Anyone who watches true crime videos or listens to podcasts will sooner or later ask themselves this question: How can a person simply vanish? How is it possible for someone to disappear without a trace, leaving no trace at all? Cases like these are probably less common today than they were a few years ago, or at least they can be solved more quickly.
Smartphone radio and GPS data can pinpoint locations to within a few hundred meters. Furthermore, there are far more surveillance cameras than before, even in small towns. Cases of people seemingly vanishing into thin air have therefore become less frequent. But the phenomenon hasn’t disappeared entirely.
This is illustrated by a recent case. A young man is spending a weekend at a ski resort with two friends. He stays out a little later than his companions at night. There is actually no reason to panic. The hotel is less than 300 meters from where he was last seen. There are several surveillance cameras along the way that record the young man’s movements until 3:19 a.m. on February 2, 2025.
After this time, Liam disappears. He has not been found to this day. It is January 31, 2025, a Friday, and 22-year-old Liam Toman and his two friends Colin and Kyle agree: This weekend is going to be absolutely fantastic. The three guys from Whitby, Canada, have planned a short trip together for the weekend.
They’ve known each other since school and have been looking forward to spending a whole weekend together since autumn. A road trip is planned, specifically to Mont-Tremblant in the province of Quebec, a popular ski resort. The boys make good time. The drive takes five and a half hours, but it flies by.
The three friends listen to music, joke around, and record a few videos during their stops. It’s clear they’re all looking forward to the upcoming weekend, and this excitement grows even more as they drive into the ski resort. From afar, they can already see the wide slopes and, in front of them, the picturesque wooden cabins where skiers from all over Canada stay during their visits.
Liam, Colin, and Kyle were a bit more modest when choosing their accommodation. They didn’t need a whole house to themselves. They planned to spend most of their time on the ski slopes anyway. So they opted for the Hotel Tour des Voyageurs. The three-star hotel is well-located in the ski area and just right for a short weekend getaway.
Liam had recently bought new skis before the trip and couldn’t wait to finally use them. So, on Saturday morning, the three friends headed straight to the slopes. They took some photos that clearly show how much fun they were having. After the slopes closed at 4 p.m., the boys packed away their skis and snowboards.
That evening, they go to a local pizzeria to refuel. From there, they head to a bar called Lucille’s for drinks. Sometime between 11:00 and 11:30 PM, the first of the group announces they’re calling it a night. Colin is really tired and says goodbye to Liam and Kyle. While Colin collapses into the hotel bed, exhausted, and soon falls asleep, Liam and Kyle still have plenty of energy.
They decide to visit another club, Le P’tit Caribou. There, too, the two indulge in a drink or two. The club is, of course, packed on this Friday night in the middle of peak season. So it’s no wonder that Kyle and Liam lose touch after a while. Kyle later estimated that he hadn’t really seen Liam for about an hour towards the end of the evening.
Around 2 a.m., the club starts to empty out. But even though the dance floor isn’t as crowded anymore, he can’t find his friend anywhere. So at 2:19 a.m., he sends him a message:
“Where are you? Are you still on your way? I haven’t seen you in here.”
Kyle decides to return to the hotel. He considers this the most sensible meeting place.
The guys hadn’t really had a chance to check out the place properly. Finding a suitable meeting point and arranging it via mobile phone in the middle of the night after a few drinks wasn’t the most practical solution. Especially since the hotel was only a 3-minute walk from Le P’tit Caribou. So Kyle went back to the Tour des Voyageurs.
As you can imagine after such a busy day, he’s completely exhausted. So he falls asleep shortly after arriving. Neither Kyle nor Colin notices that Liam doesn’t return that night. Kyle wakes up around 8 a.m. and quickly realizes that Liam isn’t there. However, he has a missed call from him on his cell phone. So Kyle sends him a message:
“Hey, where are you?”
Nevertheless, he and Colin aren’t really worried yet. They have a very simple explanation for Liam’s absence. He probably met someone at the bar the night before and is now peacefully lying in a stranger’s hotel room. Liam is quite a sociable guy. He strikes up conversations with people very easily and is extremely outgoing.
The possibility that he’d made friends at the club the night before and moved on wasn’t entirely far-fetched. So Colin and Kyle continued as planned, heading towards the ski slope. Nevertheless, they kept an eye on their phones to see if Liam had contacted them. Kyle called about once an hour, but the 22-year-old didn’t answer.
Then Kyle starts calling twice an hour, then three times. After about 20 calls that go unanswered, Colin and Kyle have had enough. They cut their ski day short and return to the hotel. Liam still hasn’t arrived. So, in the early evening, they contact Liam’s family, and their alarm bells immediately start ringing. Liam almost always answers messages or calls.
If not immediately, then at least within the day. The fact that he’s not answering so many calls and can’t be found anywhere is not a good sign. Liam’s parents were immediately worried, but they were hundreds of miles away. So they tell Kyle and Colin to contact the local police and inform the hotel resort.
While the two friends take care of things, Liam’s mother, father, and stepmother set off together for eastern Canada. They have to battle through a severe blizzard that evening. In the middle of the night, they arrive in Mont-Tremblant, completely distraught. Throughout the entire car journey, they rack their brains trying to figure out where Liam could have gone and what it all had to do with a message he had sent his father that night.
To make a long story short: It’s assumed that Liam actually meant to text Kyle. He must have accidentally clicked on the chat with his father. It was late. He’d had a drink and was wearing gloves. That the message was meant for Kyle, with whom he’d been earlier, is only logical, because Liam texted at 3:16 a.m.:
“Yo, meet me outside.”
This was about an hour after Kyle had already left the club. Shortly afterward, Liam also called Kyle and this time clicked on the correct contact. However, this was the call Kyle had slept through. Liam’s parents now suspect that Liam wanted to go somewhere else and that Kyle was supposed to accompany him, and that when he didn’t hear from his friend, he continued on alone, to a place where something must have happened to him.
The police set up a kind of crisis center on site. At the beginning of February 2025, a fairly intensive search for Liam was conducted for 12 days. Helicopters were deployed, and on the ground, sniffer dogs, snowmobiles, and a hundred police officers on foot or horseback searched. Many of the townspeople also helped in the search for the 22-year-old.
This compassion and support are incredibly important to Liam’s family. Nevertheless, agonizingly long days and weeks pass before any trace is found. It isn’t until a month and a half after Liam’s disappearance that one of his personal belongings is found. In mid-March, a resort employee finds something: Liam’s wallet.
It’s located very close to a parking lot belonging to the hotel. We’ll come back to this location in more detail shortly. It’s certainly strange, however, that the wallet wasn’t found there until six weeks later. It contains his ID card and hotel room key. He was supposed to have cash on him, but that’s missing.
Whether it fell out or whether Liam was mugged is anyone’s guess. To this day, the wallet is the only thing among Liam’s belongings that has resurfaced. Although his mobile phone wasn’t found, Liam’s sister at home managed to find out his Apple password, allowing his iPhone to be located, or rather, its last known location, which was very close to the hotel.
What’s particularly interesting is that the phone was still switched on until 6:24 p.m. on Sunday. The iPhone pinged the cell tower in the ski resort a full 15 hours after Liam’s last sign of life. This also means that all of Kyle’s calls throughout the day must have definitely appeared on his screen.
And what’s more, this means that Liam’s battery lasted exceptionally long. He could have charged it at the hotel on the morning of February 1st, although Kyle and Colin later said they didn’t think Liam’s battery was fully charged that morning. His battery level likely dropped significantly by the evening.
He took some photos and videos while skiing and later at the club, and it was bitterly cold at the ski resort. This causes an iPhone battery to drain even faster. Nevertheless, the battery somehow lasted from the morning of February 1st until 6:24 PM on February 2nd. Therefore, Liam’s family suspects that the iPhone wasn’t outside with Liam, but rather that the phone was somewhere warm, and perhaps Liam was too.
Perhaps even somewhere where the phone could be charged. But whoever had the iPhone for so long, whether Liam or someone else, didn’t respond to the numerous calls from his worried friends. Instead, the phone was switched off shortly after the police and hotel staff were notified. Perhaps just a coincidence, but a very conspicuous one.
As I said, the phone was never found, and neither was Liam. After the snow melted in Mont-Tremblant, another search was conducted, but again without success. Liam’s mother reports that the area within a 20 km radius of the ski resort was searched. Eight additional search parties also combed the surrounding forests and marshes.
Nevertheless, Liam’s trail goes cold at 3:19 a.m. on the morning of February 2, 2025. This is the last time he is filmed by surveillance cameras. To find out what might have happened to Liam Toman, we need to take a closer look at his last night in Mont-Tremblant. This night is actually quite well documented by surveillance cameras and witness statements.
For example, there’s a released camera clip from Le P’tit Caribou. The footage shows Liam standing or sitting at the bar. He’s chatting with a few young women, but not for long. A man pushes his way in. As we now know, this man’s name is Olivier. He manages the centrally located bar right next door and came to the Caribou after his own workday ended to wind down the night.
Olivier intervened in the conversation because he didn’t want Liam hitting on the women. Among them were his own girlfriend and a friend’s fiancée. Olivier also emphasized that Liam wasn’t being pushy or anything, but simply very relaxed. Olivier just wanted to make it clear that Liam shouldn’t get his hopes up about having any of the women.
He and Liam even chatted a bit afterward about whether they preferred skiing or snowboarding. It seems Liam stayed at the club until closing time. Kyle didn’t see him again shortly after 11:00 PM when he headed home, but Liam was still there. Even when the chairs at Le P’tit Caribou were being stacked, Liam was sitting at the bar.
This can also be seen in the security camera footage. He looks around, almost as if he’s waiting for something or someone, even though there’s hardly anyone there anymore. The bartender remembers that Liam was still there around 3 a.m., when she was already wiping down the bar and the tables.
She warns Liam to be careful. At one end of the bar is a stack of empty glasses. Liam makes a hand gesture as if he wants to knock them over, probably just joking. However, after a long Friday night shift, the bartender doesn’t find it funny at all. She waves over the security guard, who then asks Liam to leave the Caribou.
It seems that’s roughly how it happened, according to Liam’s parents, who saw the video footage of the moment. They believe the security guard was quite rough with Liam, considering he was probably just joking. The guard was reportedly questioned by the police.
He apparently stated that he and Liam had exchanged a fist bump outside and that everything had been fine. Liam also spoke with a group of young women outside. They, too, were questioned by the police. The results of their interviews were not released. Furthermore, Liam is said to have witnessed a fight outside the club at an unspecified earlier time.
Some of those involved were reportedly still standing in front of the Caribou at the end. The exact circumstances are unknown. It is also unclear whether they had anything to do with his disappearance, because when Liam leaves the club and heads towards the hotel, he is alone.
Despite the freezing cold, he’s well-prepared for the weather. He’s wearing a ski jacket, gloves, and a hat, and even if he weren’t, it’s only about 200 meters from Le P’tit Caribou to the hotel. The walk takes less than five minutes, even at a leisurely pace or when tipsy. So it’s no wonder that Liam’s friend Kyle thought it made sense to go straight from the club to the hotel.
Basically, all you have to do is walk straight ahead. Surveillance camera footage shows Liam leaving Le P’tit Caribou at 3:17 a.m. The street is snow-covered and deserted, but very well lit. Liam has his phone in his hand and walks with fairly straight steps towards the hotel, past the central bar.
Then he puts his phone in his pocket. This likely shows Liam’s unsuccessful attempt to call Kyle, who had left almost an hour earlier and fallen asleep immediately at the hotel. At 3:18 a.m., Liam walks past the O Wok restaurant. By 3:19 a.m., he was at another restaurant and almost at the hotel.
If the restaurant’s outdoor camera, which is recording him, had been tilted just a little further to the upper left, you could even see the hotel. The main entrance door is also open. This means Liam wouldn’t even have had to take out his key card to get inside. You can see Liam walking in exactly that direction, practically at the top left of the camera’s view.
He stops there and speaks to someone who isn’t visible in the picture. He points diagonally to the right, as if asking for directions. Then he walks purposefully in that direction. This doesn’t necessarily lead him further away from the hotel, but rather not to the main entrance, but rather to the back entrance.
We now know who Liam spoke to: two young men named Hugo and Guillaume. Both were also on their way home from the party at Le P’tit Caribou. They were in a hurry to get to their accommodation; it was quite cold, and Hugo’s jacket had been stolen at the club. Guillaume doesn’t really remember the encounter.
The only thing they remember is talking to some young man. Hugo doesn’t remember much either. Liam apparently just called out to them from behind and tried to talk to them. But Hugo and Guillaume agree that they didn’t notice anything disturbing about the young man. He didn’t seem to need help and wasn’t disoriented. The conversation was so banal that a year later neither of them could really remember it.
They no longer know if he asked for directions or wanted something else. As seen in the video, the exchange lasts only a few seconds. Then Liam heads towards the back entrance and disappears from there forever. Shortly afterward, a witness believed he saw a shadow on the side of the road between the hotel and the city center.
However, it is impossible to determine whether the shadow was from an animal or a human. Theoretically, Liam could have reached the location of this shadow sighting if he had entered through the back of the hotel. This would align with the fact that he pointed towards the back entrance in the video at 3:19 a.m. However, the path along the back of the hotel and the loading ramp would have been quite difficult to traverse in the snow in the middle of the night.
But Liam’s wallet was apparently found near where a shadow was seen. What all this might mean, however, remains unknown. Local police were particularly interested in a white car that drove through the town that night. The reason why the car was conspicuous, however, was not disclosed.
The driver was never identified. Liam’s parents, his friends, and his best friend all agree: He was in really good shape before he disappeared. He was just a completely normal 22-year-old guy. Yes, he enjoyed drinking and partying, but he never showed any interest in harder drugs. He had no money problems, no major worries, absolutely nothing.
He had just graduated from college and was already busy writing applications. The ski trip was meant to be his last little break before starting his career as an electrical engineer. He was looking forward not only to the ski trip but also to summer. He had discovered his love for golf and couldn’t wait to get back on the course.
So what could have happened? His parents and friends believe someone must know. Perhaps Liam was in an accident. He might have been hit by a car and the driver panicked, although that wouldn’t explain why his wallet wasn’t found near the hotel until so late. Since the cash was gone, could it be that Liam was the victim of a robbery that escalated? But if so, what happened to him afterward? And how did a potential perpetrator manage to cover their tracks despite the good CCTV surveillance in the area?
The case of Liam Toman remains a mystery more than a year after his disappearance. The 22-year-old’s journey home should have taken only two minutes. Instead, he still hasn’t arrived. Even today, more than a year after his disappearance, Liam’s parents regularly travel to Mont-Tremblant.
They usually make the 500 km journey once a month. It’s important to his mother to be where her son was last seen, not only to be close to him, but also to maintain a presence in the city and ensure his disappearance isn’t forgotten.
