$150K for help solving 20-year-old cold case

The province's Department of Justice announced Friday it is offering up to $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for 1992 disappearance of 20-year-old Kenley Matheson.

Cpl. Scott MacRae, the spokesman for the Halifax RCMP, hopes the money will entice someone to come forward with information.

"With that monetary component, as a police agency, we feel that just might be the incentive to bring anybody, who may have information, to bring (that information) forth to the police," MacRae said.

There are 63 unsolved cases in the province's Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program.

Matheson's family is hoping someone will come forward with information to crack the cold case.

Sarah MacDonald, Matheson's mother, said it would give the family closure.

"My biggest thing is to just find his body," MacDonald said.

She said she wonders, "Where he's at, because you keep thinking, 'you didn't look hard enough.' Everybody has guilt what I could've, should've done."

At the time of his disappearance, Matheson was just two weeks into his first year at Acadia University.

He lived on the ninth floor of Crowell Tower and was last seen walking along Wolfville's Main Street.

MacDonald describes her son as, "quiet, very private and he had a great sense of humour."

He also played hockey for the Whycocomagh Oilers.

Seven years ago, police received a tip, reopening the Matheson case.

An area near Crowell Tower was searched, but nothing was found.

Matheson's family hired Tom Martin, a former police investigator, to look into his disappearance.

"I've worked many, many missing persons cases over the years and people don't just vanish," Martin told CBC News.

"Somebody knows something, somebody heard something, somebody saw something."

Anyone who comes forward will be expected to provide their name and contact information, and may be called upon to testify in court. All calls to the Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program are recorded.

Since the program was launched in October 2006, the justice department has never paid out a reward.