Family Still Searching for Answers After Son’s Vanishing

Nearly every month for the past year, Kathleen Toman has traveled from her home in Balsam Lake, Ont., to Mont-Tremblant, Que. This weekend, she’ll make the 500-kilometre journey once more to meet her ex-husband, Chris Toman.

Together, they will continue their search for anyone or anything that could lead them to their son, Liam.

“Anything that might have happened could be a small clue,” Kathleen said in an interview. A selfie, an unusual encounter, some casual conversation – no detail is too trivial.

“Every time I return, I learn a little more about something. Every single time.”

Yet so far, nothing explains how her son, Liam Gabriel Toman, disappeared from the ski resort in the early hours of February 2, 2025.

On Friday, January 31, 2025, Liam, who was 22 at the time, and two friends, Kyle Warnock and Colin Lemmings, set out for a much-anticipated ski weekend. As they approached Tremblant after their five-hour drive from Whitby, Ont., they were excited by what lay ahead.

Mont Tremblant is one of Quebec’s top tourist destinations. (Michel Picard/Radio-Canada)

“It just opens up with all the cabins lining the hill and then you see the mountain rising up,” Lemmings told Radio-Canada’s Enquête. “It’s quite a sight for us because we don’t see things like that very often.”

They checked into their hotel at Tour des Voyageurs II and began enjoying their holiday.

Liam Toman, right, skiing at Tremblant on February 1, 2025. (Submitted by the Toman family)

Saturday went as planned – a day on the slopes followed by pizza dinner and drinks at Lucille’s bar. By this point it was freezing cold outside – around -25 C. Shortly after 11 p. m., Lemmings decided to head back to warm up in their room while Kyle and Liam chose to join others at Le P’tit Caribou nightclub.

“We had a few more drinks and then split up inside,” Warnock told Enquête. Just after 2 a. m., when he noticed things winding down at the club he texted Liam but got no response before calling it a night himself.

WATCH | Liam Toman filmed this video just hours before he went missing:

Video footage from Mont Tremblant bar

Liam Toman recorded video at Le P’tit Caribou shortly before he vanished.

’20 calls later’

Liam didn’t come back to their room that night. His friends figured he had found somewhere else to crash but started getting worried when they couldn’t reach him Sunday morning.

“I called once each hour,” Warnock recalled. “After a couple of hours I called him twice an hour. Then three times an hour until finally after making about twenty calls we thought: ‘OK… something must be wrong.’”

By evening they alerted both Liam’s family and authorities about his absence.

Watch the full documentary “Vanished” from The Fifth Estate on You Tube or CBC-TV on Friday at 9 p. m.

Liam’s father Chris remembers receiving the call just before six that evening.

“I said we need to contact police immediately,” he shared with Enquête. “We need to talk to someone at the resort since we don’t know where he is?”

A storm rolled in as Chris along with his wife Lara Toman and Kathleen drove through snow-covered roads toward Tremblant.

“I couldn’t believe how quickly it felt yet how long it actually took,” Lara told Enquête.

‘You cannot rest’

The Quebec provincial police known as Sûreté du Québec (SQ) searched extensively for Liam over twelve days – employing foot searches alongside horseback patrols as well as ATVs and snowmobiles equipped with dogs and helicopters overhead searching from above.

A map of ground covered by SQ during their twelve-day search for Liam Toman shows all search paths traced in colors. (Sûreté du Québec)