August 21 has always been a special day for Denise Allan of London, England. The date is her birthday as well as that of her only child, twenty-year-old Charles. Mum and son’s special day in 1989 was supposed to be extra special as it marked a milestone birthday for both: Denise was turning forty and Charles was turning twenty-one. They made plans to meet and celebrate across the world.

The date, however, came and passed with no word from Charles, as have the ensuing thirty-five years. He had likely not made it to his twenty-first birthday, and Denise fears his life was taken by the hands of another.

Charles Horvath

Charles Horvath was born in 1968 in Cochenour, Ontario, Canada, but he was a resident of England. After his parents divorced when he was young, he remained in England with Denise while his father, Max, returned to Canada.

Baby Charles With Dad And Mum

While hiking across Canada in late April 1989, Charles visited his father and godfather in Ontario.  Afterwards, he traveled 2,400 kilometers (approximately 1,500 miles) west, arriving in Kelowna, a city of roughly 145,000 people in British Columbia, on May 3. Eight days later, Charles faxed a letter from the city’s Roche Stationers to Denise, the living in Yorkshire, conveying he was looking forward to seeing his her and his stepfather, Stuart Allan, on August 21, when they planned to rendezvous in Hong Kong to celebrate their birthdays. Charles was to fly in from Canada while Denise and Stuart would make the trek from England.

As the date drew closer, Charles wrote his mum that he would call to finalize arrangements, but the call never came. Denise received no further word from Charles through the summer of 1989.

After several phone calls to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Denise officially reported Charles as missing on August 10 and requested that they mount a search for him.

Charles And Denise

The Mounties determined Charles had camped at the Tiny Town Campsite at the Royal Bank Orchard Park in Kelowna in May 1989. He had registered at the local Gospel Mission and had stayed at the homes of two residents, one named Vernon Gordon and the other named Sherwood.

Royal Bank Orchard Park manager Phil Flett said Charles had left the campsite abruptly, abandoning his tent and most of his possessions, including his identification, clothes, family photos, and other personal belongings, most of which had been disposed by the time the Mounties investigated.  The only items that remained were a Bible, rosary, and a leather strap from his boot. They were given to Denise but provided no clues to Charles’ whereabouts.

Tiny Town Campground Site

Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

Gino Bourdin recalled Charles often chatting with him and his family at their campsite. He believes he saw Charles at an all-night party at the campground on the evening of May 26, and remembered seeing his belongings left behind the following day.

Gino Bourdin

Joanne Zebroff had also met Charles during his stay at the Tiny Town Campsite and said he had stayed for a time at her apartment, and she believes he came there unexpectedly sometime thereafter. At the time, Joanne and her visiting brother were having dinner, and she refused Charles’ request to enter the apartment when he rang the  buzzer in the building’s entryway. She thought the event had occurred in May, the same month Denise had last heard from Charles. In the course of their investigation, however, the RCMP concluded Joanne was mistaken, saying the visit was in July, two months after Charles had last contacted his mother.

Joanne says she again saw Charles for the final time in August at the Live Wire Night Club. The RCMP, however, says the sighting cannot be confirmed as Charles.

Joanne Zebroff

The man who arrived at Joanne’s apartment identified himself as Charles, and Joanne believes it was him, but she did not actually see him. The last confirmed sighting of Charles was on May 26, when a video recorder showed him cashing a cheque at Kelowna’s Orchard Park Royal Bank.

Last Seen At The Bank

Denise made several trips from England to Kelowna to search for her son. On March 17, 1992, just under three years after Charles was last seen, she found an unsigned letter at the door to her room at the Pandosy Inn. The contents were ominous.

Denise Keeps Searching

The letter read, “Seen your ad in the paper looking for your son. I seen him May 26. We were partying and two people knocked him out. But he died. His body is in the lake by the bridge.” The lake referenced by the writer is Lake Okanagan, just outside of Kelowna.

As divers from the Vancouver chapter of International Sea Search and several local volunteer divers searched for Charles, the letter writer was apparently watching them. Shortly after the search was called off without finding a body, Denise received a second letter, claiming the divers were looking on the wrong side of the bridge.

An Ominous Letter

Equipped with a submersible camera, the divers then searched on the other side. After five days of searching, they were joined by RCMP divers.  One day later, they found a body, but it was identified as that of a sixty-four-year-old Kelowna man whose death was ruled a probable suicide.

Police concluded the anonymous letters were hoaxes and the discovery of a body was only a coincidence. The letter’s author is unknown.

Divers Find A Body,

But It Is Not That Of Charles

The RCMP initially believed Charles Horvath disappeared of his own free will because he is believed to have visited Joanne Zebroff three months after contacting Denise and because two relatives said he had told them of his intention to disappear. In addition, Charles had told several relatives he planned to hitchhike across Canada and the RCMP received hundreds of reported sightings of him doing so in eastern Canada in the months after he was last seen in Kelowna in western Canada in May 1989. The reported sightings continued until April 1992, but none could be confirmed to be him.

The Mounties have since changed their sentiments. In 2010, the Serious Crime Unit of the RCMP listed Charles Horvath as “presumably deceased.”  Although he was declared legally dead by the High Court of the United Kingdom in August 2020, his case remains open.

Foul Play Is Likely

Charles Karoly John Horvath was last heard from on May 26, 1989.  At the time of his disappearance, he was six-feet-tall and weighed approximately one-hundred-seventy-five pounds. His eyes and hair were both dark and he had a skull tattoo on his right arm.

Charles Horvath would today be fifty-five-years-old. If you have any information relating to his disappearance, please call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at 250-762-3300 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

Computer-Aged Image of Charles Horvath

Image Done By Forensic Artist Tim Widden

A rendering of Charles’ tattoo is in the upper-left corner of this aged-enhanced drawing.

Computer-Aged Drawing Of Charles

Image Done By Forensic Artist Diana Trepkov

Denise Allan continues searching for her only child. She says she has information that Charles could have been murdered by members of a Hells Angels-like biker gang staying in Kelowna at the time he was camping there.

Denise Keeps Going

In 2017, Denise appeared on Britain’s Got Talent as a part of the “Missing People Choir.”

A Place In the Choir

SOURCES:
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• Digital Journal
• Global News
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police
• Unsolved Mysteries