Hamilton woman missing since January found dead near Harbour Front Drive

Dorota Pruszewski, 58, has been identified as the woman found dead in the water near Harbour Front Drive in Hamilton, closing a search that had stretched from mid-January into late April. Hamilton Police Service said the remains recovered on April 8 were confirmed as Pruszewski’s, ending the active missing-person effort under case number 26-511290.

Pruszewski was reported missing from her Wood Street East home on the morning of January 13, 2026. Police said she was last seen leaving her residence in the area of Ferguson Avenue North and Burlington Street East. The service posted its missing-person appeal two days later, on January 15, and search efforts continued for weeks with help from police, family members and community volunteers.

The identification notice was made public on April 20, nearly three months after Pruszewski was last seen. Hamilton police said the search involved extensive efforts by officers, relatives and members of the broader community, reflecting how quickly a missing-person case can become a citywide effort when a vulnerable person is out of contact for an extended period.

Police said foul play is not suspected in Pruszewski’s death. That means the case is not being handled as a homicide or suspicious-death investigation, even as investigators have now shifted from searching for a missing woman to accounting for the circumstances that led to her body being found in the water near Harbour Front Drive.

What remains is the unanswered final stretch of the timeline: how Pruszewski got from the area of Ferguson Avenue North and Burlington Street East to the waterfront, what happened in the weeks after she disappeared, and whether any further details will be released about the circumstances surrounding her death. For now, Hamilton police have said only that the remains were identified as Pruszewski and that foul play is not suspected.

In their statement, police thanked everyone who assisted in the search and offered condolences to Pruszewski’s family and loved ones. For the people who spent months looking for her, the confirmation brought the case to a heartbreaking close.