By Kenneth Jackson
APTN National News
Kingston, Ont. —After a night of drinking with a friend, Ken Kilabuk went to the friend’s apartment to call a cab and go home.
Kilabuk waited outside while his buddy went in to make the call.
When the friend returned Kilabuk was nowhere to be seen according to the Pangnirtung, Nunavut, man’s girlfriend Meghan Mike.
Mike said Kilabuk was trying to get back to his apartment across town near the campus of St. Lawrence College where he was enrolled in the carpentry program.
Mike explained the pair made it back to the friend’s apartment near Main and Division streets, just up from the city’s popular night time hub, between 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. on Oct. 16.
It’s a mystery what happened in the time the friend went inside and returned.
Kilabuk’s disappearance launched a search by police and Kingston residents.
While he was missing tips suggested he was spotted as far away as Ottawa but they all were determined to be false.
Police said they feared for Kilabuk’s safety and asked for people to come forward with information but were left in the dark along with his girlfriend and his family.
Some light was shed on the situation Oct. 27, but not the kind anyone was hoping for.
Kilabuk’s body was found, 12 days after he went missing, about 1.5 km away from the friend’s apartment washed up on the shore of Anglin Bay, just off the Cataraqui River that runs into Lake Ontario and Kingston’s waterfront.
An autopsy conducted Monday in Ottawa, Ont. determined Kilabuk died of drowning but police said they still don’t know if the death is suspicious.
Police said they are still trying to determine his whereabouts. They won’t comment on the details of their investigation but said major crime detectives are on the case.
Mike, who is in communication with Kingston police, said no one has come forward with solid information to pinpoint Kilabuk’s movements.
She pleaded for people to come forward and help give the family some peace.
“Someone saw him,” she said, adding, in her heart, she feels it was accidental but is waiting for confirmation by police. She said police have ruled out the friend as a suspect. “I do think it was an accident.”
The night he went missing it was cold and by the water the wind picks up in the evening.
She doesn’t believe the death was intentional, at least on Kilabuk’s part.
“He was a happy person. He would never (commit suicide),” she said.
She said they spoke on the phone the night before. They said they loved each other and she told him he could tell her about his dreams the next day.
Mike first got concerned when he didn’t return her text message Oct. 16, just hours after he disappeared.
After she couldn’t reach on him on his cellphone she wrote on his Facebook.
“WTF is going on?! Your phone is obviously dead or something, I’m very worried now, you have to FB me!!!,” Mike wrote on his wall on Oct. 16.
She later reported him missing.
Mike is having a difficult time believing Kilabuk is gone.
“I’m in shock. I still don’t believe it,” she said.
A couple days before he went missing, Kilabuk wrote on his Facebook page he was having fun with Mike and a few friends.
On Oct. 5, Kilabuk surprised his long-time girlfriend with a bouquet of roses.
“Beautiful purplish roses I came home to from Ken. I love you,” Mike wrote on Facebook.
