Frederick Archibald Seymour Missing Person Case

On August 26, 1976, Frederick Archibald Seymour, a 66-year-old man from Kars, Ontario, disappeared after what appears to have been an otherwise ordinary evening at his home. Seymour was reportedly last seen at approximately 11:00 p.m., when a neighbour saw him outside his residence in Kars. That sighting became the final publicly documented moment placing him at a known location. Seymour was described as a white male of medium build, standing approximately 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing about 170 pounds. He had grey hair and blue eyes. When he was last seen, he was reportedly wearing dark green pants and a beige coat. The surviving publicly available information does not describe Seymour leaving in a vehicle, intending to travel somewhere, meeting another person, or explaining that he planned to be away from home, leaving investigators and those who cared about him with very little information from which to reconstruct what happened after the neighbour's sighting.

What happened after Seymour was seen outside his home remains largely absent from the public record. Available missing-person information does not identify another confirmed sighting later that night, nor does it provide a publicly documented destination or sequence of events that would explain how a 66-year-old man vanished from the Kars area. The circumstances are especially difficult to reconstruct because the disappearance occurred in 1976, decades before cellular telephones, widespread surveillance cameras, electronic banking records, GPS data, and many of the other forms of digital evidence investigators can now use to trace someone's movements. Publicly accessible information also does not provide details about the original search, including what areas may have been examined, who participated, whether waterways or rural properties were searched, or what information was obtained from Seymour's family, neighbours, and acquaintances. Because those details have not been made publicly available, it would be inappropriate to speculate about whether Seymour became lost, suffered an accident or medical emergency, deliberately left the area, encountered another person, or experienced some other circumstance. What can be established is much narrower: he was seen outside his Kars home late on August 26, and the available record provides no subsequent confirmed account explaining where he went.

The physical description preserved with Seymour's case remains one of the most important pieces of identifying information. At approximately 5 feet 8 inches and 170 pounds, with a medium build, grey hair, and blue eyes, he would have been recognizable as an older man whose clothing that evening consisted of dark green trousers and a beige coat. Those details may seem ordinary, but in a missing-person investigation they can become significant because they help distinguish a person remembered by a witness from someone merely resembling them. The publicly available case information does not identify unusual possessions Seymour may have carried, distinctive jewelry, scars, tattoos, medical conditions, or other characteristics that could further narrow a possible identification. It also does not disclose whether personal belongings were later discovered or whether anything was found near his home that suggested the direction in which he might have travelled. The absence of such information in public sources means the last known sighting by his neighbour remains the central point around which the known story of Seymour's disappearance revolves.

Seymour's disappearance was ultimately entered into Canada's missing-person system, and publicly available case information associates him with RCMP case number 2014001313 and Ottawa Police Service reference number 2011-111212. The National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains, operated by the RCMP, maintains Canada's national missing-person and unidentified-remains database and publishes selected cases when investigators determine that public exposure may help generate information. Canada's Missing explains that published profiles are intended to assist the responsible investigating agency by encouraging people with relevant information to come forward, although the national public website does not contain every missing-person case in Canada.

More than anything, Frederick Archibald Seymour's story is defined by the brevity of the surviving public record compared with the enormous unanswered question left behind. A neighbour saw the 66-year-old outside his home in Kars at about 11:00 p.m. on August 26, 1976; he was wearing dark green pants and a beige coat and was described as 5 feet 8 inches tall, approximately 170 pounds, with grey hair and blue eyes. Beyond that final sighting, publicly available sources offer remarkably little detail about his subsequent movements or the evidence developed during the original investigation. No responsible conclusion can therefore be drawn from the available information about why he disappeared or what occurred afterward. In overview, the case of Frederick Archibald Seymour is a decades-old Ontario disappearance centered on a single late-night sighting outside his own home, followed by an enduring absence of publicly documented evidence explaining where he went—a sparse but deeply human mystery in which even one previously unknown recollection or piece of information could help clarify what happened after that final evening in Kars.
Last Seen: Aug 26, 1976

Canada's Missing - RCMP case 2014001313