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Two men are dead, two more are missing \u2014 and police are hoping to find answers at a house in the woods. What has been going on in the railroad town outside Ottawa?<\/p>\n
Published Feb 26, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 22\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 21 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Robbie Thomson was barely out of toddlerhood when his parents noticed he dragged his left leg on the ice.<\/p>\n The Thomsons were a hockey family \u2014 dad George played with the Smiths Falls Bears back in the day \u2014 and all three kids, Jed, Tabatha and Robbie, were pretty much born with skates on.<\/p>\n When he complained of pain, George and Mary Helen took their son to every doctor in the region.<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Unlimited digital access to the Ottawa Citizen.Analysis on all things Ottawa by Bruce Deachman, Elizabeth Payne, David Pugliese, and others, award-winning newsletters and virtual events.Opportunity to engage with our commenting community.Ottawa Citizen ePaper.Ottawa Citizen App.<\/p>\n SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.<\/p>\n Exclusive articles from Elizabeth Payne, David Pugliese, Andrew Duffy, Bruce Deachman and others. Plus, food reviews and event listings in the weekly newsletter, Ottawa, Out of Office.Unlimited online access to Ottawa Citizen and 15 news sites with one account.Ottawa Citizen ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an Account<\/p>\n or<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n But it was only when they arrived at Montreal\u2019s Shriners Hospital for Children that they got a diagnosis: Legg-Calv\u00e9-Perthes, a serious disease that cuts blood from the ball of the hip joint.<\/p>\n The Evening Citizen<\/p>\n Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cHe was never supposed to walk again,\u201d says his sister Tabatha.<\/p>\n But Robbie turned that prognosis on its head, becoming a force on the ice just like his dad.<\/p>\n He was a big man, 6-foot-3, 265 pounds, and he went on to play for small-town teams across Eastern Ontario, the Gananoque Islanders<\/a> and the Cornwall River Kings<\/a> among them.<\/p>\n Robbie sure could scrap if he needed \u2014 there\u2019s a page of his on-ice bouts available at hockeyfights.com<\/a> \u2014 but off the ice he was a joker with a zany, face-cracking grin.<\/p>\n His hockey prowess meant a lot in a town where the arena is as central to local life as pubs like Rob Roy\u2019s and Matty O\u2019Shea\u2019s.<\/p>\n But Robbie\u2019s last years were marked by another reality of Smiths Falls life: a struggle with addiction.<\/p>\n Now his name is inseparable from the way his life ended.<\/p>\n Robbie Thomson is one of four men to have mysteriously vanished or been found deceased<\/a> in and around Smiths Falls in recent years.<\/p>\n The sequence began in 2018, when Robert Lambert<\/a>, then 75, disappeared.<\/p>\n Police said they were initially told Lambert had returned to the U.S., where he was born. Investigators can find no record of that travel.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Lawrence Bertrim<\/a>, 42, disappeared in the autumn of 2022. A familiar figure around downtown Smiths Falls, he was last seen there late on the night of Sept. 30, police say.<\/p>\n The Thomsons reported Robbie as missing in October 2023. He was 34.<\/p>\n Steven Tate<\/a>, also 34 and known to work the occasional handyman job with Robbie, was last seen alive on Nov. 4, 2023 in Smiths Falls.<\/p>\n His body turned up five days later at the side of Highway 15 northwest of town, in Montague Township.<\/p>\n Police have said they believe Tate was the victim of a hit and run and have released images and video<\/a> of a car they believe may have been involved.<\/p>\n But many in Smiths Falls have long insisted Tate\u2019s death was no accident, and that it and the disappearances of the other three men are linked.<\/p>\n Investigators won\u2019t go that far. \u201cWhile we do not believe they are directly connected,\u201d OPP spokesman Bill Dickson told the Ottawa Citizen, \u201cwe know some of the individuals may have known each other or shared social circles.\u201d<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Authorities have offered $50,000 rewards in each of the four cases and have erected billboards seeking information from the public.<\/p>\n Late last year, those who hold to the theory that the four cases form part of a single narrative got a boost.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n On Oct. 29, despite the absence of a body, the OPP laid first-degree murder charges against three people in connection to Robbie Thomson\u2019s homicide.<\/p>\n Charged are Christopher Philip Fenton, 48, and Erin Lynn Mackie, 40, both identified as living at the same address outside of Smiths Falls, and Joshua Joseph Belfiori, 34, of Bath, Ont.<\/p>\n Robbie\u2019s is the only case among the four to lead to criminal charges.<\/p>\n The day after the arrests, investigators executed a search warrant on the wooded property where Chris Fenton and Erin Mackie live, and of which Fenton is co-owner<\/a>.<\/p>\n But there is one other name on the title: Robert Lambert, the first of the men to go missing.<\/p>\n The search uncovered human remains. Then came the confirmation.<\/p>\n It was Robbie<\/a>.<\/p>\n Police have not said that Robert Lambert\u2019s disappearance is connected to Robbie Thomson\u2019s homicide, and no charges have been laid in that case.<\/p>\n And yet Robbie\u2019s remains<\/a> turned up on Lambert\u2019s land. And property records tied to that land raise questions about powers of attorney and vulnerability in old age.<\/p>\n So what, exactly, has been happening in Smiths Falls?<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Smiths Falls, a railroad town about halfway between Ottawa and Kingston with a population of just over 9,000 people, has long had a tough reputation.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Back in the 1920s, when the Ontario Temperance Act generally outlawed liquor sales in the province, trains from Montreal ferried bootleggers in alongside the regular commercial freight.<\/p>\n Locals say similar distribution lines continue to funnel contraband through Smiths Falls today.<\/p>\n After several large employers exited town in the late oughts \u2014 the Hershey chocolate factory and Stanley Tools among them \u2014 Smiths Falls continued what by then had become a steady decline.<\/p>\n In 2017, when Canopy Growth Corp., then the darling of the fledgling legal cannabis industry, acquired the 700,000 square-foot Hershey complex, everyone hoped the town would be saved.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n But a little over five years later, Canopy sold that property back to Hershey. It\u2019s remained largely dormant since<\/a>.<\/p>\n While Canopy\u2019s nearby Tweed plant still turns out cannabis products, local jobs remain few.<\/p>\n In 2024, Mayor Shawn Pankow told Lanark County Council<\/a> that 14 per cent of the population of Smiths Falls was getting Ontario Disability Support Program payments \u2014 \u201ccertainly far higher than the provincial average,\u201d said Pankow in an interview, \u201cand I don\u2019t think it has probably changed much.\u201d<\/p>\n Combine all of this with another reality of Smiths Falls \u2014 the one Robbie lived \u2014 and you get something common to a lot of small Ontario towns: the way rust-belt despair intertwines with the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Townsfolk say that an active illicit-drugs trade connects Smiths Falls to a network of traffickers throughout the region and that it also links Robbie Thomson and the other three men.<\/p>\n Asked about this insistence that the cases are related, Pankow said the police must be allowed to do their work, before adding:<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a degree of hope that if they are connected then there\u2019s going to be more bodies discovered on this property and we will end up seeing more closure for families. But again, at this stage, it\u2019s too preliminary to even speculate.\u201d<\/p>\n At the centre of the police probe is that property: a densely treed 40 acres owned (as it happens) by a retired high-end kitchen appliances salesman from Brooklyn, N.Y. who fell in love online.<\/p>\n That man has vanished. His name remains on title. It\u2019s the same land where police found Robbie.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Robbie Thomson started using in his late teens or early 20s, says his sister Tabatha, who is also in recovery following her own challenges with prescription medications.<\/p>\n He\u2019d been diagnosed as a young man with a number of mental-health conditions, ADHD among them, and his hockey career also led to injuries.<\/p>\n The Thomsons believe he was self-medicating.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was very wiry at times. He never really had a doctor once he grew up,\u201d Tabatha says. \u201cI know it\u2019s not the right choice but he was clearly having a hard time.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was maybe a way to shut off.\u201d<\/p>\n His addiction would help lead him to a couple of serious scrapes with the law. But it was during a stint in rehab that Robbie met his longtime partner Melissa Reid, who was also in recovery.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n She had two children already, and Robbie became an important part of their lives. The couple married in Jamaica in 2015, about the time that Robbie was playing for the Cornwall River Kings.<\/p>\n For work he often helped out his father, George, a railroader who did small drywalling and painting jobs on the side. Robbie could pick up a refrigerator all on his own and walk it into your house.<\/p>\n As time went on he began doing odd jobs with friends like Steven Tate, who everyone just called \u201cTate.\u201d<\/p>\n Robbie and Melissa had a lot of good years, with one often keeping the other from straying back into drugs. But Tabatha and George say they could also be each other\u2019s weakest links.<\/p>\n The couple were living with Tabatha in downtown Smiths Falls when the relationship fell apart.<\/p>\n Tabatha says Robbie didn\u2019t want to tempt Tabatha and Melissa by using at home. And so he kept away, more and more as time went by.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was on a dark path,\u201d Tabatha says. \u201cThe addiction was pretty heavy at that time. He was going from house to house. He was still in contact with Melissa, still in contact with us.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cBut obviously I know Robbie \u2014 I know his history. I had to look for him many of times before.\u201d<\/p>\n George says it was a shattering period for the family: \u201cWe went through hell. You couldn\u2019t sleep at night thinking he wasn\u2019t going to be alive tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Tabatha says she and her brother had a deal.<\/p>\n \u201cI had sat down, we had a conversation, I said, \u2018Listen, I can\u2019t do this, I can\u2019t wonder, I can\u2019t not know.\u2019 So we had a plan that he would be in contact with me every couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n That plan stuck. Until Robbie went missing.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the Smiths Falls area, meanwhile, two of those who would later be charged in Robbie\u2019s homicide were living out their own lives.<\/p>\n They were having money troubles.<\/p>\n In early 2014, Chris Fenton had taken a mortgage out with CIBC to purchase a home at 516 Blinkhorn Ln., a clapboard bungalow at the end of a gravel road on the northeast outskirts of Smiths Falls.<\/p>\n The previous autumn, that property had been advertised in the Carleton Place-Almonte Canadian Gazette for $184,900.<\/p>\n Not outside the average for a single-family home in Smiths Falls at the time, but paying it off would become a problem.<\/p>\n Ironically, Chris\u2019s mortgage woes were unfolding while he himself was busy building a life with a real estate agent.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Though it\u2019s not clear when their relationship began, Chris is identified as Erin Mackie\u2019s partner in an obituary published at the time of Erin\u2019s maternal grandfather\u2019s death in 2015.<\/p>\n Chris spent at least part of his childhood in the 1980s growing up in Ottawa\u2019s Mechanicsville neighbourhood, just west of the downtown core.<\/p>\n A 1990 Citizen story covering an Ottawa Board of Education teachers strike describes a 12-year-old Chris Fenton at Connaught School on Gladstone Avenue \u201cshrieking\u201d of the picketing teachers:<\/p>\n \u201cThey look like nerds!\u201d<\/p>\n A Smiths Falls man who knows Chris well, and who asked to remain anonymous because of the stigma attached to speaking publicly,\u00a0calls him \u201cawkward\u201d but \u201cstreetwise,\u201d with an interest in cars and snowmobiles.<\/p>\n Erin, on the other hand, is chatty and outgoing. She grew up south of Ottawa.<\/p>\n Her brother Brent, also a competitive hockey player, owns Mackie Homes, a building firm based in Arnprior that in its promotional literature refers to the Mackies as carpenters \u201cgoing back three generations.\u201d<\/p>\n (Contacted through his business, Brent declined to comment for this story.)<\/p>\n Erin attended Osgoode Township High School and, in November 2002, was awarded the Metcalfe Women\u2019s Institute Award \u201cfor the most deserving Grade 11 student in family studies.\u201d<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n In a photograph published in The Winchester Press she is 17, smiling alongside her classmates.<\/p>\n By 2015, Erin and Chris had a daughter. Community members say they now have two children.<\/p>\n Erin\u2019s real estate work was based mainly in Manotick, where she also waited tables for many years at the Black Dog Bistro.<\/p>\n Two business websites advertising her real estate services referred to Coldwell Banker First Ottawa Realty. She registered one of those sites, erinlmackie.com (now defunct), in late 2015.<\/p>\n The following year, in October 2016, Chris defaulted on the Blinkhorn mortgage.<\/p>\n Four months after that, a representative of a foreclosure-management firm arrived at the home to find tenants living there, according to court documents filed at the Kingston courthouse.<\/p>\n By June, having obtained a writ of seizure and sale on the property, CIBC had lined up a buyer and was poised to sell the place.<\/p>\n But soon after, Chris\u2019s tenants on Blinkhorn presented the listing agent on the home with what CIBC later referred to in court documents as a \u201cpurported lease.\u201d<\/p>\n That \u201clease\u201d identified Chris as the landlord, his tenants as a couple with four sons.<\/p>\n It also laid out a series of confusing dates.<\/p>\n As the CIBC mortgage specialist overseeing the matter for the bank later pointed out in an affidavit, Chris\u2019s lease for the Blinkhorn home ran for a fixed term of 60 months \u201cbut also states that it commences April 1, 2016 and ends April 1, 2022, a period of 72 months.\u201d<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The bank\u2019s sale of the Blinkhorn property fell through, likely as a result of these complications.<\/p>\n Indeed, according to an argument advanced in a CIBC affidavit, that was by design: \u201cthe lease was entered into in contemplation of default under the mortgage with the object of encumbering the property long-term, thereby discouraging CIBC from taking possession of the property.\u201d<\/p>\n The following month, in July 2017, CIBC sued Chris and his tenants.<\/p>\n It was Erin who was served the legal documents on Chris\u2019s behalf, at the couple\u2019s home at 821 Carroll Rd., which had been purchased in 2015 by Erin\u2019s own parents, Peter and Lynn Mackie.<\/p>\n A year later, Robert Lambert, a 75-year-old Brooklyn transplant to Canada, vanished from his home outside Smiths Falls.<\/p>\n By then, Chris\u2019s name had been added as a co-owner of that property.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The Friday in September 2022 when he disappeared, Lawrence Bertrim \u201chad made the statement that he didn\u2019t feel safe,\u201d Lawrence\u2019s roommate told his mother, Linda Mindle, 65.<\/p>\n Lawrence had revealed this to his roommate on the phone from the house on Church Street West in downtown Smiths Falls where he was last seen. He said he was afraid to leave the property.<\/p>\n \u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound like Lawrence,\u201d explains Linda, something that she says even Smiths Falls police, who knew her son well, told her they agreed with her about.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Lawrence was the oldest of four siblings and the father of two daughters.<\/p>\n A music lover, he had a knack for winning tickets to big live shows in Ottawa from radio contests.<\/p>\n Like Robbie, he suffered from ADHD and had struggled with addiction since being involved in a serious car accident at the age of 21. He would later be diagnosed with PTSD.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cThat accident was a major contributing factor in his mental health,\u201d says Lawrence\u2019s sister, Bridget Manahan, 36.<\/p>\n Linda wouldn\u2019t expect to hear from Lawrence over the weekends after his disability got paid out.<\/p>\n A beer drinker and weed smoker, he would also use whatever happened to be available, though Linda says never intravenous drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever you had would be his choice for the next cycle,\u201d Linda says.<\/p>\n Lawrence shared a home across the Rideau River from downtown Smiths Falls with three other addicts.<\/p>\n When Linda visited after Lawrence\u2019s roommate called and said he hadn\u2019t come home \u2014 that he\u2019d felt unsafe \u2014 she found his pain and PTSD medications in his bedroom waiting for him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t planning on not coming home,\u201d says Bridget.<\/p>\n After the family went to report him missing with the Smiths Falls Police Service, the first thing police did was send out his photograph. To Linda\u2019s dismay, they used Lawrence\u2019s mugshot.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n It would not be the last time the police \u2014 first the Smiths Falls service, then the OPP once the provincial force took the lead on the investigation \u2014 disappointed Lawrence\u2019s family.<\/p>\n Linda refers to \u201cthat sour taste of \u2018they don\u2019t care\u2019 \u201d when she talks of how investigators waited several months after Lawrence\u2019s disappearance to interview his immediate family members.<\/p>\n She worries the authorities look down on Lawrence as \u201clower class,\u201d and adds: \u201cHe\u2019s a son, a brother, an uncle, a father. He\u2019s a human.\u201d<\/p>\n The family knows as much about his disappearance now as they did the day he vanished.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rat thing is big,\u201d Linda says of Smiths Falls. \u201c\u2018You\u2019re not a rat\u2019 is instilled as hard as that wall.\u201d<\/p>\n But Linda also understands she\u2019ll never learn what happened unless someone talks.<\/p>\n Lawrence, Robbie and Steve all knew each other.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re all interconnected,\u201d Linda says.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n At the heart of the OPP\u2019s Smiths Falls investigation is a set of human remains unearthed on a rural 40-acre property that continues to be laced round today with yellow police tape.<\/p>\n This is how it became a crime scene.<\/p>\n Robert Lambert met Kathryn Ann Botham playing an arcade version of eight-ball pool on Yahoo! Games, part of the Yahoo! website that also allowed gamers to chat with each other during play.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Kathy was living in Brockville, Ont. then \u2014 this was 25 years ago \u2014 and had recently undergone back surgery, says Tina Sutton, who got to know both Kathy and Bob on the same gaming site.<\/p>\n Bob was around 60 at the time, and according to Tina made a living selling high-end appliances at an exclusive store in Manhattan, even handling kitchen upgrades for celebrities.<\/p>\n He was tall \u2014 six-foot-three \u2014 mild mannered, and spoke with a strong New York accent.<\/p>\n Bob had taken a liking to Kathy, and knew she was struggling in the summer heat after her operation left her in a cumbersome back brace.<\/p>\n Could he buy her an air-conditioning unit? It would make her more comfortable.<\/p>\n Tina remembers Kathy getting in touch with her and asking if she should accept Bob\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n Why not, asked Tina.<\/p>\n Before long, Bob and Kathy were getting married.<\/p>\n It all happened so fast. Tina says Bob flew her in from her home in southern California to be a witness at the wedding in New York.<\/p>\n All the time Tina knew Bob and Kathy, travelling to New York or Brockville to see them, Tina never paid. Bob seemed to have the money.<\/p>\n And yet he lived in a modest one-room apartment directly across from the Brooklyn Museum<\/a> and Prospect Park.<\/p>\n At about the time she and Bob wed, Kathy went looking for a house up in Canada.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Her elderly parents still lived in the Smiths Falls area, and Kathy found the perfect property not far away from them, northwest of the town, in Montague Township.<\/p>\n Property records show that Bob bought 572 Kelly-Jordan Rd. in late 2004. He paid $233,000, with no mortgage registered against title.<\/p>\n He was proud of the place and its 40 acres. The trees alongside Kelly-Jordan Road afforded privacy, there was a large outbuilding in back, and a deep swathe of thick wood beyond the yard.<\/p>\n A gem of an in-ground pool was immediately behind the house.<\/p>\n At the same time, Bob and Kathy travelled the world \u2014 including the Caribbean and the U.K., where they visited Stonehenge.<\/p>\n Age soon started to take its toll on Bob and he was using a cane. He bought a riding lawn mower to cut the grass on his property and tour the grounds.<\/p>\n Bob himself had no family, those who know him say: Kathy\u2019s family became his family.<\/p>\n So it was in that spirit that, in the summer of 2012, Bob co-purchased the house next door to his home on Kelly-Jordan Road.<\/p>\n The second house was for Kathy\u2019s son Jonathan Botham and his partner Jennifer.<\/p>\n Both Bob and Jennifer\u2019s names were on title and on an associated Royal Bank of Canada mortgage for $180,934.63, property records show.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Before long, Kathy had grandchildren living right next door.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Bob was in his early 70s now. Within the next few years his life would be upended. Then he\u2019d disappear entirely.<\/p>\n Those events included changes to the control Bob maintained over his own home \u2014 developments that would take on new import once police began probing the land some years later.<\/p>\n The turning point came in February 2016, when Kathy died<\/a> of cancer.<\/p>\n Tina says Kathy had already confided in her that Bob was not doing well.<\/p>\n Apart from his mobility issues, he was growing forgetful and paranoid \u2014 worried about the people around him stealing his money, Tina says.<\/p>\n While visiting Bob after Kathy\u2019s death, Tina found him overwhelmed, confused and erratic.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n He would give money and valuables to the caretakers tasked with looking in on him.<\/p>\n And he became unable to manage his affairs on his own, often asking Tina to help him log into important websites.<\/p>\n He depended on medication, was increasingly reliant on a wheelchair, and had difficulty getting out of the house to run errands and pick up groceries.<\/p>\n It did not help that Bob never really learned how to drive confidently.<\/p>\n Kathy\u2019s son Jon and his partner Jenn supported Bob as much as they could, says Tina.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Neighbours would see Bob bringing the garbage out using his wheelchair, or mowing the lawn, or sitting at the bottom of his driveway to watch as the odd car drove by.<\/p>\n But then, little by little, Chris Fenton and Erin Mackie began making themselves available to Bob.<\/p>\n The home where Erin and Chris were living at 821 Carroll Rd. was a two-minute drive from Bob\u2019s at 572 Kelly-Jordan Rd.<\/p>\n Erin and Chris brought groceries in for Bob and otherwise supported him.<\/p>\n Soon, Chris was spending a lot of his time over at Bob\u2019s house.<\/p>\n On March 27, 2018, Bob signed a document, in the presence of a lawyer and clerk from a Smiths Falls firm, naming Chris and Erin as his powers of attorney for property.<\/p>\n That document, obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, is filed with the Ontario land registry.<\/p>\n Bob\u2019s signature is a barely legible scrawl. Chris\u2019s address is listed as \u201ccare of\u201d Kelly-Jordan Road but omits the street number.<\/p>\n A week after it was signed, on April 4, 2018, Chris\u2019s name was added to the title of Bob\u2019s property \u2014 the one where he and Kathy had lived, and where Bob was living still.<\/p>\n Land registry documents indicate Chris transferred $313,500 to Bob as part of the deal, with Bob retaining \u201clife estate\u201d rights and Chris in line to own the property outright upon Bob\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n The document says the transfer occurred without recourse to the power of attorney.<\/p>\n A few days after that, Jon, Kathy\u2019s son, wrote on Facebook:<\/p>\n \u201cLooking for contact numbers for any senior buildings in town \u2026must be wheelchair accessible\u2026thanks in advance.\u201d<\/p>\n A statement Jon provided in response to a series of queries directed at both Jon and Jenn by the Citizen reads in part:<\/p>\n \u201cBob was very much a part of our family and helped us greatly over the years both taking care of my mother, looking after grandkids and even co-signing for the purchase of our home.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement adds: \u201cthere was even a path worn in the woods between the homes from frequent travel back and forth which has since mostly grown over.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, as Bob grieved the loss of his wife, he made it clear to Jon and Jenn that they needn\u2019t come over to his place any longer.<\/p>\n According to Jon\u2019s statement, after Kathy\u2019s death and other personal losses, \u201cBob struggled immensely and wasn\u2018t himself as we had known him to be. This period of time led to a wedge in our personal relationship compared to what had once been.<\/p>\n Bob was last seen in early July 2018, police say. He was 75 years old.<\/p>\n Someone told authorities he\u2019d returned to the U.S. But the OPP says they have no record of his crossing the border.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Chris and Erin moved into 572 Kelly-Jordan Rd. after Bob was no longer present there.<\/p>\n Then, in late October 2018, Bob\u2019s name was removed from title on the house where Jon and Jenn still live, next door to Bob\u2019s.<\/p>\n Jenn became the sole owner, buying Bob out for $2 (a token sum that is not out of the ordinary in property transfers between family members, for example).<\/p>\n The transfer in this case did invoke the power of attorney, naming Chris. To put it another way, Chris sold the home to Jenn on Bob\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n In response to a question from the Citizen about this transfer, Jon wrote on behalf of himself and Jenn: \u201cAt the time for us to remortgage we were under the impression he had gone to the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob was reported missing one month after the transfer, in November 2018.<\/p>\n Since then Jon has been added as co-owner alongside his wife Jenn on the property.<\/p>\n In August, 2018, Erin\u2019s parents Peter and Lynn sold the home at 821 Carroll Rd. where Erin and Chris lived prior to their arrival at 572 Kelly-Jordan Rd.<\/p>\n In March 2019, Erin voluntarily terminated her real estate registration, according to an entry in her name with the Real Estate Council of Ontario<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, people in the community say the home at 572 Kelly-Jordan Road began taking in boarders.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n On Oct. 8, 2023, someone with a Facebook account under the name of Josh Belfiori<\/a> published a post entitled \u201c3 SIMPLE RULES.\u201d<\/p>\n It is an illustration of three skeletons acting out three familiar dictums:<\/p>\n \u201cSee nothing, hear nothing, say nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Josh, who grew up in Smiths Falls but has lived throughout eastern Ontario, has a long history of brushes with the police.<\/p>\n The most important of these took place in January 2020, when, while living in Carleton Place, he was arrested<\/a> as part of a probe of wholesale drug traffickers.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Police allege in a charge sheet issued after the arrests of Christopher Fenton, Erin Mackie and Joshua Belfiori<\/a> that each of them \u201cdid commit first degree murder\u201d on or about Oct. 12, 2023.<\/p>\n The day after their arrests, police located Robbie\u2019s body on the property Bob bought for Kathy.<\/p>\n Authorities have never said that Bob and Robbie\u2019s cases are linked beyond the fact of Robbie\u2019s body having been found on the property where Bob was last known to live.<\/p>\n Nor have police linked Bob and Robbie\u2019s cases to Lawrence\u2019s disappearance or to the death of Steve Tate.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Steve\u2019s family said via intermediaries they would not speak to the Citizen for this story.<\/p>\n Much about all four cases remains unanswered.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n In the years after he vanished Robbie\u2019s sister Tabatha received many communications, often unnecessarily graphic and perhaps deliberately false, detailing Robbie\u2019s whereabouts.<\/p>\n Lawrence Bertrim\u2019s family has also received messages online about where he is now.<\/p>\n One Facebook account even contacted his sister Bridget claiming to be her brother: he\u2019d been hit on the head, the messages recounted, and had later regained consciousness deep in the forest, where he was now a prisoner.<\/p>\n Lawrence\u2019s family did not always find the communications they received credible.<\/p>\n But they were always deeply unsettling.<\/p>\n So was the ongoing lack of new, meaningful information about what had happened to Lawrence, not to mention the other men.<\/p>\n Many in Smiths Falls say that absence is connected to what they describe as a murky drug trade in the region.<\/p>\n What allows that trade to operate in a place where everyone knows everyone\u2019s business?<\/p>\n Fear.<\/p>\n The townsfolk say Smiths Falls is governed by \u201cthe rat thing,\u201d as Lawrence\u2019s mother Linda puts it, a commitment to silence that keeps the authorities out and pushes the truth underground.<\/p>\n Few people talk openly about what their neighbours might be up to.<\/p>\n In late January, the OPP released a statement saying it was pausing the search operation<\/a> at the Lambert-Fenton property in Montague Township, citing the challenges of working in the cold.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n After the winter hiatus the OPP said it would resume its investigation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the tragedy of this story stretches beyond that wooded swathe of land in Montague Township.<\/p>\n Melissa Reid, Robbie\u2019s estranged wife, who George and Tabatha say was with Robbie earlier on the last day he was seen alive, died suddenly<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n Her obituary said there would be no funeral and invited loved ones to make donations to Ontario Mental Health.<\/p>\n The Citizen newsroom is proud to uncover and report important stories like this one. If you would like to support our work and help our team continue to tell longform, deeply-reported journalism<\/a>, please consider purchasing a digital subscription.\u00a0ottawacitizen.com\/subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Share this article in your social network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breadcrumb Trail Links News We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Play Video Two men are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-503873","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Ottawa](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/20.6.2\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-oc-new.svg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/20.6.2\/websites\/images\/newsletters\/icon-oc-eveningUpdate.svg\"\/){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n![\"Robbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_5291_301660857.jpeg\")
Robbie Thomson while playing for the Cornwall River Kings, c. 2015. Photo by Photo courtesy of Tabatha Thomson<\/p>\n![\"Smiths](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0226-missing-men_301713295-1-e1772138448699.jpg\")
Left to right: Robbie Thomson, Robert Lloyd Lambert, Lawrence Bertrim and Steven Tate. HANDOUT PHOTOS\/POSTMEDIA<\/p>\n![\"Erin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/fentonmackie.jpg\")
Erin Lynn Mackie and Christopher Philip Fenton, September 2018 Photo by Supplied \/FACEBOOK<\/p>\n![\"Pictured](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ottimurderfeb13_301396950.jpg\")
Pictured is the home where Robert Lambert was last seen alive, in 2018, and it is where Chris Fenton and Erin Mackie lived. Photo by Tony Caldwell \/Postmedia<\/p>\n![\"FILE:](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0211-bt-a1-canopy-bt.jpg\")
FILE: The exterior of the Smiths Falls Canopy Growth facility Photo by Julie Oliver \/POSTMEDIA<\/p>\n![\"Tabatha](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ottimurderfeb13_301396938.jpg\")
Tabatha Thomson and her father George last saw Tabatha\u2019s younger brother Robbie in Smiths Falls in October 2023, when they reported him missing. Photo by Tony Caldwell \/Postmedia<\/p>\n![\"Robbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_5290_301660871.jpeg\")
Robbie Thomson of Smiths Falls, Ont. and his wife Melissa Reid. Photo by Photo courtesy of Tabatha Thomson \/SUBMITTED<\/p>\n![\"Robbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_5289_301660847-e1772035950680.jpeg\")
Robbie Thomson. Photo courtesy of Tabatha Thomson SUBMITTED<\/p>\n![\"Erin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/screenshot-2026-02-23-at-1.51.24-pm_301662049.png\")
Erin Mackie as a 17-year-old student at Osgoode Township High School where in November 2002 she received the Metcalfe Women\u2019s Institute Award \u201cfor the most deserving Grade 11 student in family studies. Photo from now defunct The Winchester Press.<\/p>\n![\"Lawrence](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ottimurderfeb13_301396942-1.jpg\")
Bridget Manahan holds a photo of her brother Lawrence Bertrim in Perth, Feb. 13, 2026. Photo by TONY CALDWELL \/POSTMEDIA<\/p>\n![\"Bridget](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ottimurderfeb13_301396932.jpg\")
Bridget Manahan and her mother Linda Mindle, both of Perth, Ont., are desperate to know the whereabouts of Bridget\u2019s brother Lawrence Bertrim, who disappeared from the streets of Smiths Falls in September 2022. Photo by Tony Caldwell \/Postmedia<\/p>\n![\"Robert](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/att.ilpjv0o0v67vijtge4zcuqzgy4y9pyji0iiigmlvvjg_301185617.jpg\")
Robert Lloyd Lambert of Montague Township, just outside of Smiths Falls, Ont., a little over a year before he disappeared in 2018. Photo by Supplied \/ Tina Sutton<\/p>\n![\"Kathryn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/lambert.jpg\")
Kathryn and Robert Lambert on vacation. Kathryn died in 2016. Photo by Facebook<\/p>\n![\"Bob](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/att.t-t51ibmj7y3esqghm2wl4cple2lecvdsyp2-zmynyg_301185789.jpg\")
Robert Lloyd Lambert and Kathryn Ann Lambert, both of Montague Township, outside of Smiths Falls. The couple married in and around December 2004, and moved to Montague Township shortly thereafter. Photo by Supplied \/ Ottawa Citizen<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/0831-bt-tate.bt_288378754.jpg\")
The Ontario Provincial Police has placed a billboard near the sport where Steven Tate\u2019s body was found. SUBMITTED<\/p>\n![\"Robbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/img_5288_301660809-e1772038757524.jpeg\")
Robbie Thomson of Smiths Falls, Ont. and Melissa Reid at the time of their wedding in Jamaica in 2015. Photo by Photo courtesy of Tabatha Thomson \/submitted<\/p>\n