In October 2018, Brooke Mullins hastily packed a small bag and boarded a flight to Mexico. But it wasn’t for leisure. Five days prior, she received harrowing news: her father, Canadian artist Malcom Madsen, had vanished. Driven by an instinct that all was not well, Brooke embarked on a quest to find him.

Within days, her worst fears were confirmed: it seemed Malcom had met a tragic end. Armed with a damning video capturing his drugging, GPS data tracing his car to a remote jungle spot on the night of his disappearance, and a series of relatively misleading statements from his Mexican girlfriend, Brooke turned to Mexican authorities, hoping for closure.

Yet, even after numerous gruelling years and over $300,000 spent, closure eludes her grasp. Despite the emotional and legal hurdles, Brooke persists, propelled by twin objectives: to recover her father’s remains and to ensure justice for his perpetrators. Many might deem challenging Mexico’s notoriously corrupt legal system a fool’s errand, especially for a 42-year-old single mother from Port Hope, Ontario. But Brooke Mullins dismissed such doubts, steadfast in her resolve to fight on.