When someone goes missing, it’s an incredibly stressful situation. For the family and friends of Jennifer Hillier-Penney, her disappearance has been an absolute nightmare.
Jennifer was a 38-year-old mother of two daughters, Marina and Deana. She was married to Dean Penney, though she was starting divorce proceedings, and living near the community of St. Anthony, Newfoundland.
On the evening of Wednesday, November 30th, 2016, Jennifer disappeared from her estranged husband’s home, seemingly without a trace.
Before she disappeared, Jennifer had left work around 4PM and went to her father’s house. She’d moved back in with her father upon separating from her husband, and was living in the community of Saint Lunaire-Griquet, about half an hour away from St. Anthony. So, what was she doing at her estranged husband’s home?
Late in November, Penney had decided to go duck hunting at his cabin in Northwest Arm, another small community about 45 minutes away from St. Anthony. Deana, the couple’s youngest daughter, didn’t want to leave the house as it was right beside her school, and she didn’t want to stay in the house alone. Reluctantly, Jennifer agreed to stay in the house with her. She agreed only because she knew Penney would be away. She’d be gone from the house long before he came home. That was her plan.
On the night of November 30th, Jennifer and her sister Yvonne had dinner with their father. After dinner, Jennifer drove Yvonne to an appointment. Her last words to her sister were – “I’ll see you tomorrow, I’ll be down tomorrow evening.” She wasn’t down the following evening.
During the drive to Yvonne’s appointment, Jennifer received a call from Penney. He sounded agitated. He kept demanding in a clipped tone whether Jennifer was planning on ‘going home’ or not. He demanded to know if she was ‘coming home right now’. Such an odd turn of phrase, considering the dwelling was no longer Jennifer’s home.
Jennifer tried to calm Penney down, telling him she was nearby, and would be back at the house shortly. The call cut off, and Jennifer seemed anxious.
According to The Fifth Estate, the RCMP estimate that Jennifer made it back to Penney’s home around 8PM. She was exhausted. She texted her daughter Deana, who wasn’t home yet, telling her she had a headache and was going to bed.
Jennifer was also texting a friend that night, asking for advice. This friend had recently gone through a divorce and had contacts that could be beneficial. Jennifer wanted his advice on seeking an appropriate divorce lawyer – she was ready to formally end her miserable marriage to Dean Penney.
Penney was aware of this, and was extremely unhappy. He didn’t want Jennifer to leave him. He often accused Jennifer of ‘fooling around’, though he had no evidence to back his claims. Jennifer also suspected that Penney was keeping an eye on her, and had friends of his keeping track of her. The agitated phone call earlier in the evening could have been a result of that.
What happened next is where the mystery lies.
Deana got home after her curfew, and didn’t feel like suffering her mother’s wrath. Believing her mother to be asleep, Deana crept to her own room and stayed there for the remainder of the night. Or so she says. It’s unknown whether Jennifer was in the house or not when Deana returned.
At 7AM the next morning, Jennifer’s alarm woke Deana from her sleep. She found it strange that her mother wasn’t turning the alarm off, so she went to investigate. Her search brought her to the kitchen, where she found her mother’s phone on the counter, blaring the alarm. She then went to the bedroom to look for her mother, and found it to be empty – the bed hadn’t even looked slept in.
There didn’t appear to be a sign of a struggle, no note left from Jennifer indicating her whereabouts, nothing. According to The Fifth Estate, “It was then that Deana Penney saw all her mom’s stuff in the house – her coat, her cellphone, her purse, her jacket, and her boots. Her car was in the driveway.”
It was as if Jennifer had simply gone up in a puff of smoke.
Deana immediately began calling family – her dad, her grandmother, her sister, her aunts and uncles. No one had seen Jennifer since the night before. After all of that, she called the police – that far north in Newfoundland, the call went to the RCMP (the Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
Officers and family members looked around the home but found no trace of where Jennifer could have gone. She’d simply vanished.
Friends of family of Jennifer’s steadfastly believe that the RCMP did not treat Jennifer’s disappearance seriously in the early days. They treated it as though she was a runaway or a suicide. This greatly displeased those nearest and dearest to Jennifer.
Officers asked them what was going on in Jennifer’s life, insinuating that maybe she simply had enough and had decided to end things on her own terms. Insulted, Jennifer’s friends and family denied this vehemently, all saying the same thing: Jennifer would not simply up and leave like that. Something happened to her. Someone took her. Someone killed her.
Days and days later, the RCMP decided it was time to bring in search dogs, a helicopter, and a sonar-equipped boat in order to search the harbour. This garnered no results. Jennifer was not found.
It was a full a week after Jennifer had disappeared that the RCMP decided to lock down the Penney home for a forensics team to comb through it as a potential crime scene. One. Full. Week. One week where an estimated hundred or so people – friends, family, and police officers alike – combed through the home, touching everything, leaving their own forensic footprints behind. Many feel this occurred one week too late.
On December 7th, 2016, the RCMP released a statement to the media that said: “Following an extensive investigation, the RCMP now considers the disappearance of St. Anthony resident Jennifer Hillier-Penney to be suspicious.” This was of little relief to those who’d been screaming at the police that it was suspicious for over a week.
All of this now begs the question: What happened to Jennifer?
Before she disappeared, Jennifer had been actively seeking the services of a divorce lawyer, asking a friend for advice. This displeased her estranged husband, Dean Penney, greatly. He didn’t want Jennifer to leave him, even though she was no longer in love with him.
The dissolution of her marriage wasn’t the only major change Jennifer was aiming for – she also wanted to leave St. Anthony. She’d already gone about applying for jobs all over the province of Newfoundland. She had a lead for the position of police secretary at a police station in Glovertown. Glovertown is 8 hours away from St. Anthony, and closer to her eldest daughter, Marina. Jennifer was making plans – they would go shopping and to movies on the weekends.
Jennifer was excited for these new changes in her life. It was a fresh start. This wasn’t a woman who would simply up and leave everything behind, a theory the RCMP still believe is plausible.
However, it was no secret to friends and family that Jennifer wanted to be as far away from Penney as she could possibly get. She was afraid of him; terrified even. She didn’t want anything out of the divorce – she just wanted to pack her belongings and hightail it to Glovertown.
Jennifer had good reason to be afraid of Penney. And she wasn’t alone. Her closest friends and family also feared for her safety if she stayed in St. Anthony. Dean Penney wasn’t letting go, and he posed the greatest danger to Jennifer.
Jennifer’s friends often heard Penney threaten Jennifer. He would threaten to ‘make away’ with her, making sure no one would find her. So anxious for Jennifer, he friends set up a safety plan for her.
The plan consisted of a text chain. Jennifer would text her friends daily about her comings and goings, making sure someone knew where she was at all times. If she failed to report in, the friends all took turns to reach out and make sure someone had a line on Jennifer. They didn’t leave much room for error.
She even confided in her friends that she suspected and feared that Penney was driving by her work, and asking his friends to keep an eye on her at work as well. Quite the coincidence, then, that she disappeared without a trace after receiving a strange phone call from Penney, after he and his daughter Deana both insisted that Jennifer stay at his home for a week while he was ‘away’.
Penney has vehemently denied, both himself and through his lawyer, that he has any knowledge of Jennifer’s whereabouts. Which seems oddly convenient considering he lied to police about his own whereabouts on the night of November 30th.
Penney told police that he was at his cabin duck hunting. However, The Fifth Estate discovered that on that very night, the night Jennifer vanished into thin air, Penney was, in fact, in St. Anthony. Not only that, but Penney was at his home. The very home Jennifer feared staying in for the extent of his ‘hunting trip’.
Penney also claimed that he’d called Deana and told her not to tell anyone that he was coming back into town to pick up his hunting decoys from the garage. Deana saw him long enough to say hi and goodnight, and Penney went back out to his cabin.
Why wouldn’t he want anyone to know he was in town? Why pick up his decoys then, when he’d already spent days hunting without them?
Nearly three years after the disappearance of Jennifer Hillier-Penney, and the family is no nearer to knowing what happened to her. Though the RCMP describe the case as an “ongoing investigation into a kidnapping and homicide” now, the family is not convinced they’ve truly done anything to attempt to solve the case. They’ve been more or less completely silent on the matter since the early days of the investigation.
As for the town of St. Anthony? Well, everyone has a theory. Some say she had enough and did herself in. Some say she left of her own accord and didn’t want to be followed. And some say that Dean Penney made good on his promise to make away with Jennifer, ensuring that no one would ever find her.
Family and friends continue to search relentlessly for Jennifer. And they have one message: Someone knows something. Someone needs to say something.
The RCMP asks anyone who may have information about the disappearance of Jennifer Hillier-Penney to contact St. Anthony RCMP at 709-454-3543. To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or report through the P3 Tips App, or www.nlcrimestoppers.com
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Sources:
Finding Jennifer – Part 1 – Part 2 – Mark Kelley – The Fifth Estate
Looking For Jennifer – Lisa Mayor and Mark Kelley – CBC News
Demanding Justice for Jennifer Hillier-Penney – Stephen Roberts – The Telegram