CORNWALL, Ontario – In the 15 years since Troy Edgell went missing, OPP detective-inspector Peter Donnelly has spent many a restless night wondering just what happened to the Cornwall man who disappeared without a trace.
Donnelly has been working the mysterious cold case involving Edgell, a man with connections to the drug element, since Cornwall police turned the matter over to the OPP in 2002.
In that time, like so many other cops who work murder cases, Donnelly has risen in the middle of the night to replay parts of the case over in his head.
“This is one of those cases…if I don’t do my job, then someone literally got away with murder,” said Donnelly, who maintains Edgell met a grisly fate in the late spring of 2000 and that is why he hasn’t been seen or heard from since. “Did I miss something and the guy who killed Troy Edgell get away with it?”
Edgell’s case has confounded police since June 4, 2000 when he was reported missing to the Cornwall Community Police Service. Edgell had just dropped off his six-year-old daughter at his mother-in-law’s Cornwall home when he seemingly vanished into thin air.
The disappearance took a nasty turn when Edgell’s burned-out 1987 Lincoln was found way out in the Lanark Highlands near Perth. How it got there, and whether Edgell was behind the wheel when it arrived in rural township is anyone’s guess.
Donnelly said if the public can take anything away from the case it’s that anything is possible.
“Troy had a lot of connections in Ottawa, Kingston and Brockville…he had a lot of addresses,” Donnelly said, adding Edgell, or his remains, could conceivably be anywhere. “Don’t think that you don’t have anything to offer.
“I wouldn’t rule anything out.”
Last year, when the OPP went public to remind residents of a $50,000 reward for information concerning Edgell’s disappearance he was described as a family man – which added to further confusion as to why he would go missing.
It is said he doted on his children which also included a pair of sons.
But his life was not without problems. The Ottawa Citizen reported last year that court documents indicate he was at one time involved in the drug trade and on two occasions in 1998 was convicted of possession and fined.
“It’s a case full of twists and turns,” said Donnelly. “It’s got a lot of interesting characters…with criminal backgrounds.”
As many as four investigators, including an analyst, are working on the Edgell case at any one time.
Donnelly said there have been tips, to be sure, and occasions when he believed the case was on its way to being broken wide open.
But more often than not tips turn out to be thin on details, and never really pan out.
“This case is about people,” he said. “There’s several people that know where Troy Edgell is and what happened to him.”
Donnelly and his people are hoping that one of those individuals will soon find themselves in some kind of trouble with the law.
“Sometimes you hope one of these people will get caught for something and will provide information to get out of trouble,” he said. “This is one of those cases.”
The Lanark County Crime Unit of the OPP are asking anyone who has information about Edgell’s disappearance to call 613-267-2626 or CrimeStoppers if they have any information on the incident.
