Speaker 1: Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join
us as we dive into the deep end of the
unexplainable and try to piece together what happened. If you
are listening to Locations Unknown.
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of
Locations Unknown. I'm your co host Joey with me as
always is a guy who pronounces the tea and disoriented twice.
Speaker 3: Mike Vanderboguards. Oh, thank you Joe, and thank you once
again to thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been
a long night. Thank you, Joe, and thank you to
all of our listeners for tuning in. We've been off
for a couple of weeks now. We've moved studios again.
We've Joe went on vacation. I was on vacation.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, it's raining cats and dogs.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If you hear a weird background sound, we can't
help it. It's we're we've literally been just rained on
for days now. I just had the most crazy experience
getting to our new studio. I was driving downtown and
water was just shooting out of like manhole covers and
flooding the streets. So we're having some real flooding. How
committed we are to this. Yeah, we probably should have
postponed this to night. Yeah, that's too late. We're already here.
We're here maybe all night, yep. So what's going on
in your world?
Speaker 2: My world? Yes, I'm here right now. I'm coming back
from vacation. I was down in Captiva and that's slow
and beachy and warm. Yeah, they come back to this.
At least it's not snowing, I guess, I guess. Yeah,
but no, excited to be back and get going. And
we have a new format introducing that's going to be exciting.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so this we may go back to how
we did it. This is a different kind of case.
It's I won't go into it because it's an really
interesting case and it was recommended by a listener by
the name of a net Percell, so thank you a nut,
and I started reading about the case and it's a
real fascinating case and very mysterious and takes place in
a very cool alpine environment. So excited to get into it.
Before we get going. Some Patreon shoutouts Andy Griffith's aid
in any of that show, Andy Griffin. Yeah, Aiden Trotterman
and Tiffany Schmidt, So thank you so much for supporting
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Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you know that? Right now? This isn't
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Mike built. I haven't had time to work on it,
and he could have Joe locked in a basement somewhere
and just using this voice, just feed you a bucket
of fisheads every day. Absolutely, all right, everybody, let's gear
up and get out to explore locations unknown. February seventeenth,
twenty eighteen. After a night out at sun Peaks Resort
in British Columbia, a twenty year old leaves a house
party for a short walk back to staff housing and
is never seen again. A winter storm batter the mountain
village with plunging temperatures, gusting winds, and fresh snow. Search dogs, helicopters, drones,
and hundreds of volunteers scour the resort and surrounding terrain,
but find nothing. No body, no clothing, no phone, no trace.
Join us this week as we investigate the haunting disappearance
of Ryan Stuka. So Mike tell us a little bit
about how we're going to set this up.
Speaker 3: So, because this isn't a typical person went out into
the woods hiking, never came out, we are going to
set up the location, kind of describe where it is,
the environment that he was in, more of a narrative
of the location versus are kind of data driven description
of where they were hiking.
Speaker 2: A little more storytelling setting up the location in that regard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it still has a lot of facts details, yeah,
about terrain and weather and things like that. But it
also describes the resort town a little the roads you
would have walked on, Okay and all that.
Speaker 2: So well, let's get into it. Let's get in and
we'll see if the people love it or hate it, yes,
and more importantly, if we love it or hate it. Yeah.
All right, So the valley, setting up the scene of
the disappearance, We're going to start in the valley. Sun
Peaks sits in a high mountain valley in the interior
of British Columbia, roughly thirty five miles northeast of Kamloops.
Sun Peaks is primarily accessed by one road, sun Peaks Road.
A winding two lane highway that climbs through dense subalpine
forest before delivering you into a purpose built alpine village
at four one and seventeen feet above sea level. The
village sits in the bowl of a natural amphitheater formed
three mountains, Todd Mountain to the northwest at seven thousand feet,
sun Dance Mountain to the east, and Mount Morsey to
the south. These are not gentle hills. The vertical rise
from the village floor to the summit of Todd is
nearly twenty nine hundred feet of raw elevation gain, pressing
down on all sides. The terrain surrounding the village is
almost the most rugged in the b C interior part
of the Menashee Mountains within the Broader Columbia Range, a
landscape shaped by glaciation, avalanche paths, and deep snowpack that
persists six months to six months of the year. During
the day, with lifts running and skiers carving groomed runs,
the scale of the mountain fades into the background scenery.
At night, and especially in mid February, the mountains stop
being scenery. They become walls. The village sits at the
bottom of a bowl with nowhere flat to go. Every
direction that isn't a road leads uphill into forest into
snowpack measured in feet not inches, so the road. The
village road network is compact but deceptively complex for its size.
The main artery at sun Peaks Road, which enters from
the south and terminates at the village center. From there,
the road's branch Villageway, Creek Sideway thread through the commercial
core near the day Lodge. Sunburst Drive curves north along
the base of Todd Mountain, Sundance Drive and Bella Vista
Drive climbed to the eastern flanks towards Sundance. Mountain Fairways
Drive and Mountain View Drive wind west along the golf course,
and there is Burfield almost at Buffalo Burfield Drive, which
runs south and west from the village, hugging the lower
slopes beneath Mount More Scene, offering ski inaccess from the
Burfield chairlift base elevation thirty nine hundred feet. In winter,
these roads are bordered not by curves but by snow banks.
By mid February, after months of sustained snowfall, sun Peaks
averages roughly twenty feet of snow annually, the banks along
the road can reach chess height or higher. The plowed
road surface becomes a channel carved into the snowpack. Side
streets and access pass shrink to narrow corridors. What in
summer might be a wide open residential lane becomes in
February a claustrophobic trench between walls of compressed snow. Sidewalks
vanish entirely. The Valley Trail, a three point seven mile
paved loop that connects various areas of the resort, in summer,
becomes buried and impassable in many sections. Safety warnings posted
by the resort itself strongly urge residents and visitors to
use the Valley Trail rather than walking on the road,
especially after having a few drinks, but by February the
trail is frequently unusable, forcing foot traffic onto the plowed roadway.
There are no sidewalks in Burfield Drive in the winter,
and there are no curbs. There is the plowed lane,
and there is snow bank, and past the snow bank
there is mountain. So it's just basically two lane plowed
through like the snow and very impassable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's They get twenty feet of snow and in
the winter, I pick I had just was it like.
Speaker 2: In Russia where they had like unusual snowfall and people
are jumping out of their buildings into it and they
showed like digging carves at cars out and just walls.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, probably somewhere in like Siberia.
Speaker 2: I can't see that the eastern block. Yeah, so Burfield
Drive and the walk home. So the area where Ryan
went missing was on Burfield Drive. His cabin, a shared
staff accommodation, sat roughly one thousand feet away, which is
a ten to fifteen minute walk in any normal night.
The route was simple, a down Burfield Drive to a
short path next to a small stream that led straight
to his cabin. The Burfield the employee housing building sits
at eleven forty sun Peaks Road, a shared dormitory building
with bunk beds, small kitchenettes and walking showers. It was
the kind of no frill, seasonal worker housing that ski
resorts run all over Western Canada. The Burfield ski lift
was a two minute walk away. The village core was
about five minute drive. Every every thing in sun Peaks
is close together on a map, but in deep winter,
late at night with snow banks compressing the roads, and
the subalpine forests pressing in from every edge, one thousand
feet can become a long walk. The critical detail about
this route it branches. Burfield Drive is not a straight
line from point A to point B. It curves. It
connects to other roads Fairways Drive, Mountain View Drive, sun
Peaks Road. Multiple turnoffs open into service roads, ski trail
access points, and paths that in summer lead to the
golf course or inorder trail network. In winter, many of
these paths are buried, but not all of them. Some
remain visible as depressions or tracks in the snow and
in the dark. With alcohol effecting judgment, any of those
openings could look like the right way home. The ski
runs themselves border the residential areas. The resort is explicitly
marked as ski in ski out, meaning the boundary between
the groom terrain and the residential streets is not existent.
In places, a wrong turn doesn't lead to any another neighborhood.
It leads into a ski run, or into a tree line,
or toward a frozen creek bed that snakes through the valley.
Mcgilvury Creek and its tributaries run through the area. Small
streams cut through the landscape, some of them close to
the path Ryan would have walked. In winter. These are
largely frozen and buried under snow, but they create depressions
and uneven terrain beneath the surface, pockets where the snowpack
is unstable, where a person walking off trail could punch
through a snowbridge into water, simply seek into deeper accumulation.
So we talk about that a lot in crevices. Yeah,
like snowbridges. You could be over a large gap, but
it looks like a stable surface until a step on
it and there you go. Yeah, So a little bit
about the weather pre and post disappearance. This is not
speculation or estimation. Sun Peaks Resort's own daily avalanche forecast
for Saturday, February seventeen, twenty eighteen, records the conditions in detail.
A low pressure system was moving over southern British Columbia.
Four to six inches of new snow were expected through Saturday.
By evening, northerly winds were becoming gusty and Arctic eras
pulling south. Another two inches of snow was forecast for
Saturday night. The daytime high was near ten degrees fahrenheit.
Sunday high would have been near zero degrees fahrenheit. Snow
temperature at the mountain was fourteen degrees. Three inches of
new snow storm had already accumulated over the previous forty
eight hours, with wind loaded pockets forming on sheltered aspects.
By Sunday morning, February eighteenth, conditions had worsened. Snow temperatures
were upper at the upper mountain had dropped to minus
eight degrees fahrenheit, mid mountain were minus two. Roughly nine
and a half inches of new snow had fallen in
the preceding forty eight hours, with nearly nine inches in
the least twenty four hours alone. Gusty north winds continued.
The avalanche danger inside the ski area boundary was rated
considerable across all time periods.
Speaker 3: So really the weather at this time it was picking up.
And it's not ideal for someone to go missing in
Oh absolutely not, even if you like are bundled up
with ski gear. You don't want to be caught out
in that ket oh absolutely or not. Yeah, Yeah, it's
like blizzard, but just like pouring snow and avalancheisk and
just all of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so by the evening on Sunday, February eighteenth, the
temperatures at the village elevation, which is four one and
seventeen feet, was somewhere between five degrees and minus four degrees.
Wind chill would have pushed the effected temperature lower. Fresh
snow was actively falling. Visibility was seeming severely limited, the
kind of night where you would shrink to a few
yards in every direction, where the mountains above disappear entirely,
and where the only reference points are whatever light you
can see still through the snowfall. The average February temperature
at sun Peaks is twenty one. This was not an
average February night. This was an Arctic outbreak layered on
top of an active storm cycle, with blowing snow reducing visibility,
and fresh accumulation burying whatever tracks existed on the ground.
So it's just the perfect storm, yeah, literally figuratively to
get like walk home in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially if you're intoxicated.
Speaker 2: And speaking of that, just darkness in general. Sun Peaks
is not a city. There are no street lights lining
Burfield Drive. The village core has some ambient light, the
day lodge, the hotels, the string of decorative lights that
give the pedestrian village its postcard quality, but on the
residential roads, radiating outward lighting drops off sharply. Burfield Drive
would have been lit primarily by whatever glow leaked from
the windows of condos and cabins, and by reflective light
of fresh snow. So fresh snow does not amplify ambient light.
Street lights or house lights will brighten up significantly when
reflected off the snow at night, but during an active
snowstorm the effect cuts both ways. The falling snow scatters
and diffuses light, creating a flat, disorienting white out effect
where depth perception collapses. The ground blends with the air,
snowbanks blend with the road, the tree line blends with
the sky. There are no shadows, There is no contrast.
A person walking these conditions, even on a familiar road,
can lose spatial orientation without realizing it. The resorts security
camera were not operational that night either. Literally the perfect
snorm of everything going wrong. Yes, so a little bit
about the tree line past the snow banks on Burfield Drive.
The terrain transitions quickly sun peaks sits at the boundary
between the montane and subalpine ecological zones. The forests surrounding
the village are dense stands of Englemann spruce, subalpine fir
and Douglas fir. In winter, these trees are laden with snow.
Branches sag under the weight, and the canopy closes in,
blocking what little ambient light by filter through old man's beard.
Lichen drapes from the branches, and the understory is buried.
The ground is not flat. It rolls and pitches, with
the contours of the mountain, concealing stumps, rocks, creek beds,
and drops beneath a smooth white surface that gives no
indication of what lies underneath. Ten steps off plowed road
and you are in the forest. Twenty steps in, the
road is no longer visible behind you. The snow is
wat deep or deeper in untracked areas, movement becomes exhausting.
Each step requires lifting your entire leg above the surface,
punching through the crust, and sinking again without snowshoes for
ford progress and deep powder. At this elevation, and these
temperatures can drop to a few hundred yards per hour.
Speaker 3: That's slow. That's so slow.
Speaker 2: The terrain rises sharply in every direction away from the village.
From the Burfield chairlift, based at thirty nine hundred feet,
the mountain climbs to sixty eight hundred feet at the summit,
nearly two nine hundred feet of elevation gain. The ski
runs at descent towards the village back in time. Burfield
Outrun Homesteader are wide groomed corridors during the day. At night,
without groomers or lighting, they are open slopes of windloaded snow,
flanked by forests tilting upward into the dark. A person
who stepped off Burfield Drive onto one of these runs
would have been walking uphill into deepening snow, with no
visible destination and diminishing physical capacity. And if that wasn't
a love enough, what does the cold do? So understanding
what happened, or what may have happened in this case
requires understanding what five degrees fahrenheit to minus four degrees
fahrenheit does. The human body, particularly one that it may
have been drinking alcohol, is a vaso dilator. It causes
blood vessels near the skin surface to open, flooding the
extremities with warm blood from the core. This creates a
sensation of warmth, the flush in the cheeks, the feeling
that the cold isn't so bad, but the warmth is
a lie. The blood that warms the skin is being
pulled away from vital organs, so core temperature drops. At
the same time, alcohol suppresses the shivering reflex the bodies
primarily involuntary defense against cold, and impairs the ability to
perceive cold air temperatures. The quote unquote beer jacket effect
is not protection. It's the removal of protection.
Speaker 3: And anyone who has gone to college in a northern climate, yeah,
is Milwaukee in particular? Yeah, familiar with the beer jacket.
Oh yeah, walking around just a T shirt on and shorts,
I feel fine. Yeah. Or someone will say, have a
few beers, you'll warm up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, this is what they're talking about. In addition
to all that, alcohol impears decision making. I didn't know
that about alcoholic Oh really. Yeah. The sober person who
steps off a plowed road and waste deep snow at
zero degrees recognizes the danger immediately. An intoxicated person may not.
The signals that the body sends, the burning in the
exposed skin, the numbness and the fingers, the difficulty breathing
and cold air are muted or misinterpreted, The impulse to
turn back is dulled, the capacity to recognize disorientation is compromised,
so hypothermia progresses. In stages. When the core temperature drops
below ninety five degrees, shivering intensifies, coordination falters, and confusion begins.
Below ninety degrees moderate hypothermia, shivering may stop entirely, Speech
becomes slurred, movement becomes clumsy and slow, and cognitive function
deteriorates rapidly. The person becomes disoriented, apathetic, unable to make
rational decisions. Below eighty two degrees, consciousness starts to fade,
But before that loss of consciousness to phenomena occur that
have bet and this has baffled investigators in cold exposure
deaths for decades. The first is paradoxical undressing, documented in
twenty to fifty percent of hypothermia deaths. As the muscles
controlling vasal constriction exhaust and fail, warm blood suddenly floods
the skin from the core. The victim, already confused, experiences
an overwhelming sensation of heat. They begin removing clothing, coats, gloves, boots.
In the final stages, they strip The behavior has led
investigators to misidentify hypothermia deaths as sexual assaults or other crimes.
The second is terminal burrowing. In the last phase before death,
hypothermia victims exhibit a primitive autonomous behavior. Research to describe
it as an originating from the brain stem, the same
region that governs survival instincts in high bernating animals. The
victim crawls into an enclosed space, under a bush, beneath
a porch, into a snowbank, behind a rock. They curl up,
they stop moving, they burrow in, and they die, sometimes
in locations so concealed they're not found for months or
years or ever. A study of fatal hypothermia cases and
Subarctic regions found paradoxical undressing documented and thirty percent of
the cases with ethanol detected and forty three percent of
the victims clothes were usually found close to the body,
and terminal burrowing tended to occur predominantly during slow decreases
in temperature, exactly the type of gradual cooling that occurs
during a walk through snowstorm and early hours of the morning.
So that's actually crazy. I love that detail that we've
never talked about on both of those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the terminal burrowing thing is interesting because it's
tapping into the subconscious activities of the brain that are
like relics of evolution. It's like the last ditch effort
to see the bodies like just go hide, yeah, and
hopefully we can survive long enough to wait out whatever's
causing this. Yeah. It's like your body at that point
is on autopilot and it's just doing something like a
last stitch effort. Maybe this human will find somewhere that's
warm enough for us to survive, but who knows. It's
kind of fascinating. It's sad that most people do it
end up passing away. But I love the fact that
the human body has various layers of ways to try
to self protect you.
Speaker 2: I know, it's so wild. Even when you're dying slowly,
your organs shut off in a specific order. Yeah, and
from least important and most important.
Speaker 3: Or like how your body will restrict blood to the
vital organs, which is why people get like frostbite and
lose fingers and hands and limbs and feet. Yeah, because
you can still survive if you don't have feet, but
you need your organs obviously, so I just love that. Yeah,
there's like a layered tiering of no matter how stupid
you are with your own body, your body is still
trying to save you. Yes, it's self codd. Yeah, it's
just fascinating.
Speaker 2: All right. Tell us a little bit more about Ryan Stuka,
all right.
Speaker 3: So he was born March seventeenth of nineteen ninety seven.
He went missing February seventeenth of twenty eighteen. He was
a male, age twenty. He was described as athletic build.
He worked out almost every day. Jim was part of
his daily routine. He played rugby competitively. He played soccer
as a kid, football in high school, transition to rugby,
which became his passion. And he had been snowboarding thirty
six consecutive days before disappearing, so very physically fit and capable.
He was six feet tall, one hundred and eighty pounds.
He had blonde hair, brown eyes. Other distinguishing things about him,
he had no tattoos, no piercings, and really no distinguishing
marks at all that I could find. Clothing Geary was
last scene, and so he was in dark jeans, gray
white shirt, blue coat, burgundy baseball cap with the logo
of of a Northwestern Athletic Association rugby team. He had
no backpack, no survival gear, no phone charger, His work
boots and ski pass were found still at the cabin,
and he obviously never made it home to change because
he went to a party. He wasn't out skiing, He
wasn't planning to be out in the wilderness. He was
at a party, so he wasn't dressed for really being
out in the woods. Personality wise, he was known to
be cautious around new people, but he would warm up
and get social once comfortable. A lot of people said
he was loyal to the core. He had a core
of friend group that he had known since childhood. He
was very funny, sarcastic with people he trusted. He was
described by coworkers as a really good guy, really genuine
and confident, and just someone everyone liked to be around.
So his mother, Heather, described him as a typical twenty
year old who was close to home, close to his friends,
and not someone who took unnecessary risks. He would never
have gone to sun Peaks alone. He only went because
his childhood best friend James, was going with him, and
he was kind of stepping out of his comfort zone
for the first time, and a lot of people said
he was not a risk taker by nature. So very interesting.
And you forget he was only twenty that's young. Yeah,
no medical issues that I could find, Like I said,
very physically fit and healthy. His occupation hobby at the time,
so he worked for his father, Scott's construction company. After
high school, he did attend one year of college, just
general sciences. He did well, but he wasn't sure what
he wanted to do with his life, so he took
a gap year to figure things out. Very common, a
lot of people do that. And at sun Peaks he
worked as a lift operator and also reportedly worked at
the resort's tube park. His shift was roughly eleven thirty
am to seven pm or seven thirty, giving him mornings
free to snowboard before work. And the whole time I
was reading this case, I was just thinking of the
movie Out Cold.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he could have been one of the guys
an out Cold. Oh yeah, absolutely, And when I was younger,
because that movie came out had to have been in
the late nineties.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: For a while there, I wanted to like move to
Montana or.
Speaker 2: That way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looked fun, so we should have done that.
We should have done that. So obviously snowboarding was his
primary passion and the whole reason for the trip. And
like I, like I said earlier, he had snowboarded for
thirty six consecutive days leading up to his disappearance and
allegedly had just landed his first backflip. So pretty cool
experience in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: Ryan grew up in Beaumont, Alberta, which was a small
prairie town south of Edmonton, Alberta. Winters are very cold,
so he was not unfamiliar with the types of temperatures
that he would have experienced here. However, there is a
very significant difference between experiencing cold in a suburb prairie
town with just flat terrain and navigating a mountain, a
mountainous terrain at elevation in a blizzard. Experience in this location,
he had been living and working at some peaks for
around two and a half months. He walked the route
between the party house and the cabin regularly. He so
he was familiar with the short path and he knew
the roads. He also knew the village, but a lot
of this was in daylight and moderate conditions, so he
really hit only you know, it's not like he grew
up here. He really had only been in this area
for a couple of weeks and probably hadn't experienced a
full on blizzard yet.
Speaker 2: And I mean there's not a lot of places to go. Oh,
for those who are watching the video, we don't have
cameras on us, but I'm still sharing the screen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're Cameraless tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just like a couple main roads and it's
just like a little town that's wedged between a bunch
of mountains.
Speaker 3: And these aren't even what I would call like aggressive mountains.
Speaker 2: They're not aggressive. But I mean there's just nothing here.
When I go on, there's like I mean, the houses
are some of the houses are beautiful, but there's like
three side streets off the main one.
Speaker 3: Can you zoom back out? I just want to go
to a higher view to see, like, what's the biggest
city nearby?
Speaker 2: Oh? Going way out? Yeah, where are we? We're in
British Columbia.
Speaker 3: Well, I was just.
Speaker 2: Thank you Spokane. I see Spokane, Washington, Okay, And I'm
sure these are well known BC. Yeah, Kelhawana, Yeah, Kelowna,
Kelowna whatever, then Klawuna, yeah, case of course, it's like
a really difficult name to pronounce. Okay, Vancouver.
Speaker 3: There we go, There you go. You had it all
turned around.
Speaker 2: I know's okay, we're in space. There is no So
is that just north? Is that like due north of Glacier? No,
it's north of Washington glaciers. Oh yeah, never mind, yeah,
glaciers rather okay, yeah, if anything, like more mountain and ear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's north north, northeast of Seattle for any
Americans listening. Yeah, and yeah, obviously northeast of Vancouver, but
like northeast of Vancouver by like two hundred miles, yeah,
not like close. Yeah, so it's kind of in the
middle of nowhere. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, So the route he
was planning to take, like Joe had mentioned, is was
only one thousand feet, It did branch to multiple directions,
and on the night he disappeared, visibility would have been
very limited. The snowbanks had compressed the roads into what
Joe described as narrow channels, and the path to his
cabin may have been buried under fresh accumulation. So he
knew where he was going but the conditions were the
worst they could probably be for him. So jumping right
into timeline will start December twenty seventeen. This would be
the month that he arrived at sun Peak. So on
December first, twenty seventeen, Ryan and his childhood best friend
made the nine hour drive from Mount Alberta It's a
sun Peaks, British Columbia. Both guys had planned to spend
the winter season working at the resort, and snowboarding sounds
pretty amazing. I would have loved to do that. I'm
a skier, not a snowboarder, though. You snowboarded, right, Joe,
or are you skier?
Speaker 2: I'm both, but I'm bad at snowboarding because I'm just
trying to learn how to do that. Yeah. I'm actually
not great at both because I don't go enough. But
I'm better at skiing.
Speaker 3: The key with skiing or snowboarding is do it when
you're really little.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when it hurts less.
Speaker 3: Well, and you just remember how to do it. I
learned to ski when I was a little kid, and
then I skied growing up, and then I didn't ski
for like ten years, and then went on a skiing
trip to Colorado and it was like riding a bike again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't know, it's interesting.
Speaker 3: Ryan moved into a cabin at the resort with his
friend and four other roommates. He was assigned to work
in the lift department and by some accounts also worked
at the tube park. Like I said earlier, he settled
in quickly. A coworker later described him as a really
good guy, really genuine and confident. Excuse me, adding that
everyone liked him and that he did not have enemies.
Always good to not have enemies. One of his housemates
was thirty or one Chris Feenie, and Australian on a
working holiday visa who became close friends with Ryan and
Ryan really kind of looked up to Chris, so feene
later called that Ryan took a few days to open up,
but they bonded over music, rugby and life in Australia.
So Ryan was really thriving at sun Peaks throughout December
and January. He stayed at the resort over Christmas rather
than making the long drive home, as his two days
off did not leave enough time either, so it would
be a fourteen hour round trip. So I get why
he wouldn't go home and his family did plan to
come visit him in February. In January, Ryan texted his
father to say he had snowboarded thirty six consecutive days
and landed his first backflip. He did maintain regular contact
with his family back in Bow and planned to return
home in the spring to resume work with his father
in his construction company. It's now February sixteenth of twenty eighteen.
This would be the last kind of normal day for Ryan.
So it's Friday, and he worked his shift in the
lift department at sun Peaks Resort and clocked out at
seven pm. He returned to the cabin he shared with
his roommates, showered, and got ready for a night out.
That evening, a group of friends got a ride into
sun Peaks Village. They started with a drink at Masa's
Bar and Grill before heading Two Bottoms, a popular local bar,
for a Silent Disco event. At the Silent Disco event,
each person receives a pair of wireless headphones and can
switch between competing DJs. I've done that once at the
Art Museum here in Milwaukee. It was really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done that at Electric Forest. Yeah, it's really sweet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So his roommate Chris Feeney later described the night
as going by in a flash. He was quoted as
saying it felt like two Backstreet Boy songs and the
night was over.
Speaker 2: So here's Bottoms bar and grill. Okay, you can kind
of see it right there. Yeah. Yeah, it's just seems
like the main center area of town.
Speaker 3: Honestly, and I mean it it doesn't seem like it's
you know, it doesn't.
Speaker 2: It's not like Breckenridge or one of those towns. It's
not as built up as that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very remote. Yeah, it has that feeling.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: But again the mountains don't look that aggressive.
Speaker 2: They're not. But I mean we're looking at it with
no snow. True.
Speaker 3: I wonder if I can you can find a snow snowyview. Yeah,
I'll keep looking, Okay, keep going. But we had the
Backstreet Boys quote and then the last known photo Ryne
was taken at this silent disco event. Like we said,
the weather that evening was deteriorating. A snowstorm was moving
through the area and nearly a lot of fresh snow
was falling. Temperatures were plummeting. It was just the weather
was getting worse by the hour at so after the
silent disco was done, none of the group was ready
to go home. They heard about a house party happening
nearby and tagged along with others to the residents on
Burfield Drive within Sun Peaks Village. And this is also
known as after Bar.
Speaker 2: Oh how they clarified that?
Speaker 3: Well, no, I just added that. Okay, I just thought
it was funny, like no one wanted to go home
yet when the bar ended. Yeah, to be twenty again
because there's.
Speaker 2: Nothing to do. Yeah, So what was the road that
was on again? I'm trying to find it? Burfield Burfield Okay, Yeah,
they don't have them labeled on Google Maps until you
go to the street. Oh really, that's like literally how
remote this is. So I'm just kind of jumping in
and learning the different roads.
Speaker 3: And I mean, look, you can ski literally right up
to the center of town everything. Yeah, it's a creek
side village way all right, I'll find it, like we've
been saying a few times now. The house was only
a few minutes walk from the cab and Ryan shared
with his roommate. The party was described as a rout,
small and mellow gathering of mostly resort employees and regular
skiers with fewer than fifty people in attenance. That sounds
like a pretty big house party. Feenie recalled that most
of the people there were regulars or lifties, and I
knew it was really a pretty mellow gathering rather than
a party. So let's get into the disappearance. So the
last sighting the group stayed at the house party on
Burfield Drive until early hours of Saturday morning, probably around
one thirty am. Chris, his girlfriend Kristen, and another friend
decided they were ready to head home. The walk was
short along the road and the trail they used regularly.
One roommate had already left the party earlier and walked home.
As Feenie and his girlfriend prepared to leave, Ryan was
seen standing up. It appeared he was putting his shoes
on and pulling on his putting on his blue coat
as if he was also preparing to leave with them.
Nobody though, actually asked Ryan if he was heading home
or offered to wait for him that moment. Ryan standing
up at the party, apparently getting ready to go, was
the last confirmed sighting of him, so he was last
seen potentially getting ready to leave the party. No one
had seen him since. So the time now is approximately
two ten am in the morning on Saturday, February seventeenth.
So however, some late oh what do we.
Speaker 2: Got the center from where they were to, like the
center Burfield Drive is like seven thousand feet of walking
like the most okay, direct path, So not he was
up here and they walked to this block right here.
Speaker 3: Let me see if I know exactly where the house
party was. I mean this though, the house party was
on Burfield Drive somewhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm so. This is Burfield Drive. Yeah,
so somewhere in this area.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, But like I said, this is approximately
two ten in the morning on February seventeenth, though there
was some later evidence that complicated the timeline. A text
message from someone at the party would later suggest Ryan
may have left closer to one forty am. Nobody the
party remembers actually seeing Ryan walk out the door, and
people who arrived at the party shortly after did not
recall seeing him there.
Speaker 2: So there is a picture of him at the party.
Speaker 3: Oh no, this was the last known picture of him
at the silent deed.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 3: No, he went to a house.
Speaker 2: I meant, yeah, I met the disco, my bad.
Speaker 3: And I'm not really shocked that people weren't quite sure
on what time it was at the house party. So
they've been drinking all night. Yeah, having fun like you're
not gonna get probably a lot of reliable witnesses of
what time. Fro that ghosts. He just does the Irish goodbye.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have a couple of friends that do that,
and it's just like when they go, it's like no
one knows. Yeah, our friend Dan, if he's listening, shout
out to Dan. Yeah, he's working on the castle right now.
Yeahs he held back to get back to work. You're
not allowed to listen. He was notorious.
Speaker 3: You'd be talking him one minute, you'd go to get
a beer and come back and he's just gone.
Speaker 2: Oh he came out to the rave on my birthday
and he was just gone.
Speaker 1: He did it.
Speaker 2: He's still doing it. Yeah, but good for him. He's
do what he wants to do. Good job, Love love
you Dan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we keep stressing. The walk from the party
to Ryan's cabin was less than a thousand feet and
it should have taken him approximately ten to fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: A lot from the party to his cabin was less
than a thousand feet Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go just
get an idea of Okay, that's like up or down
the block from the center of Burfield Drive is like
two thousand feet long.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so okay, so that's not Yeah, it's not that far.
Ten to fifteen minutes, very familiar. He's done this many times.
That's with no snow, no snow to be fair, or
at night when it's you know, but like look at Okay,
this is where I understand what they're talking about with
the type of blizzard conditions and stuff.
Speaker 2: But I can't imagine getting lost on this road even
in a blizzard. There's houses on each side. So for
those listening, like it is like one of those paved roads,
it's like kind of dirt kind of paved, but there's
like full on houses right next to each other lining
the entire street. Yeah, and they're not small. They look
like two occupancy houses built straight up, two garages on
each side. I don't know. I mean, when you get
to the ends, I can see like it gets into
open mountain. But yeah, okay, I don't know, Well, unless
you're that like had that much to drink.
Speaker 3: I mean that never happens. Now we'll get into theories.
I think there's an interesting theory here that I don't think.
Speaker 2: Okay, I think this side, yeah, this side of Burfield
only has houses on one side. All right.
Speaker 3: And again, like we said, the description of what these
roads would be like in the winter is just be
narrow passageway, a narrow carved path with snow on both
sides up to your chest potentially. Yeah, so it really
kind of would just guide you along. You would just
if you just stayed in the middle.
Speaker 2: Of that, stumbling around, You're just gonna go down whatever
shoot you're on, maybe because it does branch off. If
you look at you know, keep going down, you'll see
that it branches off into other little roads. Okay, no,
fair enough, fair enough, But.
Speaker 3: I was kind of make the point is it would
be really hard to get lost on this road in
the winter. If you've got those steep snow banks on
both sides, it would be really tough to.
Speaker 2: But if they're cutting into other trails like ski trails, yeah,
which it does. Yeah, And that's kind of what I'm thinking,
is like right here, yeah, like where do you go? Yeah,
if you're stumbling around and you go the wrong way.
Speaker 3: And remember he's only been here for two weeks. Yeah,
so he's not that familiar with the area. Okay, and
if you've had a few drinks, obviously that compounds everything
going on.
Speaker 2: Yep, fair enough.
Speaker 3: There was no single obvious path. There's several routes available
that he could have taken, and each opened into more terrain.
Conditions were extreme around two am. Temperatures were very cold,
snow was falling, visibility was low, and he who knows,
I guess you could have wandered off. So the next morning,
Ryan's roommates wake up on Saturday morning, Ryan's not in
the cabin. At first, this didn't raise immediate alarm. They
assumed he had gone to work early for his eleven
am shift, or perhaps he stayed out at the party,
gone home with someone, or crashed on the couch somewhere else.
As the day went on, concerns started to grow. Ryan's
supervisor at the resort reached out to one of his
roommates because Ryan had not shown up for his shift.
Missing work was completely out of character for Ryan. As
the afternoon progressed and Ryan still did not still didn't appear,
his roommates tried calling and texting him, there was no response.
They noticed that Ryan's work boots and ski card were
still at the cabin, making it clear that he never
had returned home or gone to work. The remates began
trying to piece together what had happened. They posted in
a local sun Peaks Facebook group asking if anyone seen Ryan.
They reached out to people who had been at the party.
They reviewed whatever security footage they can find in the area,
hoping to spot Ryan walking home, but unfortunately they did
not find anything. Ryan did not appear on any footage,
and notably, like Joe mentioned earlier, the security cameras installed
by sun Peaks Corporation viewing the single road into the
resort and other areas weren't operational at the time, so
those cameras would have really helped figure out what happened
to Ryan, And of course they weren't working.
Speaker 2: As it always happens. Yeah, what are we watching here?
I've got a video pulled up. They made like a
little documentary called Peaks and Valleys a Search for Ryan
Stuka and I saw it a shot of people walking
on the village with snowfall. Okay, now this isn't as
much as there was, but there's some lighting. Yeah, from
what I understood from some comments, I think there's like
a video of the mom doing the walk from the party. Okay,
So I'm gonna try and find that and get that playing.
If you want to keep going, yeah, I'll pause when
I find it.
Speaker 3: So by the evening, the roommates called the local hospital,
which had no record of Ryan. The hospital advised them
to contact the police. So this is really kind of
When Ryan was reported officially missing at approximately eight forty
seven pm on Saturday of February seventeenth to twenty eighteen,
and because Sun Peaks is a small resort community with
no permanent police presence, officers from a neighboring town the
RCMP responded. Officers arrived at Ryan's residence around midnight, and
a formal missing person's report was filed. One of Ryan's
roomates also decided to contact Ryan's mother, Heather, who was,
like we said, nine hours away in Beaumont, Alberta, with
Ryan's father, Scott. The text message read, in essence, Ryan
had not come home from a previous night, had not
shown up for work, and they had filed a missing
person support both parents felt immediately that something was terribly wrong.
Ryan did not miss work, He did not disappear without
telling anyone. So Heather checked her phone and realized that
a text she had sent Ryan that morning, good Morning
love Bug, had not been delivered. Heather and Scott called
the police themselves to confirm that Ryan had been reported missing.
As soon as they hung up, they got in the
car and began the nine hour drive the sun peaks,
and Heather would later go on to describe that as
the longest and the shortest drive of her life. I
can't imagine so. Scott later said that the hairs on
the back of his neck stood up when he learned
Ryan was missing, and he had a gut feeling that
something terrible had happened. It's now February eighteenth. This is
when the initial search kicks off. The search for Ryan
began almost as soon as you were reported missing. The
police brought in search dogs deployed him near the party
house on Burfield Drive. Investigators hoped the dogs could maybe
pick up Ryan sent and establish a direction of travel. Unfortunately,
the dogs could not find one, and the the trail
almost instantly went cold. So officers spoke with Ryan's roommates
and others who had been at the Silent Disco and
at the house party, hoping maybe someone had seen Ryan
leave or heard him say where he was going, but
nobody had answers. Police also began checking Ryan's phone records,
social media accounts, bank activity. Nothing had been used, so
since he was last seen, there were no messages, There
was no transactions, no really digital signs of any life,
but also no evidence that Ryan had left sun Peaks,
so very interesting. The one digital trace was a cell
phone ping at approximately three am on February seventeenth that
placed Ryan's phone somewhere in sun Peaks. Unfortunately, they were
not able to get an exact location from just one
one cell phone ping, because that would have really helped
the investigation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least get like a general area of where
he could be. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So so on Sunday, February eighteenth, search and rescue teams
set up a temporary command post at the Ski Patrol Office.
OURCMP Sergeant Doug Aird explained that the initial search focused
on the three to four block radius where Ryan was
last seen, but fresh snowfall nearly a foot of snow
made the search very difficult. A member of the search
team noted that the snow was soft and deep and
if Ryan had stepped off the trail, there should have
been evidence of it, and there wasn't any. What really
began as a local response quickly escalated into a full
scale operation. We had three separate command centers established a
coordinate efforts across the resort and surrounding areas. Search teams
deployed every tool available, snowmobiles, helicopters, They even had drones
equipped with infrared cameras. Searchers were digging through snowbanks. They
were probing snow with poles. They went door to door
through the village. Ryan's father, Scott dug holes in the
snow around Ryan's cabin and use an excavator to move
large piles of snow. So they were wondering maybe he
passed out in the snow and got buried. Police asked
all Sun Peaks residents to check their vehicles, sheds, garages, outbuildings,
any unlocked structures, considering the possibility that Ryan may have
entered a car building to escape the cold and became trapped.
Residents were asked to review security footage, dash camera footage,
and trail camera footage not only for Ryan's presence, but
for any other people or vehicles in the vicinity at
the time he went missing. Despite all of these searches,
in all of these efforts, in this small little area
where I couldn't imagine someone going missing, nothing was found.
It's pretty wild and despite all of these efforts, by
the evening of February eighteenth, just one day after Ryan
was discovered missing, the search and rescue announced that they
had completed all their required tasks for a missing person
in that environment. So with no leads, no sightings, no
physical evidence, they had no choice but to formally suspend
the search on February nineteenth of twenty eighteen. So this
might go down as the shortest search and rescue operation
we've ever covered on a case. So one day Sadly,
officials were already planning for the worst and stated that
if Ryan was still in sun Peaks, they believed he
was no longer alive because they had found no clothing,
no belongings, and no indication of where he had gone.
So by late February twenty eighteen, the family is starting
to take over. The police investigation did remain active, but
the formal search and rescue operation was over. Ryan's family
and friends immediately began organizing their own efforts. Heather and Scott,
his parents, relocated to sun Peaks and established a command
center of their own. They were joined by family and
friends from Beaumont and a rapidly growing network of volunteers
from across British Columbia in Alberta. By February twentieth of
twenty eighteen, the sun Peaks community organized a third day
of searching along alongside the family, with about twenty people
gathering in front of the sun Peaks Fire Hall. R
CMP officers and two members of the Police Dog Service
continued participating. Later that day, a candlelight vigil was held
in front of the village day Lodge. On the twenty second,
they even brought in a spiritual medium and family friend,
Darren Donahey, traveled from a Birda to assist. She thanked
the community, the police, the search and rescue team, and
appealed publicly, quoting we really need those that last saw
him to come forward. One of Ryan's sisters asked people
to light a candle in their window to spread hope.
On February twenty sixty, or twenty six of twenty eighteen,
Nine days after Ryan the Ryan's disappearance, the family announced
a five thousand dollars reward for any information leading to
his location. Dan's family and community volunteers continued combing the
area of Burfield Drive daily. It's now March of twenty eighteen,
so from about March seventh to March ninth, the Canadian
Search and Disaster Dogs Association known as the arrived at
sun Peaks with specialized search dogs. Despite their expertise, the
team again found nothing. On approximately March twelfth, after serious
contemplation and no new leads, the family increased the reward
from five thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars for information
leading to Ryan's recovery. They even set up a GoFundMe campaign,
which was set up by friends and family approximately eight
weeks into the ordeal. It began to raise significant funds,
eventually exceeding ninety five thousand dollars. So the money went
directly to covering the family's living expense in sun Peaks
and back in Beaumont, as well as billboards, flyers, a
private investigator, and the rewards. Social search may have ended
rather quickly, but this also has to be one of
the largest family initiated search operations I've ever read about
in all the different cases we've covered. It's pretty amazing
the family is able to pull all this off. What
are we looking at here?
Speaker 2: On their Facebook page, they just created these like Stukasaurus
says that you could sell and it information. Yeah, it's
like a cute little things that you can buy and
it has information about Ryan on it.
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just I'm on Ucasaurus's Yeah, I'm on the
Facebook page on I like, I think for Milwaukee's coming up.
That might just because local ad or something, but interesting. Yeah,
I'm gonna see if there's any Do they still sell them?
Maybe we should get one for the studio potentially, I'll
look into that. To this and two of what was
up here on top I'll find out. Okay.
Speaker 3: So, flyers with Ryan's face were posted throughout the resort,
and banners and billboards went up around some peaks and
the shoun air surrounding areas. The green dinosaur ris became
a symbol of Ryan, with people around the world posting
photos with little green dinosaur figures on a Facebook page
dedicated to him. So helping his family. Imagine Ryan traveling
the world. So pretty cool. It's now April twenty eighteen.
So early in April, the search shifted to a different
part of Sun Peaks Village. This was prompted by new
information from someone who had been at the party with Ryan.
That person had text messaged. That person had a text
message suggesting Ryan may have left the party at around
one forty am rather than the previously assumed two ten am,
and I had mentioned this earlier. Additionally, another individual came
forward saying they saw someone matching Ryan's description round one
fifty five am walking on Fairways Drive toward Eagle Court,
an area closer to the village's downtown court. This tip
had initially been dismissed because it did not align with
the two ten am timeline. Once it became clear that
Ryan may have left earlier, investigators revisited the information. The
witness was described as sober and had an exact time
for the sighting, so Ryan's mom would goes on to
say that it would have been unusual for Ryan to
walk towards downtown at that hour, but acknowledged he may
have been heading to Mountain High Pizza, which was open
until two am so very interesting. We kind of have
conflicting timelines of what's going on. You looking up Mountain
High Pizza. I'm gonna try to let's see, that's like
right back into town. Yep, there it is.
Speaker 2: It's like literally back where he was, yeah, or for
the for the disco. If I remember, I'm gonna be
like really yeah, because there's the disco and the pizza
places right here.
Speaker 3: So he went to the at the disco, went to
the house spring Berfield, and then potagially went right back there,
which I mean if he's been out, I remember getting
party and drinking, and then I would go to Papa
John's Pizza every time. If there was a pizza place open,
You're going.
Speaker 2: We're right by our house, was the Papa John Like,
we would walk to blocks, get all the whole pizza
and bring it back it like yeah, So this doesn't
seem that far fetched to me. That does not.
Speaker 3: I could easily see he's hungry, go get some food.
Speaker 2: I would one hundred percent do.
Speaker 3: That would make sense why he left early if he
knows they close it too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Very interesting. So we do have conflicting timelines. But like
Joe and I said, I can totally see him doing
that before going home. At this time too, the family
is now bringing in a helicopter, search dogs, and an
excavator to search the new area. They began to explore
the region in a more methodical way, using excavators and
bobcats to move snow while volunteers perform grid searches. Despite
all of these more focused efforts, again, nothing was found.
So by May Ryan had been missing for twelve weeks.
The family's command center had moved from the hot from
a hotel into the old health center portable building sun peaks.
More than seven hundred volunteers had helped search over the
preceding months, which is wild, and the daily ground searches
had taken place every single day since Ryan's disappearance, So
for twelve weeks they've been searching and over seven hundred
volunteers had chipped in, which is crazy. In May, the
RCMP shared publicly that a man named Jim Reid had
come forward with new information. Jim had been staying with
friends near the house where Ryan lived on the night
of the disappearance. He told investigators that he heard what
sounded like an angry or possibly violent interaction outside in
the middle of the night, I heard a guy's voice
and it was mad Reid said. The person he heard
was yelling, get in the car, Get in the effing car.
Reid reported what he'd heard. The police and the RCMP
followed up with him several times. However, Heather later noted
that it was determined Jim had been a significant day
distance from the party and she was not certain what
he heard had anything to do with Ryan, so very interesting.
Also in May, Heather, this is when Heather publicly revealed
for the first time that Ryan's cell phone did ping
at three a m. On the seventeenth in sun Peaks,
and like I had mentioned earlier, the exact location fortunately
cannot be determined. To Heather, this confirmed that her belief
that Ryan was still in sun Peaks after leaving the party. However,
many doubted this conclusion, especially as the snow continued to
melt and Ryan still had not been found. So now
the search had shifted from finding Ryan alive to obviously
recovery effort. Heather told the sun Peaks Independent News. I'm
going to quote we're now looking at more of a discovery.
Likely someone will stumble across him, and that's heavy we'd
hoped we would be able to find him while he
was still in the snow and preserved with no animal
contact or decomposition. In May of twenty eighteen, search and
rescue teams returned to sun Peaks for a formal organized search.
This was the last official organized search involving major RCMP
and SAR resources until twenty twenty one. The combined search
effort was massive, so three formal searches had involved police
and SAR canine units, drones with infrared cameras, snowmobiles, the
RCMPS air Force helicopter, and upwards of forty to six
SAR technicians and seventy volunteers. Metal detectors, avalanche probes, shovels, snowshoes,
and excavators were all used. Hundreds of hours were spent
on the search and investigation, and again nothing was found.
So it's now June of twenty eighteen and the family
is finally returning home. At the end of May. In
more than almost three months of living in sun Peaks
and searching every day, HEATHERN. Scott made the agonizing decision
to return home the Boma. Their daughters needed them, Heather
told sun Peaks Independent News that she still believed Ryan
was in sun Peaks, but their best chance of finding
him had passed as spring deepened and undergrowth began to thicken.
So every single day Ryan was searched for. Heather said,
we never took a day off, and the family still
planned to return regularly and did so, coming back to
sun Peaks approximately once a month to search as weather permitted.
It's now November twenty eighteen, so as sun Peaks prepared
for another busy ski season. A major CBC investigation examined
how Ryan's disappearance continued to haunt the community. The RCMP
had remained tight lipped, creating what one community member called
a vacuum of information. This silence had fueled a wild
speculation rumor throughout the resort. Gene Strong, editor of the
sun Peaks Independent News Catalog, the theories circulating online. So
here you go. These are pretty interest theories that were
going around at the time. So abduction, to sex trafficking,
to be involved in the drug trade, to aliens, to
an animal attack, any other wild theory you can think
of has come up online. I think this was her quote.
Beyond the rumors, Yeah, beyond the rumors. Ryan's disappearance had
instilled genuine fear in the community, particularly among young seasonal workers.
Retired RCMP investigator Brian Smith, a twenty five year veteran
who had investigated several missing persons cases and also had
experience as a ski patroller in back country guide, had
traveled from Alberta to help with the search at the
request of the family. His initial conclusion was that Ryan
had wandered into deep snow and gotten lost in the
rug and train. However, in an interview with one of
Ryan's friends, changed his mind. The friend seemed to be
very nervous and very afraid for himself, which was unusual.
Smith said, my gut told me that this was the
most This was most likely a homicide, not just a
missing person. So they really don't know, and speculation is
running rampants. After extensive interviews with everyone involved in Ryan's disappearance,
the RCMP maintained their position that at this time, there's
no evidence that anything criminal happened. She added that police
did not believe people in the Sun Peaks area should
be concerned about their safety. However, the RCMP was careful
never to definitively rule out foul play. Ryan's mother struggled
against the speculation. She was quoted, He's not confrontational, he's
not an instigator. He's not one of those people that
would go out of his way to start something. She
goes on to say, we don't know why Ryan went missing.
We don't know how we went missing. We don't know
where he went missing. We want to believe that we'll
find him. That's a parent's love, that's a parent's love
will be so strong. So it's now February nineteenth, it's
one year since his disappearance. This marked the first you're
obviously of his disappearance. The family, their daughters, and a
large group of family and friends gathered and sun Peaks
to mark the occasion with a fundraising dinner a candlelight vigil.
In other events, sun Peaks Resort organized a run for
Ryan on February sixteenth, approximately one hundred people gathering at
the top of a green run off the Sunburst chairlift.
Green flags were distributed and everyone skied down together as
the sun broke through the clouds. Sounds pretty cool.
Speaker 2: That sounds so awesome.
Speaker 3: By this time, the RCMP had followed up on more
than three hundred tips and reported sightings, including one where
someone claimed Ryan was working as a lifeguard in another location.
None of the tips actually led to anything. The police
said there was no evidence to suggest Ryan had met
with foul play. At the same time, there was no
evidence of anything being found at all, so they really
don't know. The RCMP's Major Crimes Unit and Investigation Unit
were reviewing the file. So now Ryan's Chris, He's back
in Australia, spoke publicly about the uncertainty. He said, I
have absolutely no idea what happened to him. All I
know is that I don't believe he went anywhere with
people he didn't know, wandered off into the woods, or
was drunk enough to wander without knowing where he was going.
So he was young and fit experience in cold weather.
He also addressed the online harassment he had received after
traveling a band for a pre planned trip with a
friend from Australia approximately two weeks after the disappearance. He
faced online criticism implying he was involved in harming Ryan,
covering up what happened, or lying to police. He even
received death threats, so people very passionate about Ryan's case.
The first year's search had been the largest ever conducted
in the area. The valley had been scoured by hundreds
of volunteers from around the world, professional searchers, search dogs,
cadaver dogs. You had tactical teams, private investigators, psychics, a
dive team, drones, helicopters, a plane and nothing was found.
It's like, I just don't understand because he couldn't have
gone far.
Speaker 2: No, like given the snow in the direct like it
it's just wild. That is wild.
Speaker 3: It is wild. So it's spring fall of twenty nineteen.
Beginning in April of that year, the family began a
more methodical approach to searching sun Peaks. Again. Excavators and
bobcats are brought in the move snow, while volunteers performed
systematic grid searches. They're not giving up hope that they're
going to find something. In May of that year, drones
were donated to the search effort and were used by
sun Peaks from a new angle. The drones were specifically
tasked with spotting the burgundy hat that Ryan was said
to have been wearing the night of his disappearance, and
they were hoping that the aerial technology might locate where it,
you know, in an area where ground searchers weren't able
to get to, and over the course of twenty eight nineteen,
the family organized approximately seven search operations that Aaron continued
to meet regularly with law enforcement during their visits. They
came to sun Peaks about once a month, and when
winter conditions prevented effective searching, they came simply to feel
connected with Ryan and the community that knew him, and
again throughout twenty nineteen, nothing was found. It's now February
twenty twenty two years since his disappearance. The family continued
their annual tradition of gathering in sun Peaks for candlelight
vigil and memorial events. The RCMP had still not determined
what happened around On the anniversary, they reiterated that there
was no evidence of foul play. There was no police
presence station some Peaks itself. A community members noted a
significant detail. The last signal from his phone obviously was
three am. They're still hung up on that fact that
his phone did ping, and they're wondering what happened to
his phone then?
Speaker 2: Did it die?
Speaker 3: Was it destroyed? His bank accounts were mad untouched?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: There was no indication that he left town February twenty
twenty one, three years after his disappearance. Again really no
new information. The RCMP keeps telling media they're still receiving
tips from time to time. They acknowledged that the lack
of answers was concerning. One of the members of the
local search and rescue team said that whenever he trained
his search dogs, he always took them to the area
where Ryan disappeared, hoping they might find something. By this point,
the search had shifted to find Ryan's belongings more than
even his remains, which would likely no longer be intact
after that length of time. It's now late May of
twenty twenty one, more than three years after his disappearance,
the RCMP returned to some peaks for the first significant
boots on the ground search since May of twenty eighteen.
RCMP Constable Crystal Evelyn confirmed the operation was related to
the search of Ryan. The plan called for local Mounties
and specialized RCMP Search US to be on site looking
for information that could lead the run. The weekend search
on May twenty ninth and thirtieth and filve approximately sixteen officers,
a mix of Mounte's and Southeast District tactical troop. Heather
and Scott made the trip to sun Peak's, unwilling to
wait at home for the results. Heather we go on
to reflect how the years have changed her approach. She said,
after three years, one of the most painful truths is
how I've learned to manage my expectations. The last time
we had an official organized search was May twenty eighteen.
I thought the snow had melted, and with so many volunteers,
Ryan surely would have been found. For two days, I
prayed and hoped, and then grieved all over again. Obviously,
the search did not find Ryan. In a Facebook post
from May thirty first of twenty twenty one, Heather wrote,
it matters little what personal opinions you or I have
regarding Ryan's disappearance. The goal remains to search until I
am dust or dirt because my son matters. That is
what I can do. That is what I will do.
And Heather ed she was impressed with the thoroughness of
the RCMP search and hope to incorporate similar techniques in
future family organized searches. They are still searching. It's it's
amazing they keep it going year after year. It's October
of twenty twenty two. Now, so Ryan's case is starting
to gain national international intention when it was featured on
season three, episode twelve of Paramount Plus's documentary series Never
Seen Again, which aired October tenth of twenty twenty two.
The episode explored how Ryan disappeared after house party during
a fierce winter storm, and how a promising twenty year
old could simply vanish. It's great, we always say, end
of the day, it's the more exposure a case can get,
the better. So yeah, absolutely, his case is finally getting
some international hits. In November twenty twenty two, Heather published
a book titled Missing from Me. The nonfiction account recounts
the case of Ryan's disappearance in the ski town and
takes a reader through Heather's transformation from a parent to
a search and rescue coordinator to missing person advocate. The
book became an Amazon bestseller. Heather described it as a
testament to the strength found in vulnerability and the power
of words to heal and connect. So very interesting. What
had begun as daily social media posts to keep people
informed had evolved into sharing of stories about Ryan and
the family's experience of living in sun Peaks and searching
for him every day. At the time, the Facebook page
dedicated to Ryan had grown to nearly fifty five thousand followers,
so a lot of people were really interested in this case.
So it's now February twenty twenty three, we're five years
from his disappearance. Again, the families returning to sun Peaks
to mark the fifth anniversary. The annual Run for Ryan
event was held on the seventeenth. It was followed by
a candlelight vigil and a book signing for the Missing
for Me at the sun Peaks Grand Hotel and Conference Center.
After Ryan's disappearance, how they co founded the Freebird Project
with Tammy Neuron, Kate Sinclair, and one other woman. Tammy
and Kate's brother, Tomic Neuron and his girlfriend Ashley had
gone missing in twenty seventeen when their plane disappeared near Revelstoke.
The wreckage was found in September of twenty eighteen. So
the families would go on to combine their experiences in
ground and aerial search operations to offer support and resources
to other families of missing loved ones across Canada. This
organization eventually became a registered nonprofit, so it just goes
on twenty May of twenty twenty three, there's more searches,
nothing's found. October of twenty twenty three, they upped the
reward to twenty five thousand dollars. They keep reflecting on
the complexity of the different searches. And February twenty twenty four,
it's six years since its disappearance. They hold a candlelight
vigil again and and they're doing searches. They're doing events
to try to keep this search alive. Now it's far
enough out that they really are not getting any increase
in tips anymore from people. That makes sense, Yeah, there's
fewer and fewer tips coming in every year. But then
in May of twenty twenty four, they reported a notable
increase in the number of tips regarding Ryan's disappearance. So
Sue Brown, a lawyer and investigator with the organization, said
they had received quite a number of tips in the
past couple of months, following a period where they had
been where there weren't very many. Some of the tips
showed consistency with each other and with tips received in
the past containing verifiable details worth following up on. Very
interesting how it kind of ebbs and flows The tips
So now we're to February twenty twenty five, this is
seven years after his disappearance. Again, they return to the area.
They're doing their candlelight vigil, They're holding events, they are
still doing family searches. Unfortunately, nothing has ever found. They
still maintain regular communications with the family about the case.
Police would inform the family of some of the tips
they received and whether they were believed credible. But they've
been very accountable to us, Heather said. It's very comforting
for us to know that the investigation is not considered
a cold case, but still actively reviewed and worked done.
Despite all of this, Heather acknowledge, I think we still
feel like it's groundhog Day. It's still February seventeenth of
twenty eighteen. It's still the same thing over and over.
We don't have any real new information. Then, in August
of twenty twenty five, there is a story published called
Into Thin Air. I think Joe was looking at the
video of that, and it goes into the volunteers with
the search, the recovery and detection of K nine team,
all that kind of stuff. Very interesting documentary, our news
report check it out. February twenty twenty six, Just a
few months ago, it was eight years since its disappearance,
and the family, community menor community members gathered once again
at the top of some Burst Express Lift for the
eighth annual Run for Ryan. In early February twenty twenty six,
Heather launched a new GoFundMe fundraiser tied to Ryan's birthday month,
and the fundraiser stated Ryan has been missing for eight years.
That means eight birthdays, eight years missed of moments, gatherings, milestones,
and a life yet not fully lived. The funds were
designated for outgoing ongoing search efforts, including travel, logistics, and
search related expenses. It raised over ten thousand dollars. On
March eighteenth, twenty twenty six, a separate go fund me
was organized to help support Ryan's family during what was
described as an incredibly difficult time as they cope with
their loss.
Speaker 2: It was a day before my birthday. There there you go,
on March nineteenth.
Speaker 3: So, as of April of twenty twenty six, as we
were recording, he has not been found. There's been no
trace of it, no clothing, no personal belongings, no remains,
nothing has been found. His cell phone, social media, bank accounts,
no activity since the night he went missing. The RCMP
investigation remains open active foul play has not been ruled out,
but no evidence of criminal activity has been found. So
very puzzling, and I'll go through theories quickly here.
Speaker 2: I feel like this is the most active case over
a long period of time we've done in a while,
if not ever, Yeah, every year there. I mean, like
the fact that they're still doing stuff is pretty incredible. Yeah.
I feel for the mom and the family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. The first theory, the most obvious, is
exposure misadventure. You know, this is the most straightfor forward explanation.
Ryan walked out into minus ford degree fahrenheit with active snowfall,
got lost, wandered off the road, and succumbed to hypothermia.
The conditions supported he was underdressed, likely intoxicated, visibility was
near zero, and the tree line was ten steps from
the road. Search and Rescue initially believed he fell into
a gully that was buried by heavy snow that weekend,
and this was kind of the working assumption by law enforcement.
It's a straightforward explanation, I think based on you know,
maybe he was more intoxicated than people thought and who knows. Yeah,
he could have gotten cold pretty quickly. He may have
gone and got pizza first, and we don't know, but
I think he was drunk. It was very cold, snowing, windy,
he was underdressed. I think exposure very likely theory yep
three number two hit and run. So this was an
interesting theory. So the theory goes Ryan was struck by
a vehicle on the dark, icy road, possibly by another
impaired driver, and the driver panic loaded the body and
dumped it somewhere between sun Peaks and Kamloops. Former sun
Peaks News reporter noted that there had been other cases
of pedestrians hit by drunk drivers late at night in
the area, so it wasn't far fetched. Area residents on
Reddit have also called this the local consensus theory. So
a lot of locals feel that this is what actually
happened to them.
Speaker 2: That makes me feel like that happens a lot.
Speaker 3: Yes, But the problem with this is there was no
damage vehicle reported, no blood on the road, no tire
marks or evidence of an impact. And Heather herself doesn't
fully believe this theory given the total absence of physical
evidence and the likelihood someone could have heard a collision.
But then I would counter, what.
Speaker 2: If someone's in a big truck, Well, like there was blood,
but it got covered up by snow and as snow melts,
washes away.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think I don't think that's folly ruled out.
Speaker 3: I think if locals believe that's the consensus, that tells
me that is a bigger problem than.
Speaker 2: I And it tells me like they went right to that. Yeah.
So there's a feeling from the people who are in
the area based on just like you said, like it's
probably happening a lot more than they say, and there's
no cops in the town. Yeah. So you and it's
late at night, nobody's there, and that person's drunk. Yeah,
I don't think that's I didn't think about that.
Speaker 3: But I and you load the body in your car
and then you just drive out of some peaks and
you're out in the middle and oer and you just
toss the body. Yeah, and they didn't search it. They'll
never find it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So third theory kind of ties in with theory number
two as foul play. So this is where it gets unsettling.
Jim Reid, Like we said, this was the guy who
heard the someone yelling get in the car, getting the
fing car in the middle of the night, so retired
RCMP investigar Brian Smith, who initially believed the exposure theory,
changed his mind after interviewing one of Ryan's friends who seemed,
like I said earlier, very nervous and afraid of himself.
He says his gut reaction that this most likely was
a homicide, not just a missing person, and a lot
of online speculation ranged from drug related violence to someone
at the party having a grievance, and sun Peaks has
a large transient workforce, so seasonal workers could leave town
without raising suspicion. The problem with this, though, is after
extent of interviews that law enforcement did with everyone involved,
there was no evidence of criminal activity, and Ryan was
universally described as a non confrontational no enemies, no debts,
no known conflicts. A lot of people thought it was
a pretty big stretch to say that he got into
some fight and was killed. And they think it's even
crazier to think that he was a drug dealer who
was killed and that he you know, over a party.
Speaker 2: After all this time, somebody would have said something, yeah, exactly,
there's too many people involved that wouldn't necessarily even get
in trouble for like, yeah, I saw him, or he
regularly was doing these nefarious things. Like I feel like
people would say that, Yeah, if I knew somebody that
I was a coworker and that I knew deult drugs
or did bad stuff, and then all of a sudden
he's missing, yeah, I'd be like, yeah, I think he
was into that. Yeah, like even speculatively, and it doesn't
sound like that was the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think either exposure, I think that could easily.
But I think you they would have. They searched so
much that I think they would have found something. I
think likely I'm going with hit and run.
Speaker 2: I'm going hit and run or some other thing where
he got moved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think on that one, I think someone really
drunk hit him, probably in a truck or something. He
hit somebody. It might not leave a dent, I mean.
Speaker 2: Or I'm guessing a lot of the cars up there
are damaged already. I'm just thinking of like small towns,
like resources are scarce. It's not like there's a big
car dealership replacing car Like everyone's probably fixing their own stuff,
keeping it running. As long as possible, like nice slide
off the road and hit stuff. You know, looking at
some of the areas, you could tell some of the
cars weren't great. So I I just because they didn't
find anything like immediately, I doesn't That doesn't mean anything
to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's actively snowing, and if he's wearing like,
there's not necessarily gonna be blood if he got hit
by a car or you get hit with it by
a truck with this thing, yeah, and that lighting, that
truck already looks beat up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and they have the metal bars that like
like they're not going to guard. Yeah, they're not gonna
get dented.
Speaker 3: No, And there might not necessarily be blood from that, yeah,
Or like you said, if there was blood, it's gonna
be covered up pretty quick quickly and to looted.
Speaker 2: Yeah, washed away asn't melt. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's a pretty good theory. I think it's
a pretty good theory too. And if the locals, if
that's what the locals think, like they are more plugged
in to what's going on exactly. And I mean, can
you imagine a resort town that has no police force.
Of course, people are gonna be drinking and driving. Yeah,
you're gonna just wherever you want. Yeah, who's gonna pull
you over? And we're not advocating, we're not advocating for that,
but I'm just saying it's human nature. Like I Yeah,
I just assume if there's no police presence and the
locals think that that's the likely theory because this has
a history of happening, that seems pretty logical to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Or exposure, Yeah, it's between those two
for sure. Yeah. I just I'm with you on that
when they search so good in the exposure and it's
not like he would have gone far off into like
the woods. Yeah, it would be way too much effort. Yeah,
it was like one hundred yards an hour. Yeah, something
like that.
Speaker 3: If you're like drunk, you probably even slower.
Speaker 2: I mean, you just wouldn't do hard things. No, he
would go where you could. You would go to get
pizza exactly, Like seriously, Yes, well, so I'm I'm with
you on that one. Yeah. I think I think it's
I will say, I am do you have like an
off the deep end?
Speaker 3: Umm? I didn't even think of an off the deep end?
We always just say aliens. Maybe last squatch. Yeah, you
gotta get more creative than that yet. Okay, alien abduction,
I don't know.
Speaker 2: I saw somebody said something like serial killer or something potentially.
Speaker 3: Okay, but they have There hasn't been any other reported
disappearances in sun Peaks or murders or anything, or like
the cops are.
Speaker 2: In on it somehow. It was like an officer or
somebody somebody friends of the cops. So when they go investigate,
like I hit this guy and they're like, oh, we
haven't found anything. Yeah, wink wink. That could be an
off the deep end. This is all pure speculation and
listen for legal reasons. Maybe the resort is in on it.
Speaker 3: They don't want they don't want that to like, it's
better to have him just gone missing than oh, how
violent happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and scare away anyone who's coming there. Yeah. I
think yeah, I mean those are definitely off the deep end,
but I think it's just I mean an accident or exposure, Yeah,
that's well. In the accident and then I mean murder
basically manslaughter, yes, second degree when drunk, yeah, second degree
and then hiding covering the evidence, yes, because of freaked.
Speaker 3: Out serious crimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not saying they're not serious, but it's not
like intentional, like I'm gonna go find him and get them. No,
like it was just like one of those things.
Speaker 3: So I will counter and say, if you're that drunk,
but suddenly you're that coherent to pull off hiding a
body in the middle.
Speaker 2: Of nowhere, yeah, but still okay, fair enough? All right.
Speaker 3: I mean we've coming from Wisconsin. Lots of people sadly
do drink and drive, and a lot of times they
can't even get out of their car when they get
pulled over.
Speaker 2: That's true. All right, Well, we want to know what
you think, so thanks again for tuning into our show.
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Speaker 1: The