On October 27, 2018, Canadian national Malcom Madsen went to a Puerto Vallarta bar with his Mexican girlfriend Marcela Acosta Ramos. They left together just after midnight and it was the last time the 68-year-old Madsen was seen alive.
In Port Hope, Ontario, 4,400 km away, Madsen’s daughter Brooke Mullins quickly loses confidence in the ability of the Mexican police to find her father. She decides to turn detective and travels to Puerto Vallarta to launch her own investigation. Even though she soon identifies clear suspects and increasingly undeniable incriminating evidence, the police refuse to make any arrests.
This film follows the journey of a daughter who wouldn’t give up and exposes a corruption-riddled system of justice in a country where 100,000 people go missing every year and 95% of violent crimes are never solved.
During her investigation in Mexico Brooke meets friends of her father, teams up with a Costa Rican lawyer and collaborates with an investigative reporter who dares not show his face on camera. Her family life becomes strained and her costs start mounting up. In Mexico you often need to pay the police to get them to do their job and pay others to provide evidence.
Through a combination of money-obsessed texts and GPS records from cars and phones, Brooke builds what would seem to be a completely airtight case against Marcela, including extraordinary CCTV footage showing Malcolm’s drink being spiked on the night he was last seen. But even then the authorities find ways to deny the obvious.
On April 14th 2023, four and a half years after he disappeared, justice was finally delivered and Malcom’s killers were convicted in a Mexican court.
Thanks to Brooke's relentless pursuit of justice, Marcela, her brother Martin and son Andres each received sentences of 56 years in prison.