Into Thin Air – Tara Moran | Still no sign of young woman missing from Merritt since 2024

“She was a dancer, she liked sports and just a fun, funny kid. A little quirky but just all, you know, normal kid stuff,” recalls Patrick.

After it became clear that Tara wasn’t thriving where she was, her parents, Patrick and Deb, convinced her to try moving back to Merritt to figure things out.

“It was a rough year-and-a-half. She had spent some time in the shelter, spent some time here with us,” says Moran. “That was pretty volatile.”

Living at home was no longer working — with her dad describing Tara’s increasingly unstable behaviour and frequent interactions with police — so the young woman had been living in and out of shelter.

“We’d go a week or two without maybe hearing from her or seeing her, but then normally something would happen or we’d see her. And just, she disappeared and there has been literally no sign of her since — from the government, from the police, from anybody who knew her,” says Patrick. “Just vanished.”

At one point, Moran says the family brought in an interventionist and pleaded with Tara to try a treatment facility.

“She didn’t want the help. We couldn’t force her to take it. And very shortly after that, like within weeks of that, she was missing.”

The last interaction Patrick had with Tara, he brought her gift cards to use at the grocery store and other places in town, but he says it felt stiff.

“(She was) very distant. Trying to kind of break through but it was very hard. You know, there was a wall up there.”

Tara was last seen outside of the Merritt shelter and the Save-On Foods on January 31, 2024. She didn’t own a vehicle or a cell phone at the time she went missing. Since then, her family says there’s been no banking activity, no online location ping and no check-ins at medical facilities. Potential sightings have been reported, but so far none of them have turned out to be Tara.

“That’s the frustrating thing is that the police don’t really have any info for us. And I’m sure there are people in this town that must know something,” stresses Patrick.

Worrying about the vulnerable state she was in, Tara’s family went to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to see if she had been there. Alongside check-ins with police, they keep hanging posters meant to trigger a memory for someone who saw her. Her dad figures Tara’s height would make it easier to notice her, as Tara is nearly 6 feet tall and thin, with dark hair and hazel eyes.

“If you walk into our house you see the signs or in Deb’s car or on the street here — you know, missing posters are everywhere and we’ve taken them to Kamloops and down to Vancouver and people put them up in other towns,” her dad explains.

A year-and-a-half into this situation, the family says the idea that someone might know something presents hope that eventually her disappearance will be solved.

“You don’t know so you try to hope for the best. But you also have to kind of try to keep living and move on with your life without giving up. But, yeah I don’t know how to explain it other than, I don’t wish it on anyone,” Patrick adds.

by Dylana Kneeshaw

Into Thin Air – Tara Moran | Still no sign of young woman missing from Merritt since 2024

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