Mom of missing St. Catharines woman issues new call for help after four months of silence

It was supposed to be just another New Year’s for Bonnie Leights and her family — however, a call on January 1, 2022 didn’t only change her life, but shattered it.

“I was staying at my daughter Kelly’s house for New Year's Eve and we had gotten a call in the afternoon on New Year’s Day from Trina’s best friend, Holly, who said she had been trying to reach Katrina,” Blagdon’s mother Leights explained on The Sam Laprade Show on Friday, April 1. “Holly had made a phone call and Holly was told that Trina had gotten up some time between midnight and early morning and went for a walk, and never returned.”

Katrina Blagdon, a 37-year-old mother of two boys, was living in St. Catharines when she went missing.

Her disappearance prompted searches in the area, as well as near the Niagara region, which still happens to this day.

But after four months of little movement in Blagdon’s case, Leights is issuing another call for help from the public.

The last known sighting of Blagdon was at Firehouse Subs on Fourth Avenue in St. Catharines, where security cameras recorded her picking up food with her boyfriend, around 6 p.m. on December 31.

“In the last contacts with the family she said that she was planning a quiet night in, and going to bed before, or close to midnight,” eldest sister Kelly Blagdon, who lives in Ottawa, told Thorold Today on January 20. “But the lack of cellphone activity past 6 p.m on New Year's Eve alone makes me concerned. She was on every major social media. It would have been crazy for her not to contact us.”

And Leights and the rest of the family have been doing everything they can to care for her boys.

“This is really difficult to talk about. Her boys — they are with their dad and we have been doing everything in our power to keep the boys away from the public in regards to information that’s coming in, unless there is something to the information and we don’t want to upset the boys any more than they are [already] upset.”

There’s been no trace of Blagdon, until last week that is, when the family received new information that her phone was pinged a couple of days after she went missing alongside another phone that was also pinged.

“We’ve been looking into that and wondering why because we couldn’t — we can’t comprehend or understand anything why Trina’s phone would be active and Trina not call her family members and her best friend on New Year's Day — that is just not Katrina,” Leights said.

Blagdon had also served in the military for 14 years, where she was served as a corporal in supply tech and did 10 months in Afghanistan.

“She took her oath with the military very seriously and played her part,” Leights said.

In the days and weeks following her disappearance, Leights said she’s been living for the weekends when groups of people will come out to help her search areas for her daughter or any trace of her.

“I can’t speak strong enough on this because in the St. Catharines area is where we are focused on,” she explained. “The amount of people who come forward — even with food, with searches — it’s just, [there’s] somebody out every day, whether it’s five people, whether it’s 10 people.”

Adding, “The big crowds that come out [are] amazing and it keeps getting bigger, and the bigger it gets, the more in hopes we are in finding Katrina.”

But not everyone has been cooperative, Leights revealed, although she wouldn’t elaborate on specifics of who she was referring to and the circumstances.

Despite the roadblocks in Blagdon’s case, Leights continues to hold out hope and pleads for anyone with information to come forward.

“Katrina — she’s kind, she’s lovely, she’s funny. She just loved people in general. She’d help anybody out,” Leights said. “Please, please, with every ounce that you have inside of yourself, help us locate Katrina. If you know something, because this is devastating on all who know her and love her. Please come forward. In the darkest days of our lives — please.”

Blagdon was last seen wearing a purple jacket and black ice maidens, which are snow boots that are 10 inches tall. She is described as white, 5’4” with a slim build, dirty blonde hair and has tattoos.

There is now a $20,000 reward issued to help bring Blagdon home.

A Facebook group has been set up for updates on Blagdon and to organize search groups. That Facebook group can be found here.

– With files from Ludvig Drevfjall of Thorold Today.