Salt Lake City (ABC 4 News) A troubled teenager becomes a mother and a drug addict and then disappears. That, sadly sums up the last few years of the life of Nikole Bakoles. And as of today, she has been missing for more than 11 years.
In 1997, Nikole - or Niki as her friends called her - left Washington state and moved to Sandy, Utah to live with her boyfriend who had moved here with his parents. A few months later, she returned home - pregnant and addicted to drugs. Her mother, Nancie Bakoles (who has since changed the spelling of her last name to its original form - Bakolis) says Niki got drug treatment at the Sundown Ranch in Washington and got clean. She says Niki was "like a new person."
But, her mother says, she was still in love with the old boy friend - Joel Chaudoin. And when he started calling and asking her to come back to Utah - she did. Nancie says, "In July (1998) he started asking her to comeback. I begged her not to go, cause she was pregnant." But she did - and moved into an apartment with Joel on Chadds Ford Lane in Midvale.
Two months later, Nikole and Joel became parents to little Chloe. And made a couple of long visits to grandma in Washington. Nancie says, "She came back twice. She came back once and stayed for a month or so. And she came back again." But so did the drug use. In fact, Nancie says the last time she took her daughter to the airport, in October 1999, she sensed something was wrong. "I just remember her walking down and waving goodbye to her and Chloe and just watching her get on the plane and having a little sinking feeling that things were not going to be good."
And she was right. In the Spring of 2000 Nancie learned that Child Protective Services in Utah had been to her apartment and didn't like the conditions that Chloe was living in. Nancie says, "She called to tell me the next day there was a hearing to determine what was going to happen to Chloe." The little baby was taken away and Joel's parents eventually got custody of the girl. Niki then disappeared - literally. Joel never saw her. His parents never saw her. Midvale police investigated, but near found any clues to Niki's whereabouts. Nancie says, "It is devastating. There's no rest. There's no pleasure. I feel guilty every time I do something that's fun."
We are sharing her story in hopes of helping someone remember something that can help police and Niki's family. In 2000, before CPS had entered the scene, Niki and Joel had split up. Niki may have been seeing an older man in Utah, but no one knows for sure. Nancie thinks that Niki may have briefly worked at a restaurant near her apartment. You can see Niki's picture with this story, but by way of description she is 5'-5", 105 pounds and had strawberry blonde hair.
Nancie accepts that Niki is most likely deceased, but she says she still needs real closure. "Alive or dead I need to know where she is at to get some peace. I mean eleven years of having a missing child and having all these things run through your head as to what could be happening to her or what condition she could be in is like unbearable."
For more information you can do an internet search on Nikole Bakoles or click on the links below:
http://publicsafety.utah.gov/bci/UTAHmissingpersons.htmlhttp://www.nampn.org/cases/bakoles_nikole.html
