Woman tells police of Nicole Morin tip

A Hamilton woman says she’s the one who prompted the renewed search for Nicole Morin this week.

For two days, police combed a rural area near Barrie, far from Etobicoke, where Morin vanished 29 years ago.

Billie Jo Player was 11-years old when Nicole went missing. Player says she believe she heard Nicole screaming near her rural family home just two days after her disappearance.

“We heard just this horrible, horrible noise. It sounded like a little girl screaming for her life basically.”

Billie Jo Player was only 11 when 8-year old Nicole Morin went missing from her Etobicoke apartment building July 30th, 1985. Two days later, Player was walking out of the family barn with her mother and sister in a heavily wooded area of Springwater Township when she says they heard multiple screams. “I remember my mom going Oh my goodness that little girl was just was taken from Toronto’.”

Player says they ran to their house and called the neighbours who claimed to also hear screams — that’s when her mother dialed 911. OPP investigated, but no one was ever found.

Billie: “I saw a photo of her probably about four years ago and it brought back the flood of memories and then I started having nightmares again and hearing the screaming in my head.”

As an adult, Player says she wanted to get in touch with Toronto police. A detective came to interview her in Hamilton about a year ago. They were in contact once more this summer after police released a re-enactment of Nicole’s disappearance.

But she was surprised when she learned yesterday that police were scouring the area: “I had no idea that they were going I was so grateful that they were because it gave me a little bit of peace knowing that they were finally looking.”

Police say they have now left the area after finding no new evidence. But Player still says she still believes those screams belonged to Nicole.

We called Toronto police Friday but have not heard back about whether Player’s tip was the one that sent them on their search in Springwater. Player says she came forward to us, with the hope it will inspire others who may know something to contact police.