Family desperate to hear from Hamilton woman missing since 2017

The family of a missing Hamilton woman says it’s been years since they last heard from her.

They’ve reached out to police, who are now investigating, and are asking the public to help as well.

Family members last heard from 35-year-old Keenan Venuk in 2019. And while police say they don’t have any information that would suggest she’s been harmed, her family is concerned over the years of silence.

Venuk’s family is hoping to get a message to her, asking the 35-year-old to reach out and just let them know she’s okay.

“We don’t want to mess your new life up, if that’s what she’s done, if she’s made a new life for herself, we just want to know that you’re well,” family said.

READ MORE: Hamilton police search for missing person last seen by family in 2017

The last time the family saw Keenan was at her grandmother, Doreen Somerville’s, 75th birthday party in Cambridge in November of 2017.

Doreen says she didn’t notice anything different about her granddaughter that day.

“She seemed to be, you know, the same, she seemed to be happy where she was. But I know she always seemed to go out West, that was something she was working towards,” Somerville said.

Keenan and her grandma continued to email back and forth for several years after the party, until all communication stopped in 2019, when her family believes she moved to B.C.

“She did not like you to ask too many questions, so you didn’t want to push her and stop her from calling, that sort of thing,” Somerville said.

“That would have been the last email, that she said they had got there, they had somewhere to live, she had a part-time job, that Rudie the dog liked having a backyard. And that was the last I heard of her.”

READ MORE: Hamilton police continue search for woman last seen in 2017

Keenan grew up in Hamilton, but moved around frequently.

“She moved in and out so many times, I couldn’t even give a timeline,” her father Kevin Humston said.

“She was last living in Etobicoke with a boyfriend, and the last email said she was living with a different boyfriend in B.C. and working at a marajuana sales shop,” Det. Cst. Krista McKinney said.

Keenan is described as five-foot-six, and around 140 pounds. She has eyebrow and nose piercings, and a small tattoo of a treble clef behind her right ear.

Her family also says she doesn’t go anywhere without her white pit bull-terrier dog named “Rudie.”

On social media, she also goes by the name Ava Huxley and the Gaelic spelling of her name, Cianain.

“Should Keenan want to remain off the grid, we want everybody to know that we do definitely respect that,” Sgt. Kim Walker said.

“But I know family is very worried and having liaised with them over the past year, I know that if at the very least we can get some word that she is okay and that she’s thriving, that would be sufficient for us and I believe family as well.”

“It would just be really nice to know that she’s okay,” Somerville said.

“We all love ‘ya. Never stopped really,” Humston said.

The RCMP in British Columbia and municipal police in Vancouver and Burnaby have also been alerted.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact an officer or Crime Stoppers.