She bought a coffee. She tried to pawn a ring. She asked a stranger about a hotel room. By early afternoon, she was gone, and ten years later, nobody can say where she went.
A Normal Morning, Until It Wasn't
On April 12, 2016, 16-year-old Mekayla Bali woke up in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, did her hair and makeup, and told her mother and aunt she loved them before heading to Sacred Heart High School. By every account from people who knew her, that morning looked completely ordinary.
She attended school that day but never made it to class. What followed instead was a strange, scattered few hours, almost entirely captured on surveillance footage from local businesses, that have never added up to a clear explanation.
A Morning Pieced Together From Camera Footage
Mekayla left the school around 8:24 a.m. By 8:51, she'd withdrawn $55 from a bank. Shortly after, she tried to pawn a silver ring at a local shop; the owner later said the ring wasn't worth enough to make an offer, and that she seemed calm, not distressed, when she left.
She spent much of the next hour at a Tim Hortons, where surveillance footage shows her sitting alone, repeatedly checking the entrance, and at one point appearing to take her phone apart and put it back together — a detail investigators have suggested could be consistent with switching a SIM card, which might explain why, despite clearly using her phone throughout the morning, no calls were ever logged by her carrier that day.
Around 10:12 a.m., she sent a text to a friend: "Hey I need help." Minutes later, a follow-up: "nvm. I figured it out." The friend, who'd left her own phone at home that day, didn't see either message until much later.
Later that morning, Mekayla approached a woman sitting nearby and asked for help booking a hotel room. The woman said no. Mekayla returned briefly to school around noon, telling two classmates she planned to take a bus to Regina for a short trip. She left again minutes later, was seen near the local bus depot sometime between mid-morning and early afternoon, and bought food at a restaurant connected to the depot. She was last seen there between 1:00 and 1:45 p.m. She never purchased a ticket.
Her phone went dark the following morning, at 6:51 a.m.
A Family That Knew Immediately Something Was Wrong
Mekayla was reported missing that evening, after her grandmother arrived at the school to pick her up and couldn't find her. Her mother, Paula Bali, has described the moment she learned something was wrong in stark terms — being pulled out of work to be told there was a "family emergency," and knowing instantly, from the look on her own mother's face, that something serious had happened.
An Investigation That's Spanned a Decade
The case was initially handled by local RCMP, then escalated within weeks to a dedicated major crimes unit, and eventually handed to the RCMP's Historical Case Unit as the years passed without resolution. Investigators have reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage and conducted dozens of interviews trying to reconstruct exactly what happened that day. A province-wide, then nationwide, child search alert was issued and renewed multiple times in the years following her disappearance.
More than 1,000 tips have been received and investigated over the past decade. None have produced a confirmed answer.
A Reward That's Grown Over the Years
Mekayla's family has organized sustained fundraising efforts to keep attention on her case, building a reward fund that started at $25,000 and has grown over the years — at points reaching as high as $100,000 thanks to anonymous donors — specifically to encourage anyone holding onto information to finally come forward.
Her case has also reached a wide audience through other channels: a televised feature documentary that won broadcasting awards, in-depth print journalism, and, more recently, true crime podcast and video coverage that investigators say has measurably increased public awareness, with related video content drawing millions of views in the years since.
A Family Still Waiting, a Decade Later
On the tenth anniversary of her disappearance, in April 2026, Saskatchewan RCMP issued a renewed public appeal, noting that someone who didn't feel ready to come forward a decade ago might feel differently now. Mekayla's family released their own statement alongside it: "Mekayla is a part of us, and that will never change. But for ten years, our lives have been on hold... If you know anything at all, please find the courage to come forward. It is never too late to do the right thing. Mekayla Bali is loved beyond measure and missed beyond words."
Mekayla's mother has also been candid about the strain of advocating for her daughter's case for so long, including real frustration with how the investigation has been handled at points along the way — a tension she's described as part of the broader, often invisible burden that falls on families of long-term missing people.
If you have any information about Mekayla Bali's disappearance, you're encouraged to contact the RCMP at 310-RCMP, or Saskatchewan Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.
Sources
Disappearance of Mekayla Bali — Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Mekayla_Bali
"It's never too late to come forward": Saskatchewan RCMP continues to seek public information in Mekayla Bali's disappearance — RCMP Saskatchewan
https://rcmp.ca/en/saskatchewan/news/2026/04/4352074
RCMP reveal new details about final hours before Bali went missing — CBC News
https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/i-need-help-mekayla-bali-missing/
8 years after her disappearance, Mekayla Bali's family continues to believe despite frustration with RCMP — Global News
https://globalnews.ca/news/10460941/mekayla-bali-family-continues-to-believe/