articles/2026-07-16_proquest_bulk_export_50_articles_2012-2026.pdf (page 52).

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In the timeline

  • 13 December 2022Juan de Fuca Search and Rescue personnel returned to the mobile command base during the search for Melissa McD

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