The mother of Emma Fillipoff, who vanished in Victoria on Nov. 28, 2012, is offering a $25,000 reward for information that might lead investigators and family to her whereabouts.
“I’m looking for Emma,” said Shelley Fillipoff in a phone interview from her Ontario home on Tuesday. “This is all I’ve been living for — I just live Emma.”
Thousands of people have reached out to Shelley Fillipoff in her previous appeals for answers. She decided that a reward might be the incentive required to elicit key evidence that may settle the case once and for all.
The money for the reward is coming out of a line of credit, she said. Her community near Perth, Ont., raised about $6,000 for her previous trip to Victoria, where she spent months searching for her daughter.
Shelley Fillipoff, a teacher, said her life “has fallen completely apart since the day her daughter went missing” just before her 27th birthday and realizes she might be dead.
“I do hope, of course, that she is alive and we can help her, but I have to be realistic. We never really ruled out foul play, but we never had it in the forefront as a possibility.”
On Nov. 27, 2012, Emma Fillipoff called her mother from Victoria and said she wanted to come home to Ontario but didn’t think she could make the trip on her own. The next day, Emma Fillipoff called and said she’d changed her mind about needing help.
Shelley Fillipoff cancelled a flight to Victoria but continued to get phone calls from her daughter. One of them was just an open line, with her daughter saying, “Don’t hang up, I just need to know you’re on the other end.”
Shelley Fillipoff decided to come to Victoria and see what was going on.
She arrived in Victoria and found her daughter had left the women’s shelter where she was staying a short time before.
Anyone with information can contact Victoria police at 250 995-7654. Photos are online at facebook.com/ HelpFindEmmaFillipoff.
