Police officers from Metro Toronto Police and the OPP search a wooded area in Springwater Township, Ont., on Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2014.Peter Redman/The Canadian Press
Police are wrapping up their search in the case a Toronto girl who went missing 29 years ago while on her way to go swimming with a friend.
Officers renewed the search for signs of Nicole Morin on Wednesday after receiving a tip from the public.
Nearly 40 officers scoured a rural area near Barrie, Ont., that was searched when Nicole vanished in 1985.
But police said on Thursday no new evidence surfaced and they will not return to the site on Friday.
Nicole was eight when she disappeared after leaving her family's apartment in a west-end Toronto building.
Police, who still regard the disappearance as a missing-person's case, have never arrested anyone in the case and have ruled out any family involvement.
With the case nearing its 30th anniversary, about 40 officers from the Ontario Provincial Police and Toronto Police Service scoured the stretch of rural land in Springwater Township on Wednesday after a tip from the public. They found nothing.
The recent second tip prompted investigators to take another look.
"The only link we have is that [the first tip] took place at roughly the same time," said Detective Sergeant Madelaine Tretter, the Toronto Police lead on the Morin investigation since 2008. "The OPP cleared it at the time. We received info requesting we take another look. Every tip we get about Nicole Morin, we investigate."
She said she could not elaborate publicly on the nature of the tip.
The Morin case has baffled several generations of investigators. On July 30, 1985, the girl left her parents' penthouse apartment in Etobicoke wearing a once-piece swimsuit and red canvas shoes. She was supposed to meet a friend at the apartment complex's pool, but never showed.
In the time since, police have sorted through dozens of tips from across Canada without a single solid lead. In the summer, Toronto Police produced a film re-enactment of the girl's last known moments. Det. Sgt. Tretter is hopeful the video, combined with new investigative technology and public interest in the anniversary, will yield new information.
"We've never given up searching for her," she said.
With files from Patrick White