Jo-Anne Pedersen: Canadian Girl Vanishes From Phone Booth
After being locked out of her home, a child is last seen with an unknown man in a phone booth
Child Mysteriously Disappears
After an argument with her sister on February 19th, 1983, 10-year-old Jo-Anne Pedersen found herself locked out of the family townhouse during a rainstorm. There were no adults there at the time to let her inside.
Unsure of what else to do, she rushed down to the local Penny Pinchers convenience store, where she called her mother and stepfather from a payphone outside and asked for a ride home.
As the call progressed, it became obvious that someone else was inside the phone booth with Jo-Anne, when an unfamiliar man’s voice suddenly issued a warning to her mother—if she didn’t arrive within the next 30 minutes to pick up the child, he’d call the police.
Yet when Angela Pedersen made it to Penny Pinchers just 15–20 minutes later, she discovered that both her daughter and the mystery man were gone.
What happened to Jo-Anne Pedersen?
Jo-Anne Maria Pedersen
The youngest of three daughters, Jo-Anne Maria Pedersen was born in Canada on May 17th, 1972, to parents Leo and Angela.
Jo-Anne, or “Jo-Jo” as her friends and family called her, was a kind and shy child who enjoyed helping others. After her parents divorced, her mother was granted full custody of the girls and Angela’s petition to deny their father visitation rights was granted by the court.
They moved frequently, resulting in Jo-Anne having to switch schools six times in a five-year period. In 1983, the Pedersens were living in a townhouse complex in Vedder Crossing, Chilliwack, Canada.
“She got along pretty well with all the kids,” remembered teacher Stewart Grafton. “She seemed to like it here and had very little difficulty fitting in.”
Jo-Anne often missed school due to not feeling well, but the nature of her health problems is unclear.
Jo-Anne Vanishes from Phone Booth
On February 19th, 1983, Jo-Anne was walking home with her sister Louise and a cousin when she and Louise got into an argument. Louise and their cousin ran ahead of Jo-Anne, making it home before she did.
When she got there, she discovered that the doors were locked, possibly as a prank. Jo-Anne’s mother and stepfather were away at a birthday party at the Chilliwack Legion.
It was raining and Jo-Anne didn’t want to be stuck outside until they got home, so she went down to Penny Pinchers. She was inside the store briefly before going back outside and using the payphone to contact her mother at approximately 8:20 p.m.
While inside the phone booth, Jo-Anne was spotted with an unknown man with a mustache, who was said to be approximately 20–30 years old, 5’6’’ or 5’7’’, slim and wearing a dark leather jacket.
“She phoned me and said come and pick me up,” explained Angela. Then a male voice interjected: “You’d better get her within half an hour or I’m phoning the police.”
However, when Angela arrived at Penny Pinchers a short time later, she was alarmed to discover that her daughter was nowhere to be found, nor was the man she’d spoken to.
Where is Jo-Anne?
Angela was unable to find her daughter anywhere and reported her missing.
The RCMP conducted an exhaustive search of the area with teams comprising law enforcement, volunteers and dogs. No signs of the missing girl or any clues hinting at foul play turned up. In fact, nothing at all was found that might explain what had happened to her.
While some witnesses had spotted Jo-Anne and the mystery man together, no one came forward to say that they’d seen either of them leave. It seemed that no one could shed any light on what happened in that brief window of time between 15 and 20 minutes from the time the call ended until Angela arrived to pick up her daughter.
“Please come forward,” Angela publicly implored the man who was last seen with Jo-Anne. “As a mother, I’m pleading for you to come forward, please do that for me.”
However, it would be many years before he was finally located.
Distressing Call
According to Sergeant David Ayres, Mary Riley, Jo-Anne’s grandmother, received a distressing call on March 5th. When she picked up the phone, she heard a male voice saying, “Listen to this:” and then the sound of a crying child.
Since Mary’s number was unlisted and Jo-Anne was one of the few people who knew it, law enforcement felt this was credible evidence that the missing girl might still be alive.
“There is no doubt in my mind that it was the child,” said Sgt. Ayres. “I’m convinced she’s alive.”
But they were unable to trace the call or identify the person who made it. The lead that could have been the key to finding Jo-Anne sadly went nowhere.
Jo-Anne’s Friends Speak Out
Jo-Anne Pedersen’s disappearance had a profound impact on her friends and family, as well as the community as a whole.
“It’s shocking to know your best friend is missing and you can’t do anything about it — except help to look,” said Cyndie MacPhail.
Friend Tracy Jarzen spoke of another change brought about by the missing girl’s likely abduction:
“Our mothers are really picking on us now. We’re supposed to walk home with other kids and come straight home when it starts to get dark.”
Search Called Off
An RCMP spokesman gave additional details on the search:
“We have searched everywhere possible on foot, with dogs, aircraft. We even had kayaks on the river, without success.”
Law enforcement pleaded with the public for assistance.
“We’re also asking the public to search their barns, garages, and backyards,” said Sgt. Ayres. “We’re covering all bases because it’s such a great area and we really don’t know where to search other than where she was last seen.”
Her family was certain that she wouldn’t have run away and that she must have been abducted.
Jo-Anne’s sister Anna-Lise described her as “really fragile, she depends on people. She likes attention. She wouldn’t run away or anything like that.”
Her biological father, Leo, made a public plea for his daughter’s captor to let her go. He also spoke briefly of what the family situation was like, following his divorce from Angela.
“I tried very vigorously to track them down, but what I’m told is that she (Angela) moved away every one or two months.”
The search, which ultimately yielded no clues, was called off on March 1st.
Similar Incidents
Just five days after Jo-Anne vanished, a similar episode occurred in Chilliwack, when a 12-year-old girl was grabbed by a man while looking for her pen on the ground. Fortunately, the girl broke free and managed to escape without harm. The perpetrator, estimated to be in his late twenties, was never identified.
However, Sergeant Ayres said that the two incidents were believed to be unrelated.
Additionally, on July 24th, 1983, Terri Lynn Scalf, 8, went missing from her townhouse complex in Aldergrove (approximately 30 miles away from Chilliwack) after leaving to play outside with her friends. She has never been found.
While her case is still officially unsolved, law enforcement believed that they know the identity of her abductor. However, since they lack enough evidence to press charges, his name has never been released to the public.
They would only refer to him as a “middle-aged child molester who once lived in Langley.” Is this the same man responsible for Jo-Anne’s disappearance? That remains unknown.
Anonymous Letters
The Chilliwack RCMP received two anonymous letters—one in 2008 and the other in 2011—both of which professed to have information related to Jo-Anne Pedersen’s case.
Investigators were uncertain if both letters were written by the same person, but found the details contained within the 2011 note to be especially compelling and even made a small portion of it public, in the hope that someone might recognize the handwriting.
“There’s certain details, I guess, in the letter that only this person would know,” stated Corporal Tammy Hollingsworth.
They came to believe that the 2008 letter was written by the man from the phone booth and, in 2023, law enforcement made a surprising announcement:
“Recently, police were able to identify this man and rule him out as a suspect, his identity will not be shared with the public at this time.”
Yet it’s unclear how the man from the phone booth could be definitively ruled out as a suspect so many years later, with no forensic evidence to work with. Why did he leave the parking lot so quickly that day?
If he really intended to call the police if no one showed up to retrieve Jo-Anne within half an hour, then shouldn’t he have been watching? And if he had been, wouldn’t he have witnessed what happened?
However, these questions remain unanswered—at least for the general public.
The full contents of these letters have never been released and the author of the 2011 note is apparently still unknown.
Current State of the Investigation
Jo-Anne’s case is still being actively investigated, but no further updates have been announced.
“This is still an active investigation and any tips received from the public are being followed up with by investigators,” said Corporal Carmen Kiener.
“It grabbed at everybody’s heartstrings,” remembered former crime reporter John L. Daly. “It was a very, very troubling case. It felt like something out of a movie, and yet it’s real. To see this little girl in a rainy phone booth, you know, cars passing by, apparently talking to some guy in a black coat. It was just horrible.”
“I have suffered so much through the years,” Angela Pedersen sadly noted during a video statement.
To this day, Jo-Anne Pedersen has never been found and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance remain a mystery.
Additional Sources
The Vancouver Sun, February 23, 1983
The Vancouver Sun, March 1, 1983
The Vancouver Sun, April 5, 1983
(This article was originally published on HubPages)