Denise Allan has been searching for her missing son Charles Horvath since 1989.

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Many people are familiar with the story of Charles Horvath Allan who disappeared from a campsite in Kelowna in 1989 when he was twenty-years-old, and his mother Denise Horvath Allan’s relentless search for answers. 

Denise has travelled from her home in England to Canada 15 times in the past 34 years in search of her son, and due to her increasing age and related medical challenges, will not be able to make the trip over again. 

But she still hasn't given up her hope for closure.

“I shall be 74 next month, becoming quite frail and have several health issues,” she said. “Making the trip from England to Kelowna is nearly impossible, I’m not well enough travel so far and having searched across the world for so many years, I’ve spent and borrowed all I could.”

Denise has secured the support of a free, professional missing person agency, Recover, and collected almost $2,500 from a GoFundMe to cover costs of an updated age progression sketch by a forensic artist, set up and maintain an independent tip line, print and distribute a new poster of Charles across North America and send volunteer investigators to travel to Kelowna to do interviews.

Her wish is to bring Charles home and lay him to rest beside his relatives in Cambridge, England.

“Maybe it would provide a little peace in what is left of my life instead of living in perpetual torment of not knowing,” she said.

Charles was on a gap year backpacking in Canada when he stopped in Kelowna and was last seen on May 26, 1989 cashing a cheque at the Orchard Park Royal Bank. He’d been living at the old Tiny Town campsite in a tent, and it's there she believes something terrible happened to her son.

She said she hasn’t received any clues on the whereabouts of Charles but believes he was murdered and his murder is connected to a group of bikers from the US that stayed overnight at the Tiny Town Campsite and RV Park on May 19, 1989. 

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Decades later, Denise said she is devastated emotionally.

“I always believed if I searched hard and long enough I would find the fate of my only son. Every day hoping that someone who knows the truth will find the courage to tell, tormented each night needing to know Charles’ demise and where his remains lay. Sadly I’m afraid that I shall go to my grave never knowing.”

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The last time Denise saw her son was in 1988 when she flew out to meet him in Montreal. The last letter home she received from him was by sent by fax from Roch Stationers on Bernard Avenue on May 11, shortly before his disappearance.

“Charles was the light of my life, one of the most wanted babies on earth,” she said. “He was handsome, kind, loving, generous and a somewhat naïve young man, very trusting. Charles adored animals and enjoyed helping his Nana Austin in her work. A very happy baby, boy, teenager and fine young man.”

As of today, July 26, the GoFundMe has reached $2,405 of the $2,500 needed for the investigation.

The RCMP Serious Case Unit file 1989-21784 is still open. If you have any information, please contact Central Okanagan Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Ainslie or call 250-819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.

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