Loretta “Lora” Ann Frank was a young Indigenous woman from the Tahltan First Nation whose disappearance from Whitehorse, Yukon, more than three decades ago remains unresolved. Although her case is often associated with 1989, there is uncertainty surrounding exactly when she disappeared. What is known is that Lora was last known to be living in Whitehorse around late 1988 or early 1989, and her family has been searching for answers ever since.
Lora grew up in Lower Post, British Columbia, a small northern community near the Yukon border. She was the youngest of five children and was remembered by her family as a quiet young woman. During her teenage years, Lora was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and finding consistent mental-health support in the remote communities of northern British Columbia and Yukon could be difficult.
Around 1986 or 1987, Lora moved to Watson Lake, Yukon, where she stayed with one of her brothers and his spouse. Mental-health services in Watson Lake were limited, however, and Lora reportedly relied on psychiatrists who periodically travelled into the community. Eventually, it was decided that she would have better access to services in Whitehorse, approximately 400 kilometres away. Lora moved there, lived in an assisted-living setting and found employment.
In the fall of 1988, Lora returned to Watson Lake to spend Thanksgiving with her family. She was approximately 19 years old at the time. During that visit, Lora reportedly told her relatives that she was unhappy living in Whitehorse and wanted to move back to Watson Lake. Her family was concerned that she would not have access to the same level of support there and encouraged her to remain in Whitehorse.
Lora eventually returned to Whitehorse.
It would be the last time her family saw her.
Sometime after returning to the city, communication between Lora and her family stopped. Exactly when she disappeared remains unclear. While the case is frequently described as a 1989 disappearance, other accounts place her last known contact in late 1988. That uncertainty would later become one of several complications surrounding the investigation.
There was one intriguing possibility concerning where Lora might have gone. People who knew her reportedly told her family that she had been seeing a man from Haines, Alaska. This led to speculation that Lora might have travelled with him across the border into Alaska. However, there has never been a publicly confirmed sighting establishing that Lora actually went to Alaska, and the theory remains only a possibility.
What happened when Lora’s family tried to report her missing would become another extremely troubling part of the case. Her relatives have maintained that they contacted authorities shortly after realizing she was gone. Lora’s former sister-in-law, Patricia McIntosh, later recalled personally speaking with police and said the family was left with the impression that authorities believed Lora had probably run away.
The RCMP records reportedly indicate that Lora was not formally reported missing until 1993 – several years after she was last known to be in Whitehorse. Her family has disputed that timeline, maintaining that they had sought police assistance much earlier. Whatever happened during those early years, the delay meant investigators were attempting to reconstruct Lora’s movements long after the trail had gone cold.
By 1994, investigators were making inquiries in both Canada and the United States. Hospitals and government agencies were reportedly checked in an effort to determine whether Lora had surfaced somewhere under her own name or established a life elsewhere. Those inquiries failed to locate her.
Lora’s disappearance eventually became part of the broader examination of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada. Her sister, Debbie Groat, provided a statement to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in 2018. Documents connected with the Inquiry included historical RCMP correspondence concerning Lora’s disappearance, preserving part of the family’s decades-long effort to find out what happened to her.
Lora has generally been described as approximately 5’8″ tall and around 100 pounds, with a thin build, brown hair and brown eyes. She wore prescription glasses. Some historical sources contain slightly different descriptions, another reflection of how much time passed before her case became widely documented.
There has never been a confirmed public sighting establishing what happened to Lora after she returned to Whitehorse. There has been no publicly identified suspect, and authorities have not announced evidence proving that she travelled to Alaska. There is also no indication that Lora told her family she intended to disappear permanently. In fact, one of her last known conversations with them was about wanting to come home.
That detail makes Lora’s disappearance particularly haunting. A young woman returned to Watson Lake for Thanksgiving and told the people closest to her that she wasn’t happy living hundreds of kilometres away. Her family believed Whitehorse offered the support she needed and encouraged her to stay there. Lora returned to the city, and sometime afterward, the connection between her and everyone who loved her was suddenly broken.
Decades have now passed without an answer. Somewhere between her final visit home, her return to Whitehorse and the years that followed, something happened to Loretta “Lora” Ann Frank. Her family has never stopped wanting to know what that something was.
If you have information on Lora’s case, please contact any of the following:
M Division RCMP: 867-667-5555
Reference Case#: 20141625917
Canada’s Missing Case reference: 2013000134
Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-TIPS(8477)
Online at: https://www.canadiancrimestoppers.org/submit-a-tip/submit-a-tip
Crime Stoppers provides anonymous tipping
Send email to the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at: canadasmissing-disparuscanada@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
Sources: National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, Tahltan Band Council, Canada Unsolved, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
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