I had the pleasure of reviewing Tim’s first book, Disembodied Voices: True Accounts of Hidden Beings, which you can check here. Tim Marczenko’s new book, Gone Cold, is about death and disappearances in the Northwoods, and it is downright chilling.
Gone Cold…Death and Disappearances in the Northwoods
We hear about missing persons every day on the news and social media platforms. Most of the time, people are found…but let’s be honest…a lot of people are never found. What makes the disappearances more disturbing is just how easily the missing are forgotten. Real life is not like the movies or TV series where that lone detective spends his whole life on a cold case. It is financially and emotionally non-beneficial for a police department or its personnel to continue a search for a missing person when there are “more important” crimes to solve.
Now, imagine these disappearances happening in the North Woods of Ontario, Canada. We are talking extreme wilderness of one million square kilometers of land and waterways, some isolated and walled in by untouched nature. Now, imagine the thousands of people who go missing and are never found, and over time…most are forgotten. Luckily for this sorry old planet, there are people like Tim Marczenko.
Tim Marczenko wasn’t satisfied with cold cases that went nowhere. He asked questions, many questions. His search for closure was impeccable. I was truly impressed with this Canadian author’s first book, but after reading Gone Cold about his research and investigation into the lives of those unfortunate missing persons in this book, I will say this upfront; if I ever go missing, I want Tim Marczenko to find me. There was one case that Tim Marczenko may have proven was more than it seemed. Was Sander Lingman the victim of a mob hit? Let’s find out more from the author himself.
Gilbert: Hi Tim. It is a pleasure to interview you again. I loved both books but Gone Cold is my favourite. It is quite impressive to have The Honorable Gloria J. Epstein Q. C. Former Justice of the Superior Court and Head of the Independent Civilian Review into Missing Person Investigations write the forward to your book. Does this mean that she will be assisting with future books that I hope you will be writing on missing people?
Tim Marczenko: I’m thrilled to hear that Gone Cold is your favourite. It’s an important book for many reasons. I put my soul into that project because it was my chance to give those missing individuals a voice. In a way, they have the final word and it’s a cry for help.
It was a massive honour to have Judge Epstein lend her name and eyes to the project. She’s an incredible person and a powerhouse when it comes to social issues. She’s been everything from an appellate judge to the appointed lead in government reviews. When she agreed to write the foreword, it was extremely validating for me. It let me know that I was on the right track, and I had put all that energy in the right place. She gave me the shot of confidence that I may not have had otherwise. I’m not sure if she’d consider reviewing any future books, she’s very busy and I was lucky to pin her down when I did. She agreed to read the entire book over her summer vacation – which I thanked her profusely for.
Gilbert: Can you tell us more about the case that started it all? What was the spark that led you down this rabbit hole?
Tim Marczenko: There were a number of cases that kicked this off but the idea first grew from my dissatisfaction of the way these cases were either portrayed or forgotten about. I cover the variety of issues with how missing person cases are treated in the book, but the root of the issue was that some of these older cases had such a lack of information that the public was actually starting to doubt the existence of these individuals. That’s a scary thought. To live a life and then have that argued. That led to a central question: How am I going to be remembered? I wasn’t easy on myself. I selected the most baffling vanishings in the database with the least amount of information, to prove that mysterious disappearances can and do happen and they are not just rumor or gossip. It started with a single sentence given to me by police – then I turned it into a chapter dedicated to each person. The cases that started it all were Sander Lingman (1960) and Geraldine Huggan (1953). I related to Lingman tremendously and had constant nightmares about his disappearance. I would see myself on the lost and lonely lake that he vanished from, just sitting by my lonesome, trapped within an endless, black wilderness. I felt a continued obligation to the young Huggan girl, she was only 5 years old and I was fueled by the idea that it could have been me or my child wandering in the bush. It was the perspective of the missing that got me so committed. I was working for them.
Gilbert: Concerning the Sander Lingman story, did the authorities ever decide to reopen the case in a new light? Have they ever considered this a mob hit?
Tim Marczenko: Years later, I am still working on Lingman’s case. Right now I’ve placed the file in the hands of an adjudication judge who’s been reviewing it for over two years. I hope to have news soon. No new information has been released on the Lingman story by police, but I was able to progress the file. Those who have read the book have learned of the shocking breakthrough mentioned in Appendix A. I don’t think a mob hit was ever considered to be the cause of his disappearance. Police believe it to be a drowning, but there is no evidence of that. I was able to get police to review the file numerous times over the past seven or so years and that’s a valuable achievement. You want as many eyes on the Lingman file as possible to elicit case exposure. Because of this, police have now collected familial DNA, which is a huge leap forward from where we were when I first started this. But I don’t feel I’m done with Sander. Not by a long shot.
Gilbert: What book are you working on now?
Tim Marczenko: I’ve always had a second volume of Gone Cold on the backburner and I’m starting to pick at that now. It’s a difficult kind of book to write so we’ll see how far I get this time. I’m also toying with an idea for a book on synchronicity and coincidence.
I will end this interview with a suggestion to all the followers of my Gilbert Speaks blog and Biff Bam Pop! to immediately buy Gone Cold by Tim Marczenko. The missing must never be forgotten, and by reading Gone Cold, I feel that Tim is keeping their memory alive. I hope our lives will be remembered with such love as Tim has done for the people in the book.
