The search for 16-year-old Makayla Chang is now in its 17th day in Nanaimo.
RCMP insist the case is moving forward and the investigation is very active, as they comb for both Chang and 53-year-old Steven Bacon who we’re learning new details about from someone who knew him well.
They’re as unlikely a pair to go missing together as you could imagine, but Vivian Larsen says if 16-year-old Makayla Chang is with 53-year-old Steven Bacon she is in good hands.
“He wanted to adopt her. He approached the mom and the grandma,” says Vivian Larsen. “Doesn’t that sound scary to you though that he wanted to adopt her?” we ask. “No he’s okay he’s not a pedophile,” says Larsen. “I mean I’ve known this man for years and he wouldn’t harm a hair on that girl’s head.”
The Nanaimo woman say she saw her friend Bacon a week ago. Before RCMP went public that they were looking for him in connection with the 16 year old’s disappearance March 17th.
Chang’s Grandmother who’s raised her since she was three is worried for her.
“Yeah it’s been a long time. Just too long now,” says Dolly Chang.
She’s also worried about Bacon’s motives with the pretty 16-year-old, who he was passing off as his daughter and who unbeknown to her family had moved in with him.
“Makayla had been staying off and on at his place for the past two months but she’d been lying to me when she texted me at night saying she was staying at friends,” says Chang.
Yet Larsen insists, his intentions are good.
“So Vivian if you had a 16 year old daughter would you (be okay with this)?” we ask. “In a heartbeat,” says Larsen. ” I’d let him take care of my daughter.”
Extensive searches of Bacon’s Nanaimo basement apartment, turned up no sign of her. Sunday Search and Rescue combed nearby Colliery Dam Park in a grid search but there too no clues.
Larsen thinks they’re likely hiding in the ample wilderness surrounding Nanaimo from those looking for them.
“Yeah well he’s really good at hiding and so is she. He was raised in the bush. So he’s very adept at keeping on the down low,” says Larsen.
Why they’re hiding she says she doesn’t know. Just one of the lines of investigation RCMP are chasing in the mystery of what happened to Makayla Chang.
Skye Ryan
