‘How do you keep hoping?’: Halifax mom says two years is too long to wait for news of her lost son

Theresa Gray dreads going to bed. 

Because that’s when her mind runs wild. She pores over the possibilities of how her diminutive teenage boy might have met his end. Devon Marsman, 16, was barely five feet tall and 100 pounds when he went missing nearly two years ago. Was he shot? Was his small body set on fire? Was he thrown in the woods or the ocean? 

“My mind doesn’t shut off,” she said. 

“I’m 100 per cent consumed, just trying to figure out where else to search … I’m probably never going to find out what exactly happened to him. 

“It’s bad. It’s so bad.” 

She barely sleeps most nights.   

On Feb. 24, 2022, her boy walked out of her west-end Halifax home and never returned.  

Halifax Regional Police were quick to label it a missing person case.  Investigators didn’t believe foul play was a factor in his disappearance. That was until seven months later. 

In the fall of 2022, the force issued a news release saying it believed Devon’s disappearance was suspicious. There was no information about what made investigators change their mind. Police believed that there were people out there with information about the missing teen. 

Meanwhile, Devon’s mom lives with the burden of what if. What if the police treated her son’s disappearance as a criminal case from the beginning? There appeared to be evidence supporting this in the weeks after Devon’s disappearance. Investigators told her that they had nailed down his last known whereabouts. The boy had taken a cab to Gala Court in Spryfield. He was with two other men, one of whom was a cousin. Both men had extensive criminal records, involving violence and drug trafficking.   

From the very beginning, Gray couldn’t shake the feeling that her boy’s case was not being taken seriously by police. 

Devon had left behind a computer, iPod and Play Station 4. He used each device regularly to send messages to friends. His computer contained a contact list with coded names and phone numbers. The police never examined those devices. His social media accounts had not been accessed by investigators in the weeks after her boy’s disappearance. 

She ran into serious problems with the two lead investigators on the case, officers Shaun Carvery and Scott Fairbairn.  She started to have concerns in the days and weeks after Devon was reported missing. She remembered both would text her pictures of missing children. None of them resembled her boy.   

“I said to them: Are you looking for the right child? They didn’t even resemble Devon.”   

Things got worse. As the weeks and months went by, friends and family became more and more frustrated by the seeming lack of progress in the case. Protests were held. A group of supporters started a Facebook page dedicated to help find the boy. The page has more than 6,000 members. 

Carvery was one of them. He would dive into one particularly heated conversation about the case. The topic had to do with Marsman’s last known whereabouts at the home on Gala Court. Marsman’s mom believed that the home had not been searched by police at that point. At least she’d not been told it had by police investigators, she said. The Facebook conversation happened in June 2022, almost five months after the boy had gone missing. A person criticized the investigation, accusing the police of not searching the home.  Carvery responded saying: “Once again people commenting with no context. The house at Gala was searched.” 

Another person suggested that information should have been shared with the public, to which Carvery replied: “It’s not supposed to be posted. The family knew and the public doesn’t need to know everything that’s being done. People like to make assumptions too much, hence the comments.” 

Someone else asks why Carvery is commenting.  He asks the person the same question. 

Gray said she was shocked that Carvery — a person investigating her son’s case — was on social media talking about it. She would file a complaint against the officer with the department. 

She’d do the same against the other lead investigator, Scott Fairbairn. Shortly after seeing Carvery’s comments, she texted one of the female officers involved in the investigation to complain about the lack of progress in the case. 

“I said I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I also said it’s been nine weeks and there’s nothing.” 

 About two minutes later she got a phone call from Officer Fairbairn, screaming. She recalled it was early in the morning, at about 7 a.m. 

 “He said to me, how dare you play favourite female cop? How do you know what we’re doing and not doing. He was like yelling. I said to him it’s nine weeks and you haven’t found my son. I don’t feel bad.” 

Gray filed a complaint to the officers’ boss. Staff Sgt. Scott MacDonald, asking that the officers be taken off the case. She said that they were removed as lead investigators but remained on the file. 

Calvin Lawrence, a 25-year veteran of the RCMP, says both officers crossed the line. “They showed a lack of empathy, a lack of professionalism and a lack of judgment,” said Lawrence. “That erodes trust that the investigation is being conducted properly.   

“Most people don’t know what police officers do. They see stuff on TV that’s resolved in an hour. When you sit down with people face to face it shows empathy. In police work, that’s the most important trait that a police officer should have.”  

It’s been more than 15 months since Devon’s case changed from a missing person file to a criminal investigation. That announcement came in October 2022, the same month an area was searched close to Devon’s last known whereabouts on Gala Court. The area was Roach’s Pond, less than a kilometre from the home. 

Gray asked one of investigators what if any evidence was collected there, but she was given no information. Last month, she contacted one of the lead investigators, looking for an update. 

“He told me I’m going to have to wait for it to come out in the wash. I told him I’m not waiting for anything to come out in the wash.” 

While feeling stonewalled by police, Gray does have people in her corner.  Lisa Fenton is one of them. She’s a member of Wings of Mercy, a volunteer organization that helps families search for missing loved ones. Fenton got involved in the search for Devon after his mom called her about a month after he disappeared. 

She says the case is intriguing because of the sheer lack of evidence of Devon’s whereabouts after Feb. 24, when police believe he went to the home on Gala. “There’s not been a trace of Devon, not one sighting, not one digital print, there’s nothing.” 

After she got involved, she soon discovered gaps in the police’s investigation. She’s zeroed on the fact that the police hadn’t asked for his computer, laptop and PS4. She also found out that investigators had not logged into his social media. 

“I contacted the lead investigator at the time and said you guys need to get these digital devices and go through them. Look at them and see where these connections go to. 

“You need to see what he was doing before he disappeared.” 

The retired Mounties agrees.  

“In this technological age it so important that they go through these devices as soon as possible,” said Lawrence.  “You need to examine potential evidence so you can build the biggest picture of what might have happened to this boy. Who was he talking to? What were his habits and tendencies in the days before he disappeared?”

Fenton also discovered that one of Devon’s Apple earpods was missing when he disappeared. Fenton found out that the other earphone was traceable, but the police had not made an attempt to find it. 

His phone was never found. 

“They treated it as if he ran away,” said Fenton. “Even if he ran away, and he wasn’t a victim of a crime, there could have been information to show where he went. 

There could have been a clue on any of those devices.” 

In the weeks after her son went missing, Devon’s mom would find out that her boy lived a secret life. Marsman had dyslexia and struggled academically. He eventually stopped going to school. Unbeknownst to his mom, he had started hanging out with his cousin.   

But she said he saw no signs that her son was up to anything illegal except smoking pot. She said her son never had much money on him other than what she’d given him. He didn’t buy any new things. She says he wore a chain that belonged to her. 

They were close, she said. Her boy was shy and affectionate. He didn’t fit the mould of a hardened criminal. 

“He’d call me at work 40 or 50 times some days. He’d ask me to email transfer him 20 bucks or bring fries home. I never said no.”

Fenton has invested a lot of her time trying to help police investigators solve the case. Late last summer, she forwarded a list of 22 people she believed were connected with Devon’s cousin and could possibly help with the case. A few months later (in October) two Halifax homicide investigators showed up on her doorstep telling her help was no longer wanted. They arrived the day after police spoke with someone on the list she had provided the department. She said they warned her that she was getting too close to the investigation and putting herself in danger. 

In the end, she says her heart breaks for Devon’s mom. She says she deserves answers. 

“They keep saying that the case is moving forward but we haven’t heard of any interviews or searches happening.  

“When Theresa asks for an update, they say they can’t tell her anything. How do you keep hoping for two years that they’ll find her son.” 

SaltWire contacted HRP asking for an update and about the accusations against officers Carvery and Fairbairn, but the force provided no additional information. Nor did it address concerns that Devon’s electronic devices and social media accounts had not been examined.  

Const. John MacLeod, a spokesperson for the HRP, said in an email that the department cannot get into the specifics of the investigation itself, “but investigators do believe Devon’s disappearance is suspicious and that there are people who have information that they have not shared with police.

 “We have and we will continue to explore investigative avenues and follow up on tips and information that has been shared with police,” said MacLeod. 

He said if people have an issue with their interaction with a member of the HRP they should reach out to the force’s professional standards office to address their concerns.