Jacqueline Furland Smith, a 40-year-old former Canadian military trainer,

moves to Costa Rica to follow her dreams, but in the summer of 2021,

vanishes without a trace.

How can a woman just go missing and us put out all that effort to find her, and she's still missing?

I'm David Rijin, and this is Someone Knows Something, Season 10, the Jacqueline-Ferlin-Smith case.

Available now on CBC Listen and wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a CBC podcast.

For a moment there, after Brad's mayoral win in the fall of 2024, things in Richmond seemed to be getting back to normal. That didn't last long.

By the summer, I got word that Richemount Town Council had to close its office due to harassment

towards staff by some people in town.

And by people, I'm hearing that it's actually one person, Melinda.

I can't confirm this, but given that she shared a video with me of her refusing to leave the administrative office last year,

This is a public building, and I'm going to fucking sit here.

Melinda, I'm not turning mine off either.

It seems plausible.

Either way, the mood in town continued to sour.

But for Romana in the cult, it's been business as usual.

You hearing the truth, the truth, the whole truth,

funds can be transferred to the email address.

They're still in the school, with no sign of leaving.

But then as the hot summer dragged on, the toxicity in Richemound turned from metaphorical to literal.

A stink wafted over the town. The cult's plumbing had finally overflowed.

...