The morning Jennifer Hillier-Penney disappeared, her friend Gina Elliot received a text that simply read: Jennifer is missing.

Elliot feared the worst.

“I knew right there and then it wasn’t good,” Elliot said.

Hillier-Penney’s daughter woke that Dec. 1 morning in 2016 to the sound of her mother’s cell phone alarm endlessly beeping. Surprised that her mother had not awaken yet and turned it off, she went to find out what was going on. She located her mother’s phone but Hillier-Penney was nowhere to be found. Her purse, car keys, passport, shoes and coat were still inside the house.

It was as if she had vanished into thin air.
 

Unfortunately for the town of St. Anthony, Hillier-Penney was the fourth person to go missing in 15 years.








































Her brother Glen Hillier was getting ready for work that morning when the phone rang. It was his sister Yvonne. Jennifer had gone missing, she said. Hillier hoped she had just gone for a coffee, but when he took a drive down to the house he found the RCMP already there.

The final months of 2016 were rough for the Hillier family. In October, their mother died. Hillier-Penney had moved in with her father and was separating from her husband Dean Penney. But in the weeks leading up to the 38-year-old’s disappearance, she was looking forward to a new future, with job prospects in Glovertown, close to where her oldest daughter lived.
 

Her brother says she was in the process of moving, and was excited to get away from the small-town gossip.

When her estranged husband left for a duck hunting trip, Hillier-Penney returned to the home in St. Anthony they once shared to watch over their youngest daughter.
 

Fifteen at the time, the daughter came home late the night of Nov. 30 after being out with friends. Her mother was not feeling well that evening and had already gone to bed. Hillier-Penney’s bedroom door was closed when the daughter got home.

She never saw her mother.

When the RCMP arrived the following morning, they found no signs of struggle or a break-in. Searches began around the area behind the house, and along the roads from St. Anthony to the airport. Glen Hillier says they received lots of support from volunteers in the community. People were willing to take time off work and do whatever they could to help track down Hillier-Penney.

“She was well liked in town,” said Hillier. “She never had an enemy, not that I know of.”


























A police dog was used but found no scent of Hillier-Penney beyond Penney’s house.

 
The house, says Hiller-Penney’s brother, was never cordoned off by police.

"As far as I'm concerned, they took it lightly,” he said. “The police didn’t take it serious enough at the beginning.”

Viki Burden, Hillier-Penney’s cousin, was also upset the RCMP did not treat the house as a possible crime scene and keep it off limits.
 
“It was days later before forensic (investigators) showed up, before her car was searched,” Burden said. “People were in and out of the house. It is so sad because there could have been so much evidence there.”

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While the RCMP originally committed to being part of this series, they were not available for an interview by the time of publication.

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At the door of the home from where Hillier-Penney went missing, a soft-spoken Dean Penney declined to be interviewed saying the police investigation is ongoing. All he would say is that it’s been a difficult time for him and his daughters.

A new search is planned for when the weather improves. But due to a long winter and snowfall extending into late May, the search continues to be delayed.

Glen Hillier remains firm that his family will not give up until the truth about his sister and her disappearance is discovered, and those responsible are held accountable.

“Our family’s not letting this go, like Dad always says somebody knows something,” he said. “We're not letting this drop. If anyone’s done anything to Jenny they're going to pay, as far as I'm concerned.”

































Still, many friends and family of Hillier-Penney such as Elliot fear the search will not end well.

“I don’t think Jennifer is alive by any stretch of imagination,” Elliot said. “Not a chance.  I don’t think that is possible. She would have called me if she was having a rough day, a rough moment.”

Beyond that, says her friend, Hillier-Penney would have never abandoned her daughters or ailing father.

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“She loved them too much. She wouldn’t have just left and she wouldn’t have killed herself. That wouldn’t have happened,” Elliot said.

“Jennifer is somebody. She is not just one of four people missing. She’s a mom, a very good person. She was loved by a lot of people. She just can’t be another statistic in St. Anthony, Newfoundland. The community deserves a lot more.”