A Man Vanished on a Trip to Mexico. In New Book Malcom Is Missing, His Daughter Searches for Answers (Exclusive)

In 2018, Brooke Mullins, a single mother living in Canada, received a phone call that would forever alter her life: her father, artist Malcom Madsen, had supposedly vanished during a trip to Mexico.

Upon her arrival in Mexico, Mullins discovered video evidence of her father’s drugging, as well as GPS data that led him to a remote location on the night he disappeared. She was also met with increasingly “misleading” statements from Madsen’s Mexican girlfriend, per the book’s description, leading Mullins to believe that her father met “a tragic end.”

But years later, Mullins continues her search through Mexico’s legal system to recover her father’s remains and bring justice to his case — a journey that author Robert Osborne recounts in his forthcoming book, Malcom Is Missing: A True Story of Murder and a Daughter’s Quest for Justice in Mexico. Based on the acclaimed CBC documentary of the same name, the book is out this April from Rocky Mountain Books.

Read below for an exclusive excerpt from Malcom is Missing.

On the night of October 27, 2018, Malcom Madsen – a 68-year-old expat living in Puerto Vallarta – and his long time girlfriend Marcela, a local woman, were out on the town celebrating her birthday early. She was turning 44 in four days’ time, but Marcela wouldn’t be in town, so Malcom wanted to make this evening special. They planned to have dinner on the beach at their favourite restaurant, the Blue Shrimp, and then drinks at one of their favourite clubs, Andales. Marcela dressed well for the evening, putting on a frilly pink taffeta dress and high heels. Malcom, whose normal wardrobe didn’t extend far beyond shorts and T-shirts, wore a blue short-sleeved dress shirt and loose-fitting black slacks. They also both wanted to enjoy a few margaritas throughout the evening, so rather than take Malcom’s van, Marcela decided to call an Uber. Oddly, according to Malcom’s daughter, Brooke, also in her early 40’s and living outside of Toronto, who would go on to investigate the events of the evening and hundreds that followed, he didn’t call the car service himself, as he usually did. Instead, Martín, Marcela’s brother, paid for an Uber to pick them up to go out that night.

The Blue Shrimp has a kind of Gilligan’s Island feel to it (for a more contemporary comparison, you might think about the set of the tribal councils on Survivor). Part of the restaurant spills out on to the adjacent beach. If you choose to dine al fresco and you’re eating there at sunset, I’m told you stand an excellent chance of seeing a spectacular lighting display over the ocean. Apparently, the food is excellent.

About a two-minute walk from the Blue Shrimp is another popular expat stop in the Romantic District, Andales Restaurant and Bar. This isn’t one of those quiet spots. It fits with the ambience of the rest of the Romantic District – loud and bright. It spills out onto the sidewalk that runs past the bar, so there’s just as much activity outside as inside. A man with a donkey stands outside the place offering rides as part of the attraction.

The place is usually filled with regulars. Marcela and Malcom arrived at 11:20 p.m.

Just over an hour later, the two are seen walking out the door. They walk over to a taxi stand and get into one. Marcela has clearly asked for their drinks to go, since she’s carrying two take-out cups. They exit the camera screen at 12:29 a.m. on Sunday, October 28, 2018. 

And that is the last time Malcom Madsen is ever seen.

Within a day or so of Malcom disappearing, his daughter Brooke started to worry. Malcom had told Brooke he was heading for his jungle treehouse and he always checked in when he’d reached the remote area. This time, silence. Brooke called his friends who lived near him at Los Chonchos. Nothing. She decided to call Marcela, the last person, as far as Brooke could tell, who had seen her father.

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The chain of messages between the two women started on Nov. 2, 2018. Initially … Marcela seemed cooperative. In response to Brooke’s first inquiry, she replied, “What do you need to know I will try to help you.” But … within hours, Marcela started to sound defensive.

Marcela claimed to have filed a missing person’s report.

Marcela asked, “Where did your father grow up? What are your father’s parents’ maiden names? And what school did your father go to?”

Brooke was gobsmacked by those questions. In the midst of an emotional exchange about someone who was missing, possibly kidnapped, she felt the questions Marcela was asking were out of context. To Brooke they indicated Marcela was probing for information that would give her a clue about passwords Malcom commonly used … Brooke checked her dad’s bank account. To her horror, she saw that someone had been draining his checking account at breakneck speed. On October 29, the day Malcom disappeared, someone had withdrawn nearly $700 – three separate times. The following day, another $700. The day after that, another $700. On November 1 they’d taken $675 out. In four days, nearly $4,000 had been withdrawn. Brooke called Marcela and asked her “if she had been accessing my dad’s bank account.” She admitted she had and she said that he had told her to take some money so she could go on a trip.

Nothing Marcela said was adding up for Brooke. She hoped she could clear up her questions in person when she got to Puerto Vallarta.

When Brooke visited Andale, the manager led them upstairs to his office and allowed them to look through the security video taken the night of October 27 and the early hours of the 28th. That’s when they got their first break. Brooke recalls, “I recognized Marcela’s dress. There’s a number of different camera angles, but the first one I saw was them coming out of Andale’s bar and I recognized the dress because it’s a pink dress, and it’s not something that Marcela would normally wear and I remember her wearing it in a Facebook image. I remember thinking that’s unusual for her, that’s not her style.”

Eventually, they found video that recorded Malcom and Marcela from the time the couple arrived at the bar at 11:20 p.m. until they finally left at 12:29 a.m. … Luckily, the couple had been seated at a table right underneath one camera. Every detail of what they did during that time was recorded. The video was crystal clear. While the first look at the video provided little more information than a timeline, subsequent viewings would prove to be instrumental in breaking open the case. They felt they had finally picked up Malcom’s trail.

Ultimately, it would take her nearly five years to put the whole story of what happened that night and to push, cajole and sometimes even bribe Mexican and Canadian authorities into action. Malcom is Missing is the story of that long and often twisted journey.

Excerpted from MALCOM IS MISSING: A TRUE STORY OF MURDER AND A DAUGHTER’S QUEST FOR JUSTICE IN MEXICO by Robert Osborne. © 2025, Rocky Mountain Books.

Malcom Is Missing: A True Story of Murder and a Daughter’s Quest for Justice in Mexico will be published on April 8 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.