A Canadian woman’s more than four-year quest for justice in the disappearance of her father in Mexico has come to a triumphant, if bittersweet, end.

Brooke Mullins, who almost single-handedly forced authorities in the tourist town of Puerto Vallarta to pursue the case of her missing father, Malcom Madsen, learned Friday that the three accused in the Canadian man’s 2018 disappearance have been found guilty by a Mexican court.

At the end of a weeklong trial that began last Monday, Madsen’s Mexican girlfriend of six years, Marcela Acosta Ramos, her son Andres Javier Romero Acosta and brother Martin Alejandro Acosta Ramos, were convicted of “disappearance committed by individuals,” a charge stemming from a Mexican law on forced disappearances used when the missing person cannot be found.

A sentencing hearing is expected to take place next week.

“I’m elated,” said Mullins after arriving in Toronto on a flight late Friday following a week of attending the trial, where she appeared as a witness for the prosecution. “Many people over the years have said my father would be so proud of me and I’ve always said, because I’m uncomfortable with praise, ‘Well, we’ll see what happens.’ But as I was leaving the airport and walking through customs it dawned on me that yeah, maybe I did it and he is proud of me.

“I hope this is one of those stories that show us that anyone of us can make a positive difference if we have the determination to do so.”

Mullins testified twice during the five-day trial, presided over by three judges and no jury, telling the court how she became worried back in October 2018 when she stopped hearing from her father, a snowbird from Sutton, Ont., who had travelled to Mexico that year to visit his girlfriend and spend the winter at a beachside treehouse south of Puerto Vallarta.

When a few days of attempts to reach her father proved fruitless, Mullins got on a plane and flew to Mexico, beginning what would become a four-and-a-half year quest for closure and justice. She assembled a team consisting of a lawyer, private investigators and local sources to gather evidence as it became clear that local authorities had little interest in pursuing the case.

On Friday, justice was done. But her father remains missing. Investigators continue their search.

None of the accused offered any information during the trial that might indicate the whereabouts of Madsen or his remains.

Roberto Carlo Morales Jimenez, a lawyer representing Marcela, told the Star Saturday that he could not comment on the verdict because there are further hearings and he is planning to appeal.

Canadian documentary filmmaker Robert Osborne, who travelled to Puerto Vallarta to attend the trial, said the defence provided no witnesses of its own and did not provide an alternative narrative that could explain the evidence from the night Madsen went missing.

“Even if you’ve got a poor narrative, you should still present it … But they didn’t bother and I think that was a huge flaw in their arguments,” said Osborne, whose film about Mullins’ quest to find out what happened to her father, entitled “Malcom Is Missing,” premieres on CBC Gem on May 5.

Osborne recalled telling Mullins early on in her journey that only two per cent of all cases of violent crime in Mexico go to trial.

“There was a 98 per cent chance this would not happen. So she beat those odds. She had a lot of help, but the tenacity of Brooke is staggering as far as I’m concerned,” he said.

Court heard how, upon Mullins’ arrival in Puerto Vallarta within a week of her father’s disappearance, she retraced his steps to Andale’s Restaurant and Bar, a popular tourist hangout, and located security camera footage from Oct. 28, 2018, the night Madsen disappeared.

The footage, entered into evidence, shows Madsen and Marcela sitting at a table having drinks. At one point Madsen leaves the table for a few minutes and Marcela can be seen reaching into her handbag and pulling out what appears to be a white pill or powder, cradling it in her left hand. When Madsen returns, he leans in close to Marcela, momentarily cutting off his sightline to his drink. At that moment, Marcela appears to sprinkle the substance she is holding into Madsen’s glass. He takes several sips over the ensuing 25 minutes before the couple gets up to leave the bar. Madsen hasn’t been seen since.

At the beginning of the trial, Mullins said prosecutors from the Jalisco state district attorney’s office presented the judges with 27 witnesses, including the waitress who served Madsen and Marcela at Andale’s; Rob Stasyshyn, an American who owned a treehouse at the same beachside locale as Madsen and who became worried when he too stopped hearing from his friend; Madsen’s driver, who previously told the Star his Canadian client uncharacteristically failed to call for a ride the day he was scheduled to head out to the treehouse.

Court heard how, in 2015, Madsen bought Marcela, a single mother 25 years his junior, and her parents a five-bedroom, five-bathroom house in an upscale Puerto Vallarta neighbourhood, furnishing it with air-conditioning, exercise equipment and big-screen TVs.

Things between Malcom and Marcela seemed good for a while, but then Madsen began to have doubts. Emails between the two submitted as evidence and obtained by the Star show that Marcela asked Madsen repeatedly for money for things such as medication, surgery and a TV.

In early 2018, Madsen told Marcela he was contemplating selling the house.

“It’s a shame that she didn’t trust him the way he trusted her because he would never have just left her destitute. He would have bought her a condo or a place for her kids as he said he would,” Mullins told the court in her victim impact statement.

After Madsen disappeared, Marcela gave several contradictory statements to police, including that after the couple left Andale’s they went straight home to bed. A local taxi driver told investigators that, in fact, he took them to another bar.

She also claimed that Malcom’s Toyota van remained in their garage that night, but a GPS tracker Madsen had installed unbeknownst to Marcela showed the van travelling to several different places, including a mall, a junglelike area and then, in the early morning, a marina.

A forensic investigator testifying for the prosecution also presented mobile phone records for the three accused that corresponded to the route taken by the van the night Madsen disappeared.

Mullins said she’s aware of how much time, money and manpower went into this investigation and trial — resources she said could have gone toward investigations into the disappearance or murder of a Mexican citizen.

“As we know, there are so many that are missing and I want people to know that I’m aware of that, and how grateful I am that we are finally at this place,” she said. “This is not just a victory for Malcom, this is a victory for Canada and it’s a victory for Mexico.”

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