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RCMP solve B.C. missing persons case after 50 years

Lucy Johnson, who went missing from her home more than 50 years ago, has been found alive in the Yukon. This photo was released by Surrey RCMP, and shows what she looked like at the time she was reported missing on May 14, 1965.

The historical missing persons case of Lucy Ann Johnson is a Canadian story worthy of Murdoch Mysteries, and many questions remain unanswered.

The Surrey Leader reported Johnson's daughter, Linda Evans, found her mother alive, living in the Yukon, 52 years after her disappearance launched a murder investigation.

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The RCMP in Surrey, B.C. asked the public for tips in June about a case involving a woman who had been missing for more than half a century. The case, revived as part of the police's Missing of the Month series, involved a woman who was born in Skagway, Alaska as Lucy Carvell in 1935.

Many years later she was living in Surrey with her husband Marvin Johnson, and in 1961, police say she vanished. Lucy's husband didn't report her missing until 1965. He died in the 1990s.

"Believing she may have met with foul play, police conducted a thorough investigation into her disappearance," the RCMP account says, adding Lucy had been in touch with the Catholic Aid Society regularly before she went missing.

Police dug up the family's yard in search of evidence, the Leader reported, but they didn't find Lucy Ann there. Instead, her daughter Linda placed an advertisement in a Yukon newspaper asking for contact from anyone who might have known her mother.

She received a call from a woman who said yes, she did know her, because Lucy was her mother too. The facts are few, but Evans told media she's learned her mother, now 77, has another family.

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Evans told the Leader she wants to visit her mother and ask her the burning questions that make this story so compelling. Why did Lucy leave? Why didn't she contact anyone, even after police suspected murder?

For now, the families have asked for privacy.