1
00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:13,480
Speaker 1: Thousands of people have mysteriously vanished in America's wilderness. Join

2
00:00:13,640 --> 00:00:16,039
us as we dive into the deep end of the

3
00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:19,879
unexplainable and try to piece together what happened. If you

4
00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:23,160
are listening to Locations Unknown.

5
00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:57,119
Speaker 2: What's up, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of

6
00:00:57,159 --> 00:01:00,679
Locations Unknown. I'm your co host Joey with me as

7
00:01:00,719 --> 00:01:03,840
always is a guy who pronounces the tea and disoriented twice.

8
00:01:04,359 --> 00:01:08,040
Speaker 3: Mike Vanderboguards. Oh, thank you Joe, and thank you once

9
00:01:08,079 --> 00:01:11,400
again to thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been

10
00:01:11,439 --> 00:01:15,280
a long night. Thank you, Joe, and thank you to

11
00:01:15,319 --> 00:01:17,400
all of our listeners for tuning in. We've been off

12
00:01:17,439 --> 00:01:21,079
for a couple of weeks now. We've moved studios again.

13
00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:24,719
We've Joe went on vacation. I was on vacation.

14
00:01:25,200 --> 00:01:28,719
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, it's raining cats and dogs.

15
00:01:28,799 --> 00:01:31,519
Speaker 3: Yeah. If you hear a weird background sound, we can't

16
00:01:31,519 --> 00:01:35,000
help it. It's we're we've literally been just rained on

17
00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:38,760
for days now. I just had the most crazy experience

18
00:01:38,799 --> 00:01:42,040
getting to our new studio. I was driving downtown and

19
00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,319
water was just shooting out of like manhole covers and

20
00:01:45,359 --> 00:01:49,200
flooding the streets. So we're having some real flooding. How

21
00:01:49,319 --> 00:01:51,799
committed we are to this. Yeah, we probably should have

22
00:01:51,959 --> 00:01:55,319
postponed this to night. Yeah, that's too late. We're already here.

23
00:01:55,359 --> 00:01:58,799
We're here maybe all night, yep. So what's going on

24
00:01:58,840 --> 00:01:59,680
in your world?

25
00:02:00,079 --> 00:02:03,640
Speaker 2: My world? Yes, I'm here right now. I'm coming back

26
00:02:03,680 --> 00:02:06,760
from vacation. I was down in Captiva and that's slow

27
00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,280
and beachy and warm. Yeah, they come back to this.

28
00:02:09,759 --> 00:02:12,439
At least it's not snowing, I guess, I guess. Yeah,

29
00:02:12,479 --> 00:02:14,840
but no, excited to be back and get going. And

30
00:02:14,879 --> 00:02:17,719
we have a new format introducing that's going to be exciting.

31
00:02:17,759 --> 00:02:20,120
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so this we may go back to how

32
00:02:20,159 --> 00:02:22,319
we did it. This is a different kind of case.

33
00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,520
It's I won't go into it because it's an really

34
00:02:25,520 --> 00:02:28,319
interesting case and it was recommended by a listener by

35
00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:31,240
the name of a net Percell, so thank you a nut,

36
00:02:32,319 --> 00:02:35,039
and I started reading about the case and it's a

37
00:02:35,080 --> 00:02:39,000
real fascinating case and very mysterious and takes place in

38
00:02:39,039 --> 00:02:44,360
a very cool alpine environment. So excited to get into it.

39
00:02:44,680 --> 00:02:49,120
Before we get going. Some Patreon shoutouts Andy Griffith's aid

40
00:02:49,159 --> 00:02:54,360
in any of that show, Andy Griffin. Yeah, Aiden Trotterman

41
00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,680
and Tiffany Schmidt, So thank you so much for supporting

42
00:02:57,680 --> 00:02:58,000
the show.

43
00:02:59,639 --> 00:03:01,639
Speaker 2: There is there, it is. If you want to.

44
00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:05,120
Speaker 3: Call the show, leave a voicemail, tell us how we're doing.

45
00:03:05,199 --> 00:03:07,680
You can call two eight three nine one six nine

46
00:03:07,759 --> 00:03:08,159
one three.

47
00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,280
Speaker 2: Still worried about Montana Mike in North Dakota and need Yeah,

48
00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:14,280
we haven't had a call from them in a while,

49
00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:15,319
so you need a wellness check.

50
00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:17,800
Speaker 3: We do need a wellness check. We need to hear

51
00:03:17,800 --> 00:03:21,319
about how your Sasquatch family is doing. So yes, we

52
00:03:21,439 --> 00:03:24,400
got some other cool podcasts on the network, Off the Trails,

53
00:03:24,439 --> 00:03:26,240
Weird as we Know who runs this part, Crime, Off

54
00:03:26,240 --> 00:03:29,199
the Grid, and Relish. If you want to support the show,

55
00:03:29,199 --> 00:03:32,479
we've got many ways you can do it. Patreon, YouTube memberships,

56
00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:36,800
premium subscriptions on Apple, and spreaker. We have a store

57
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:39,280
where you can buy some different shirts and we're going

58
00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:43,319
to add more stuff to that. And if money's tight,

59
00:03:43,479 --> 00:03:46,199
gas is getting expensive and everything, so if money's tight,

60
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:48,960
you can always help us out by doing the little

61
00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:53,400
free things. You can like our episodes on YouTube or

62
00:03:53,479 --> 00:03:56,919
you can share them, leave a comment if you're listening

63
00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:00,439
on Spotify. All that kind of stuff helps the AI

64
00:04:00,560 --> 00:04:04,080
Overloord's promote our show more on the various platforms, and

65
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:05,840
you can tell your friends about our show and just

66
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:07,439
to the point where they don't want to talk to

67
00:04:07,479 --> 00:04:07,879
you anymore.

68
00:04:07,960 --> 00:04:10,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, how do you know that? Right now? This isn't

69
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:12,960
just the AI chatbots doing this episode. It's right that

70
00:04:13,039 --> 00:04:16,360
Mike built. I haven't had time to work on it,

71
00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:18,519
and he could have Joe locked in a basement somewhere

72
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,040
and just using this voice, just feed you a bucket

73
00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:25,920
of fisheads every day. Absolutely, all right, everybody, let's gear

74
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:47,120
up and get out to explore locations unknown. February seventeenth,

75
00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:51,319
twenty eighteen. After a night out at sun Peaks Resort

76
00:04:51,399 --> 00:04:54,240
in British Columbia, a twenty year old leaves a house

77
00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:57,000
party for a short walk back to staff housing and

78
00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:00,560
is never seen again. A winter storm batter the mountain

79
00:05:00,639 --> 00:05:07,519
village with plunging temperatures, gusting winds, and fresh snow. Search dogs, helicopters, drones,

80
00:05:07,839 --> 00:05:11,079
and hundreds of volunteers scour the resort and surrounding terrain,

81
00:05:11,519 --> 00:05:17,079
but find nothing. No body, no clothing, no phone, no trace.

82
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,560
Join us this week as we investigate the haunting disappearance

83
00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:40,399
of Ryan Stuka. So Mike tell us a little bit

84
00:05:40,439 --> 00:05:41,959
about how we're going to set this up.

85
00:05:42,519 --> 00:05:46,920
Speaker 3: So, because this isn't a typical person went out into

86
00:05:46,959 --> 00:05:51,399
the woods hiking, never came out, we are going to

87
00:05:51,600 --> 00:05:55,920
set up the location, kind of describe where it is,

88
00:05:56,600 --> 00:06:00,000
the environment that he was in, more of a narrative

89
00:06:00,519 --> 00:06:04,560
of the location versus are kind of data driven description

90
00:06:04,720 --> 00:06:06,000
of where they were hiking.

91
00:06:05,759 --> 00:06:09,079
Speaker 2: A little more storytelling setting up the location in that regard.

92
00:06:09,319 --> 00:06:12,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it still has a lot of facts details, yeah,

93
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,319
about terrain and weather and things like that. But it

94
00:06:15,399 --> 00:06:17,920
also describes the resort town a little the roads you

95
00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:20,240
would have walked on, Okay and all that.

96
00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:22,199
Speaker 2: So well, let's get into it. Let's get in and

97
00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:24,480
we'll see if the people love it or hate it, yes,

98
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:27,480
and more importantly, if we love it or hate it. Yeah.

99
00:06:28,160 --> 00:06:30,319
All right, So the valley, setting up the scene of

100
00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:32,759
the disappearance, We're going to start in the valley. Sun

101
00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:35,959
Peaks sits in a high mountain valley in the interior

102
00:06:36,040 --> 00:06:40,199
of British Columbia, roughly thirty five miles northeast of Kamloops.

103
00:06:40,920 --> 00:06:44,759
Sun Peaks is primarily accessed by one road, sun Peaks Road.

104
00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:48,439
A winding two lane highway that climbs through dense subalpine

105
00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:52,439
forest before delivering you into a purpose built alpine village

106
00:06:52,759 --> 00:06:56,319
at four one and seventeen feet above sea level. The

107
00:06:56,439 --> 00:06:59,920
village sits in the bowl of a natural amphitheater formed

108
00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:04,199
three mountains, Todd Mountain to the northwest at seven thousand feet,

109
00:07:04,639 --> 00:07:07,399
sun Dance Mountain to the east, and Mount Morsey to

110
00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:10,959
the south. These are not gentle hills. The vertical rise

111
00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:13,319
from the village floor to the summit of Todd is

112
00:07:13,360 --> 00:07:17,399
nearly twenty nine hundred feet of raw elevation gain, pressing

113
00:07:17,480 --> 00:07:21,279
down on all sides. The terrain surrounding the village is

114
00:07:21,319 --> 00:07:24,680
almost the most rugged in the b C interior part

115
00:07:24,800 --> 00:07:28,399
of the Menashee Mountains within the Broader Columbia Range, a

116
00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:32,399
landscape shaped by glaciation, avalanche paths, and deep snowpack that

117
00:07:32,480 --> 00:07:36,319
persists six months to six months of the year. During

118
00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:39,759
the day, with lifts running and skiers carving groomed runs,

119
00:07:39,800 --> 00:07:42,240
the scale of the mountain fades into the background scenery.

120
00:07:42,680 --> 00:07:46,000
At night, and especially in mid February, the mountains stop

121
00:07:46,079 --> 00:07:48,959
being scenery. They become walls. The village sits at the

122
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:53,240
bottom of a bowl with nowhere flat to go. Every

123
00:07:53,279 --> 00:07:56,879
direction that isn't a road leads uphill into forest into

124
00:07:56,879 --> 00:08:00,360
snowpack measured in feet not inches, so the road. The

125
00:08:00,439 --> 00:08:04,319
village road network is compact but deceptively complex for its size.

126
00:08:04,759 --> 00:08:07,959
The main artery at sun Peaks Road, which enters from

127
00:08:07,959 --> 00:08:11,639
the south and terminates at the village center. From there,

128
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:15,439
the road's branch Villageway, Creek Sideway thread through the commercial

129
00:08:15,519 --> 00:08:19,480
core near the day Lodge. Sunburst Drive curves north along

130
00:08:19,519 --> 00:08:22,759
the base of Todd Mountain, Sundance Drive and Bella Vista

131
00:08:22,879 --> 00:08:26,920
Drive climbed to the eastern flanks towards Sundance. Mountain Fairways

132
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:30,360
Drive and Mountain View Drive wind west along the golf course,

133
00:08:30,399 --> 00:08:33,799
and there is Burfield almost at Buffalo Burfield Drive, which

134
00:08:33,879 --> 00:08:36,399
runs south and west from the village, hugging the lower

135
00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:40,399
slopes beneath Mount More Scene, offering ski inaccess from the

136
00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:45,200
Burfield chairlift base elevation thirty nine hundred feet. In winter,

137
00:08:45,759 --> 00:08:49,519
these roads are bordered not by curves but by snow banks.

138
00:08:50,039 --> 00:08:53,279
By mid February, after months of sustained snowfall, sun Peaks

139
00:08:53,320 --> 00:08:57,240
averages roughly twenty feet of snow annually, the banks along

140
00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:01,639
the road can reach chess height or higher. The plowed

141
00:09:01,720 --> 00:09:05,000
road surface becomes a channel carved into the snowpack. Side

142
00:09:05,039 --> 00:09:08,480
streets and access pass shrink to narrow corridors. What in

143
00:09:08,519 --> 00:09:11,360
summer might be a wide open residential lane becomes in

144
00:09:11,399 --> 00:09:16,480
February a claustrophobic trench between walls of compressed snow. Sidewalks

145
00:09:16,559 --> 00:09:19,879
vanish entirely. The Valley Trail, a three point seven mile

146
00:09:19,919 --> 00:09:22,679
paved loop that connects various areas of the resort, in summer,

147
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:27,240
becomes buried and impassable in many sections. Safety warnings posted

148
00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:30,399
by the resort itself strongly urge residents and visitors to

149
00:09:30,480 --> 00:09:32,919
use the Valley Trail rather than walking on the road,

150
00:09:33,159 --> 00:09:36,720
especially after having a few drinks, but by February the

151
00:09:36,720 --> 00:09:40,559
trail is frequently unusable, forcing foot traffic onto the plowed roadway.

152
00:09:41,360 --> 00:09:43,960
There are no sidewalks in Burfield Drive in the winter,

153
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:47,200
and there are no curbs. There is the plowed lane,

154
00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:49,440
and there is snow bank, and past the snow bank

155
00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:53,799
there is mountain. So it's just basically two lane plowed

156
00:09:53,799 --> 00:09:56,000
through like the snow and very impassable.

157
00:09:56,399 --> 00:09:59,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's They get twenty feet of snow and in

158
00:09:59,159 --> 00:10:02,720
the winter, I pick I had just was it like.

159
00:10:02,879 --> 00:10:05,799
Speaker 2: In Russia where they had like unusual snowfall and people

160
00:10:05,840 --> 00:10:08,000
are jumping out of their buildings into it and they

161
00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:11,360
showed like digging carves at cars out and just walls.

162
00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:13,399
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, probably somewhere in like Siberia.

163
00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:18,120
Speaker 2: I can't see that the eastern block. Yeah, so Burfield

164
00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:20,519
Drive and the walk home. So the area where Ryan

165
00:10:20,600 --> 00:10:23,840
went missing was on Burfield Drive. His cabin, a shared

166
00:10:23,879 --> 00:10:27,480
staff accommodation, sat roughly one thousand feet away, which is

167
00:10:27,679 --> 00:10:30,000
a ten to fifteen minute walk in any normal night.

168
00:10:30,720 --> 00:10:33,559
The route was simple, a down Burfield Drive to a

169
00:10:33,600 --> 00:10:36,480
short path next to a small stream that led straight

170
00:10:36,519 --> 00:10:41,279
to his cabin. The Burfield the employee housing building sits

171
00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:45,240
at eleven forty sun Peaks Road, a shared dormitory building

172
00:10:45,279 --> 00:10:48,440
with bunk beds, small kitchenettes and walking showers. It was

173
00:10:48,480 --> 00:10:51,080
the kind of no frill, seasonal worker housing that ski

174
00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:55,240
resorts run all over Western Canada. The Burfield ski lift

175
00:10:55,480 --> 00:10:57,759
was a two minute walk away. The village core was

176
00:10:57,799 --> 00:11:01,000
about five minute drive. Every every thing in sun Peaks

177
00:11:01,080 --> 00:11:03,679
is close together on a map, but in deep winter,

178
00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:06,320
late at night with snow banks compressing the roads, and

179
00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:09,759
the subalpine forests pressing in from every edge, one thousand

180
00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,559
feet can become a long walk. The critical detail about

181
00:11:13,559 --> 00:11:16,600
this route it branches. Burfield Drive is not a straight

182
00:11:16,639 --> 00:11:19,360
line from point A to point B. It curves. It

183
00:11:19,360 --> 00:11:23,080
connects to other roads Fairways Drive, Mountain View Drive, sun

184
00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:27,399
Peaks Road. Multiple turnoffs open into service roads, ski trail

185
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:30,279
access points, and paths that in summer lead to the

186
00:11:30,279 --> 00:11:34,240
golf course or inorder trail network. In winter, many of

187
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:36,799
these paths are buried, but not all of them. Some

188
00:11:36,879 --> 00:11:40,159
remain visible as depressions or tracks in the snow and

189
00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:43,039
in the dark. With alcohol effecting judgment, any of those

190
00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:46,480
openings could look like the right way home. The ski

191
00:11:46,600 --> 00:11:51,240
runs themselves border the residential areas. The resort is explicitly

192
00:11:51,279 --> 00:11:54,200
marked as ski in ski out, meaning the boundary between

193
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:57,320
the groom terrain and the residential streets is not existent.

194
00:11:57,360 --> 00:12:01,759
In places, a wrong turn doesn't lead to any another neighborhood.

195
00:12:01,759 --> 00:12:04,559
It leads into a ski run, or into a tree line,

196
00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:07,320
or toward a frozen creek bed that snakes through the valley.

197
00:12:07,799 --> 00:12:11,519
Mcgilvury Creek and its tributaries run through the area. Small

198
00:12:11,519 --> 00:12:14,000
streams cut through the landscape, some of them close to

199
00:12:14,039 --> 00:12:16,759
the path Ryan would have walked. In winter. These are

200
00:12:16,799 --> 00:12:20,320
largely frozen and buried under snow, but they create depressions

201
00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:23,879
and uneven terrain beneath the surface, pockets where the snowpack

202
00:12:23,960 --> 00:12:26,559
is unstable, where a person walking off trail could punch

203
00:12:26,639 --> 00:12:30,440
through a snowbridge into water, simply seek into deeper accumulation.

204
00:12:31,279 --> 00:12:33,200
So we talk about that a lot in crevices. Yeah,

205
00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:35,919
like snowbridges. You could be over a large gap, but

206
00:12:36,799 --> 00:12:39,080
it looks like a stable surface until a step on

207
00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:41,840
it and there you go. Yeah, So a little bit

208
00:12:41,879 --> 00:12:44,360
about the weather pre and post disappearance. This is not

209
00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:48,519
speculation or estimation. Sun Peaks Resort's own daily avalanche forecast

210
00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:52,279
for Saturday, February seventeen, twenty eighteen, records the conditions in detail.

211
00:12:52,639 --> 00:12:55,679
A low pressure system was moving over southern British Columbia.

212
00:12:55,960 --> 00:12:58,799
Four to six inches of new snow were expected through Saturday.

213
00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:03,120
By evening, northerly winds were becoming gusty and Arctic eras

214
00:13:03,159 --> 00:13:06,200
pulling south. Another two inches of snow was forecast for

215
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:09,720
Saturday night. The daytime high was near ten degrees fahrenheit.

216
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:13,720
Sunday high would have been near zero degrees fahrenheit. Snow

217
00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:17,120
temperature at the mountain was fourteen degrees. Three inches of

218
00:13:17,159 --> 00:13:20,279
new snow storm had already accumulated over the previous forty

219
00:13:20,279 --> 00:13:24,840
eight hours, with wind loaded pockets forming on sheltered aspects.

220
00:13:25,639 --> 00:13:29,759
By Sunday morning, February eighteenth, conditions had worsened. Snow temperatures

221
00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:32,960
were upper at the upper mountain had dropped to minus

222
00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:36,759
eight degrees fahrenheit, mid mountain were minus two. Roughly nine

223
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:38,759
and a half inches of new snow had fallen in

224
00:13:38,799 --> 00:13:41,879
the preceding forty eight hours, with nearly nine inches in

225
00:13:41,879 --> 00:13:45,200
the least twenty four hours alone. Gusty north winds continued.

226
00:13:45,279 --> 00:13:48,360
The avalanche danger inside the ski area boundary was rated

227
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:50,639
considerable across all time periods.

228
00:13:50,759 --> 00:13:53,720
Speaker 3: So really the weather at this time it was picking up.

229
00:13:53,879 --> 00:13:56,360
And it's not ideal for someone to go missing in

230
00:13:56,679 --> 00:13:59,279
Oh absolutely not, even if you like are bundled up

231
00:13:59,279 --> 00:14:01,559
with ski gear. You don't want to be caught out

232
00:14:01,759 --> 00:14:04,759
in that ket oh absolutely or not. Yeah, Yeah, it's

233
00:14:04,799 --> 00:14:08,879
like blizzard, but just like pouring snow and avalancheisk and

234
00:14:08,960 --> 00:14:09,519
just all of it.

235
00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:12,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, so by the evening on Sunday, February eighteenth, the

236
00:14:12,759 --> 00:14:16,039
temperatures at the village elevation, which is four one and

237
00:14:16,039 --> 00:14:19,440
seventeen feet, was somewhere between five degrees and minus four degrees.

238
00:14:19,799 --> 00:14:22,679
Wind chill would have pushed the effected temperature lower. Fresh

239
00:14:22,679 --> 00:14:27,159
snow was actively falling. Visibility was seeming severely limited, the

240
00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:29,039
kind of night where you would shrink to a few

241
00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:32,120
yards in every direction, where the mountains above disappear entirely,

242
00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:34,600
and where the only reference points are whatever light you

243
00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:38,279
can see still through the snowfall. The average February temperature

244
00:14:38,279 --> 00:14:40,440
at sun Peaks is twenty one. This was not an

245
00:14:40,480 --> 00:14:43,679
average February night. This was an Arctic outbreak layered on

246
00:14:43,759 --> 00:14:48,080
top of an active storm cycle, with blowing snow reducing visibility,

247
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:51,320
and fresh accumulation burying whatever tracks existed on the ground.

248
00:14:51,799 --> 00:14:55,240
So it's just the perfect storm, yeah, literally figuratively to

249
00:14:55,279 --> 00:14:56,559
get like walk home in.

250
00:14:56,679 --> 00:15:01,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, especially if you're intoxicated.

251
00:15:01,759 --> 00:15:04,960
Speaker 2: And speaking of that, just darkness in general. Sun Peaks

252
00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:07,240
is not a city. There are no street lights lining

253
00:15:07,240 --> 00:15:10,399
Burfield Drive. The village core has some ambient light, the

254
00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:13,240
day lodge, the hotels, the string of decorative lights that

255
00:15:13,279 --> 00:15:16,840
give the pedestrian village its postcard quality, but on the

256
00:15:16,840 --> 00:15:21,240
residential roads, radiating outward lighting drops off sharply. Burfield Drive

257
00:15:21,279 --> 00:15:24,159
would have been lit primarily by whatever glow leaked from

258
00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:27,399
the windows of condos and cabins, and by reflective light

259
00:15:27,519 --> 00:15:31,240
of fresh snow. So fresh snow does not amplify ambient light.

260
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:34,279
Street lights or house lights will brighten up significantly when

261
00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:37,240
reflected off the snow at night, but during an active

262
00:15:37,279 --> 00:15:41,399
snowstorm the effect cuts both ways. The falling snow scatters

263
00:15:41,399 --> 00:15:45,600
and diffuses light, creating a flat, disorienting white out effect

264
00:15:45,720 --> 00:15:49,279
where depth perception collapses. The ground blends with the air,

265
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:52,159
snowbanks blend with the road, the tree line blends with

266
00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:54,759
the sky. There are no shadows, There is no contrast.

267
00:15:54,840 --> 00:15:58,320
A person walking these conditions, even on a familiar road,

268
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:02,759
can lose spatial orientation without realizing it. The resorts security

269
00:16:02,799 --> 00:16:06,120
camera were not operational that night either. Literally the perfect

270
00:16:06,159 --> 00:16:09,480
snorm of everything going wrong. Yes, so a little bit

271
00:16:09,519 --> 00:16:13,039
about the tree line past the snow banks on Burfield Drive.

272
00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:17,039
The terrain transitions quickly sun peaks sits at the boundary

273
00:16:17,120 --> 00:16:22,320
between the montane and subalpine ecological zones. The forests surrounding

274
00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:26,799
the village are dense stands of Englemann spruce, subalpine fir

275
00:16:27,159 --> 00:16:31,120
and Douglas fir. In winter, these trees are laden with snow.

276
00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:34,240
Branches sag under the weight, and the canopy closes in,

277
00:16:34,320 --> 00:16:38,360
blocking what little ambient light by filter through old man's beard.

278
00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:42,200
Lichen drapes from the branches, and the understory is buried.

279
00:16:42,919 --> 00:16:45,159
The ground is not flat. It rolls and pitches, with

280
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,440
the contours of the mountain, concealing stumps, rocks, creek beds,

281
00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:50,919
and drops beneath a smooth white surface that gives no

282
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:54,759
indication of what lies underneath. Ten steps off plowed road

283
00:16:54,799 --> 00:16:57,440
and you are in the forest. Twenty steps in, the

284
00:16:57,559 --> 00:17:00,600
road is no longer visible behind you. The snow is

285
00:17:00,639 --> 00:17:04,480
wat deep or deeper in untracked areas, movement becomes exhausting.

286
00:17:04,839 --> 00:17:07,759
Each step requires lifting your entire leg above the surface,

287
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:12,240
punching through the crust, and sinking again without snowshoes for

288
00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:14,960
ford progress and deep powder. At this elevation, and these

289
00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:18,079
temperatures can drop to a few hundred yards per hour.

290
00:17:18,599 --> 00:17:20,400
Speaker 3: That's slow. That's so slow.

291
00:17:21,759 --> 00:17:24,720
Speaker 2: The terrain rises sharply in every direction away from the village.

292
00:17:24,839 --> 00:17:27,680
From the Burfield chairlift, based at thirty nine hundred feet,

293
00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:30,519
the mountain climbs to sixty eight hundred feet at the summit,

294
00:17:30,839 --> 00:17:34,880
nearly two nine hundred feet of elevation gain. The ski

295
00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:38,240
runs at descent towards the village back in time. Burfield

296
00:17:38,279 --> 00:17:42,920
Outrun Homesteader are wide groomed corridors during the day. At night,

297
00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:47,119
without groomers or lighting, they are open slopes of windloaded snow,

298
00:17:47,279 --> 00:17:50,480
flanked by forests tilting upward into the dark. A person

299
00:17:50,519 --> 00:17:53,400
who stepped off Burfield Drive onto one of these runs

300
00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:56,640
would have been walking uphill into deepening snow, with no

301
00:17:56,799 --> 00:18:00,799
visible destination and diminishing physical capacity. And if that wasn't

302
00:18:00,799 --> 00:18:04,160
a love enough, what does the cold do? So understanding

303
00:18:04,200 --> 00:18:06,720
what happened, or what may have happened in this case

304
00:18:06,759 --> 00:18:10,759
requires understanding what five degrees fahrenheit to minus four degrees

305
00:18:10,759 --> 00:18:13,920
fahrenheit does. The human body, particularly one that it may

306
00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:18,599
have been drinking alcohol, is a vaso dilator. It causes

307
00:18:18,599 --> 00:18:21,680
blood vessels near the skin surface to open, flooding the

308
00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:24,680
extremities with warm blood from the core. This creates a

309
00:18:24,720 --> 00:18:27,759
sensation of warmth, the flush in the cheeks, the feeling

310
00:18:27,839 --> 00:18:30,359
that the cold isn't so bad, but the warmth is

311
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:32,680
a lie. The blood that warms the skin is being

312
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:36,480
pulled away from vital organs, so core temperature drops. At

313
00:18:36,519 --> 00:18:40,000
the same time, alcohol suppresses the shivering reflex the bodies

314
00:18:40,039 --> 00:18:44,200
primarily involuntary defense against cold, and impairs the ability to

315
00:18:44,240 --> 00:18:48,039
perceive cold air temperatures. The quote unquote beer jacket effect

316
00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:50,559
is not protection. It's the removal of protection.

317
00:18:50,759 --> 00:18:54,519
Speaker 3: And anyone who has gone to college in a northern climate, yeah,

318
00:18:54,720 --> 00:18:58,519
is Milwaukee in particular? Yeah, familiar with the beer jacket.

319
00:18:58,519 --> 00:19:00,799
Oh yeah, walking around just a T shirt on and shorts,

320
00:19:01,799 --> 00:19:05,000
I feel fine. Yeah. Or someone will say, have a

321
00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:06,079
few beers, you'll warm up.

322
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:09,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, this is what they're talking about. In addition

323
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:12,240
to all that, alcohol impears decision making. I didn't know

324
00:19:12,279 --> 00:19:15,039
that about alcoholic Oh really. Yeah. The sober person who

325
00:19:15,079 --> 00:19:17,000
steps off a plowed road and waste deep snow at

326
00:19:17,079 --> 00:19:21,759
zero degrees recognizes the danger immediately. An intoxicated person may not.

327
00:19:22,359 --> 00:19:25,160
The signals that the body sends, the burning in the

328
00:19:25,279 --> 00:19:28,319
exposed skin, the numbness and the fingers, the difficulty breathing

329
00:19:28,359 --> 00:19:32,119
and cold air are muted or misinterpreted, The impulse to

330
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:37,160
turn back is dulled, the capacity to recognize disorientation is compromised,

331
00:19:37,880 --> 00:19:41,920
so hypothermia progresses. In stages. When the core temperature drops

332
00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:47,519
below ninety five degrees, shivering intensifies, coordination falters, and confusion begins.

333
00:19:47,960 --> 00:19:52,720
Below ninety degrees moderate hypothermia, shivering may stop entirely, Speech

334
00:19:52,759 --> 00:19:57,279
becomes slurred, movement becomes clumsy and slow, and cognitive function

335
00:19:57,359 --> 00:20:02,720
deteriorates rapidly. The person becomes disoriented, apathetic, unable to make

336
00:20:02,799 --> 00:20:07,279
rational decisions. Below eighty two degrees, consciousness starts to fade,

337
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:11,200
But before that loss of consciousness to phenomena occur that

338
00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:13,799
have bet and this has baffled investigators in cold exposure

339
00:20:13,799 --> 00:20:17,880
deaths for decades. The first is paradoxical undressing, documented in

340
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:21,480
twenty to fifty percent of hypothermia deaths. As the muscles

341
00:20:21,519 --> 00:20:26,039
controlling vasal constriction exhaust and fail, warm blood suddenly floods

342
00:20:26,039 --> 00:20:30,359
the skin from the core. The victim, already confused, experiences

343
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:36,799
an overwhelming sensation of heat. They begin removing clothing, coats, gloves, boots.

344
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,359
In the final stages, they strip The behavior has led

345
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:44,960
investigators to misidentify hypothermia deaths as sexual assaults or other crimes.

346
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:49,759
The second is terminal burrowing. In the last phase before death,

347
00:20:49,799 --> 00:20:54,920
hypothermia victims exhibit a primitive autonomous behavior. Research to describe

348
00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:57,920
it as an originating from the brain stem, the same

349
00:20:57,960 --> 00:21:01,480
region that governs survival instincts in high bernating animals. The

350
00:21:01,559 --> 00:21:04,880
victim crawls into an enclosed space, under a bush, beneath

351
00:21:04,880 --> 00:21:07,640
a porch, into a snowbank, behind a rock. They curl up,

352
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:11,880
they stop moving, they burrow in, and they die, sometimes

353
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:14,599
in locations so concealed they're not found for months or

354
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:18,480
years or ever. A study of fatal hypothermia cases and

355
00:21:18,559 --> 00:21:23,079
Subarctic regions found paradoxical undressing documented and thirty percent of

356
00:21:23,079 --> 00:21:25,880
the cases with ethanol detected and forty three percent of

357
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,400
the victims clothes were usually found close to the body,

358
00:21:29,799 --> 00:21:33,960
and terminal burrowing tended to occur predominantly during slow decreases

359
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:37,440
in temperature, exactly the type of gradual cooling that occurs

360
00:21:37,519 --> 00:21:40,319
during a walk through snowstorm and early hours of the morning.

361
00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:43,119
So that's actually crazy. I love that detail that we've

362
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:45,200
never talked about on both of those things.

363
00:21:45,279 --> 00:21:48,759
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the terminal burrowing thing is interesting because it's

364
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:54,039
tapping into the subconscious activities of the brain that are

365
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,799
like relics of evolution. It's like the last ditch effort

366
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:01,519
to see the bodies like just go hide, yeah, and

367
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:05,640
hopefully we can survive long enough to wait out whatever's

368
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:08,200
causing this. Yeah. It's like your body at that point

369
00:22:08,279 --> 00:22:11,279
is on autopilot and it's just doing something like a

370
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:14,839
last stitch effort. Maybe this human will find somewhere that's

371
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,440
warm enough for us to survive, but who knows. It's

372
00:22:17,519 --> 00:22:20,480
kind of fascinating. It's sad that most people do it

373
00:22:20,559 --> 00:22:23,000
end up passing away. But I love the fact that

374
00:22:23,039 --> 00:22:27,079
the human body has various layers of ways to try

375
00:22:27,079 --> 00:22:28,279
to self protect you.

376
00:22:28,640 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 2: I know, it's so wild. Even when you're dying slowly,

377
00:22:31,079 --> 00:22:34,480
your organs shut off in a specific order. Yeah, and

378
00:22:34,519 --> 00:22:36,759
from least important and most important.

379
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,640
Speaker 3: Or like how your body will restrict blood to the

380
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,279
vital organs, which is why people get like frostbite and

381
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:46,279
lose fingers and hands and limbs and feet. Yeah, because

382
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:48,279
you can still survive if you don't have feet, but

383
00:22:48,920 --> 00:22:51,720
you need your organs obviously, so I just love that. Yeah,

384
00:22:51,759 --> 00:22:56,319
there's like a layered tiering of no matter how stupid

385
00:22:56,359 --> 00:22:58,319
you are with your own body, your body is still

386
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:01,759
trying to save you. Yes, it's self codd. Yeah, it's

387
00:23:01,799 --> 00:23:02,640
just fascinating.

388
00:23:02,799 --> 00:23:05,359
Speaker 2: All right. Tell us a little bit more about Ryan Stuka,

389
00:23:05,799 --> 00:23:06,160
all right.

390
00:23:06,319 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 3: So he was born March seventeenth of nineteen ninety seven.

391
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:14,400
He went missing February seventeenth of twenty eighteen. He was

392
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,839
a male, age twenty. He was described as athletic build.

393
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:22,079
He worked out almost every day. Jim was part of

394
00:23:22,119 --> 00:23:26,920
his daily routine. He played rugby competitively. He played soccer

395
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:29,279
as a kid, football in high school, transition to rugby,

396
00:23:29,279 --> 00:23:33,200
which became his passion. And he had been snowboarding thirty

397
00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:38,240
six consecutive days before disappearing, so very physically fit and capable.

398
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:40,920
He was six feet tall, one hundred and eighty pounds.

399
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:46,160
He had blonde hair, brown eyes. Other distinguishing things about him,

400
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,960
he had no tattoos, no piercings, and really no distinguishing

401
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,960
marks at all that I could find. Clothing Geary was

402
00:23:54,039 --> 00:23:55,920
last scene, and so he was in dark jeans, gray

403
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,720
white shirt, blue coat, burgundy baseball cap with the logo

404
00:23:59,799 --> 00:24:03,759
of of a Northwestern Athletic Association rugby team. He had

405
00:24:03,759 --> 00:24:07,559
no backpack, no survival gear, no phone charger, His work

406
00:24:07,599 --> 00:24:10,119
boots and ski pass were found still at the cabin,

407
00:24:10,799 --> 00:24:14,119
and he obviously never made it home to change because

408
00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:16,440
he went to a party. He wasn't out skiing, He

409
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,480
wasn't planning to be out in the wilderness. He was

410
00:24:18,519 --> 00:24:21,240
at a party, so he wasn't dressed for really being

411
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:25,200
out in the woods. Personality wise, he was known to

412
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,000
be cautious around new people, but he would warm up

413
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:31,960
and get social once comfortable. A lot of people said

414
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,480
he was loyal to the core. He had a core

415
00:24:34,519 --> 00:24:37,720
of friend group that he had known since childhood. He

416
00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:41,759
was very funny, sarcastic with people he trusted. He was

417
00:24:41,799 --> 00:24:44,960
described by coworkers as a really good guy, really genuine

418
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:50,079
and confident, and just someone everyone liked to be around.

419
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:54,720
So his mother, Heather, described him as a typical twenty

420
00:24:54,799 --> 00:24:57,279
year old who was close to home, close to his friends,

421
00:24:57,359 --> 00:25:00,519
and not someone who took unnecessary risks. He would never

422
00:25:00,599 --> 00:25:03,240
have gone to sun Peaks alone. He only went because

423
00:25:03,279 --> 00:25:07,119
his childhood best friend James, was going with him, and

424
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:09,039
he was kind of stepping out of his comfort zone

425
00:25:09,039 --> 00:25:11,839
for the first time, and a lot of people said

426
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,519
he was not a risk taker by nature. So very interesting.

427
00:25:15,599 --> 00:25:18,319
And you forget he was only twenty that's young. Yeah,

428
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,079
no medical issues that I could find, Like I said,

429
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,599
very physically fit and healthy. His occupation hobby at the time,

430
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:27,920
so he worked for his father, Scott's construction company. After

431
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:30,880
high school, he did attend one year of college, just

432
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,799
general sciences. He did well, but he wasn't sure what

433
00:25:33,839 --> 00:25:35,519
he wanted to do with his life, so he took

434
00:25:35,519 --> 00:25:38,039
a gap year to figure things out. Very common, a

435
00:25:38,079 --> 00:25:41,480
lot of people do that. And at sun Peaks he

436
00:25:41,559 --> 00:25:44,599
worked as a lift operator and also reportedly worked at

437
00:25:44,799 --> 00:25:48,160
the resort's tube park. His shift was roughly eleven thirty

438
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:52,039
am to seven pm or seven thirty, giving him mornings

439
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,400
free to snowboard before work. And the whole time I

440
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,160
was reading this case, I was just thinking of the

441
00:25:57,200 --> 00:25:57,920
movie Out Cold.

442
00:25:58,599 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 2: Oh I love that movie.

443
00:25:59,799 --> 00:26:01,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like he could have been one of the guys

444
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,640
an out Cold. Oh yeah, absolutely, And when I was younger,

445
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:06,799
because that movie came out had to have been in

446
00:26:06,799 --> 00:26:07,640
the late nineties.

447
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:08,799
Speaker 2: Yeah.

448
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:10,839
Speaker 3: For a while there, I wanted to like move to

449
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:13,160
Montana or.

450
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 2: That way.

451
00:26:16,519 --> 00:26:20,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looked fun, so we should have done that.

452
00:26:20,599 --> 00:26:23,720
We should have done that. So obviously snowboarding was his

453
00:26:23,759 --> 00:26:26,799
primary passion and the whole reason for the trip. And

454
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:29,359
like I, like I said earlier, he had snowboarded for

455
00:26:29,440 --> 00:26:33,599
thirty six consecutive days leading up to his disappearance and

456
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:38,279
allegedly had just landed his first backflip. So pretty cool

457
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:40,039
experience in the wilderness.

458
00:26:40,079 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 1: So.

459
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:45,039
Speaker 3: Ryan grew up in Beaumont, Alberta, which was a small

460
00:26:45,079 --> 00:26:49,599
prairie town south of Edmonton, Alberta. Winters are very cold,

461
00:26:49,759 --> 00:26:53,160
so he was not unfamiliar with the types of temperatures

462
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,839
that he would have experienced here. However, there is a

463
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,440
very significant difference between experiencing cold in a suburb prairie

464
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:04,319
town with just flat terrain and navigating a mountain, a

465
00:27:04,319 --> 00:27:08,880
mountainous terrain at elevation in a blizzard. Experience in this location,

466
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:11,400
he had been living and working at some peaks for

467
00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:14,559
around two and a half months. He walked the route

468
00:27:14,559 --> 00:27:18,200
between the party house and the cabin regularly. He so

469
00:27:18,359 --> 00:27:20,400
he was familiar with the short path and he knew

470
00:27:20,480 --> 00:27:23,440
the roads. He also knew the village, but a lot

471
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:27,319
of this was in daylight and moderate conditions, so he

472
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:29,119
really hit only you know, it's not like he grew

473
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:31,799
up here. He really had only been in this area

474
00:27:31,839 --> 00:27:34,160
for a couple of weeks and probably hadn't experienced a

475
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:35,359
full on blizzard yet.

476
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 2: And I mean there's not a lot of places to go. Oh,

477
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,119
for those who are watching the video, we don't have

478
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,079
cameras on us, but I'm still sharing the screen.

479
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're Cameraless tonight.

480
00:27:44,599 --> 00:27:47,559
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just like a couple main roads and it's

481
00:27:47,599 --> 00:27:49,839
just like a little town that's wedged between a bunch

482
00:27:49,839 --> 00:27:50,559
of mountains.

483
00:27:50,799 --> 00:27:54,599
Speaker 3: And these aren't even what I would call like aggressive mountains.

484
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 2: They're not aggressive. But I mean there's just nothing here.

485
00:27:58,240 --> 00:27:59,799
When I go on, there's like I mean, the houses

486
00:27:59,839 --> 00:28:01,759
are some of the houses are beautiful, but there's like

487
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:04,680
three side streets off the main one.

488
00:28:05,119 --> 00:28:09,160
Speaker 3: Can you zoom back out? I just want to go

489
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,000
to a higher view to see, like, what's the biggest

490
00:28:12,039 --> 00:28:12,759
city nearby?

491
00:28:13,559 --> 00:28:18,079
Speaker 2: Oh? Going way out? Yeah, where are we? We're in

492
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:19,119
British Columbia.

493
00:28:19,519 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 3: Well, I was just.

494
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:26,519
Speaker 2: Thank you Spokane. I see Spokane, Washington, Okay, And I'm

495
00:28:26,559 --> 00:28:31,759
sure these are well known BC. Yeah, Kelhawana, Yeah, Kelowna,

496
00:28:32,079 --> 00:28:35,279
Kelowna whatever, then Klawuna, yeah, case of course, it's like

497
00:28:35,319 --> 00:28:39,079
a really difficult name to pronounce. Okay, Vancouver.

498
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 3: There we go, There you go. You had it all

499
00:28:41,079 --> 00:28:41,720
turned around.

500
00:28:41,759 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 2: I know's okay, we're in space. There is no So

501
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:50,920
is that just north? Is that like due north of Glacier? No,

502
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:53,680
it's north of Washington glaciers. Oh yeah, never mind, yeah,

503
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:58,359
glaciers rather okay, yeah, if anything, like more mountain and ear.

504
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's north north, northeast of Seattle for any

505
00:29:04,279 --> 00:29:09,599
Americans listening. Yeah, and yeah, obviously northeast of Vancouver, but

506
00:29:09,799 --> 00:29:13,000
like northeast of Vancouver by like two hundred miles, yeah,

507
00:29:13,039 --> 00:29:14,640
not like close. Yeah, so it's kind of in the

508
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:19,359
middle of nowhere. Yeah. Interesting. Okay, So the route he

509
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,759
was planning to take, like Joe had mentioned, is was

510
00:29:21,759 --> 00:29:25,720
only one thousand feet, It did branch to multiple directions,

511
00:29:25,799 --> 00:29:28,480
and on the night he disappeared, visibility would have been

512
00:29:28,599 --> 00:29:32,200
very limited. The snowbanks had compressed the roads into what

513
00:29:32,319 --> 00:29:36,400
Joe described as narrow channels, and the path to his

514
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,079
cabin may have been buried under fresh accumulation. So he

515
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,720
knew where he was going but the conditions were the

516
00:29:43,759 --> 00:29:47,440
worst they could probably be for him. So jumping right

517
00:29:47,519 --> 00:29:50,960
into timeline will start December twenty seventeen. This would be

518
00:29:51,119 --> 00:29:54,160
the month that he arrived at sun Peak. So on

519
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,440
December first, twenty seventeen, Ryan and his childhood best friend

520
00:29:58,079 --> 00:30:00,920
made the nine hour drive from Mount Alberta It's a

521
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,680
sun Peaks, British Columbia. Both guys had planned to spend

522
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:08,279
the winter season working at the resort, and snowboarding sounds

523
00:30:08,279 --> 00:30:10,960
pretty amazing. I would have loved to do that. I'm

524
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,960
a skier, not a snowboarder, though. You snowboarded, right, Joe,

525
00:30:14,039 --> 00:30:14,559
or are you skier?

526
00:30:14,799 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 2: I'm both, but I'm bad at snowboarding because I'm just

527
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,160
trying to learn how to do that. Yeah. I'm actually

528
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:22,079
not great at both because I don't go enough. But

529
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:23,240
I'm better at skiing.

530
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 3: The key with skiing or snowboarding is do it when

531
00:30:26,880 --> 00:30:27,680
you're really little.

532
00:30:28,039 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, when it hurts less.

533
00:30:29,519 --> 00:30:31,599
Speaker 3: Well, and you just remember how to do it. I

534
00:30:32,119 --> 00:30:34,759
learned to ski when I was a little kid, and

535
00:30:34,799 --> 00:30:37,200
then I skied growing up, and then I didn't ski

536
00:30:37,359 --> 00:30:40,200
for like ten years, and then went on a skiing

537
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,359
trip to Colorado and it was like riding a bike again.

538
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:46,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I don't know, it's interesting.

539
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,240
Speaker 3: Ryan moved into a cabin at the resort with his

540
00:30:49,279 --> 00:30:51,680
friend and four other roommates. He was assigned to work

541
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,279
in the lift department and by some accounts also worked

542
00:30:55,319 --> 00:30:57,920
at the tube park. Like I said earlier, he settled

543
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,480
in quickly. A coworker later described him as a really

544
00:31:00,519 --> 00:31:04,440
good guy, really genuine and confident. Excuse me, adding that

545
00:31:04,599 --> 00:31:07,240
everyone liked him and that he did not have enemies.

546
00:31:07,279 --> 00:31:10,640
Always good to not have enemies. One of his housemates

547
00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,559
was thirty or one Chris Feenie, and Australian on a

548
00:31:14,599 --> 00:31:18,200
working holiday visa who became close friends with Ryan and

549
00:31:18,480 --> 00:31:21,000
Ryan really kind of looked up to Chris, so feene

550
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,079
later called that Ryan took a few days to open up,

551
00:31:24,119 --> 00:31:27,440
but they bonded over music, rugby and life in Australia.

552
00:31:28,400 --> 00:31:31,920
So Ryan was really thriving at sun Peaks throughout December

553
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:34,759
and January. He stayed at the resort over Christmas rather

554
00:31:34,799 --> 00:31:38,359
than making the long drive home, as his two days

555
00:31:38,359 --> 00:31:41,400
off did not leave enough time either, so it would

556
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,480
be a fourteen hour round trip. So I get why

557
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,400
he wouldn't go home and his family did plan to

558
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:50,279
come visit him in February. In January, Ryan texted his

559
00:31:50,359 --> 00:31:54,240
father to say he had snowboarded thirty six consecutive days

560
00:31:54,279 --> 00:31:58,680
and landed his first backflip. He did maintain regular contact

561
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,200
with his family back in Bow and planned to return

562
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:04,440
home in the spring to resume work with his father

563
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:10,039
in his construction company. It's now February sixteenth of twenty eighteen.

564
00:32:10,240 --> 00:32:12,640
This would be the last kind of normal day for Ryan.

565
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:17,720
So it's Friday, and he worked his shift in the

566
00:32:17,759 --> 00:32:20,480
lift department at sun Peaks Resort and clocked out at

567
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,640
seven pm. He returned to the cabin he shared with

568
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:25,920
his roommates, showered, and got ready for a night out.

569
00:32:26,599 --> 00:32:29,079
That evening, a group of friends got a ride into

570
00:32:29,319 --> 00:32:32,960
sun Peaks Village. They started with a drink at Masa's

571
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:36,480
Bar and Grill before heading Two Bottoms, a popular local bar,

572
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:40,200
for a Silent Disco event. At the Silent Disco event,

573
00:32:40,839 --> 00:32:43,519
each person receives a pair of wireless headphones and can

574
00:32:43,559 --> 00:32:46,759
switch between competing DJs. I've done that once at the

575
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:48,759
Art Museum here in Milwaukee. It was really cool.

576
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:53,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've done that at Electric Forest. Yeah, it's really sweet.

577
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 3: Yeah. So his roommate Chris Feeney later described the night

578
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,960
as going by in a flash. He was quoted as

579
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,400
saying it felt like two Backstreet Boy songs and the

580
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:04,160
night was over.

581
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:08,200
Speaker 2: So here's Bottoms bar and grill. Okay, you can kind

582
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,920
of see it right there. Yeah. Yeah, it's just seems

583
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:12,599
like the main center area of town.

584
00:33:12,640 --> 00:33:18,079
Speaker 3: Honestly, and I mean it it doesn't seem like it's

585
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:19,279
you know, it doesn't.

586
00:33:19,359 --> 00:33:21,759
Speaker 2: It's not like Breckenridge or one of those towns. It's

587
00:33:21,759 --> 00:33:22,799
not as built up as that.

588
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very remote. Yeah, it has that feeling.

589
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 2: Yep.

590
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,039
Speaker 3: But again the mountains don't look that aggressive.

591
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:33,079
Speaker 2: They're not. But I mean we're looking at it with

592
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:35,200
no snow. True.

593
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:39,119
Speaker 3: I wonder if I can you can find a snow snowyview. Yeah,

594
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,279
I'll keep looking, Okay, keep going. But we had the

595
00:33:42,359 --> 00:33:45,759
Backstreet Boys quote and then the last known photo Ryne

596
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:49,000
was taken at this silent disco event. Like we said,

597
00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:52,480
the weather that evening was deteriorating. A snowstorm was moving

598
00:33:52,519 --> 00:33:56,759
through the area and nearly a lot of fresh snow

599
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:01,480
was falling. Temperatures were plummeting. It was just the weather

600
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,440
was getting worse by the hour at so after the

601
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,759
silent disco was done, none of the group was ready

602
00:34:07,759 --> 00:34:10,280
to go home. They heard about a house party happening

603
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:14,079
nearby and tagged along with others to the residents on

604
00:34:14,159 --> 00:34:18,039
Burfield Drive within Sun Peaks Village. And this is also

605
00:34:18,079 --> 00:34:19,119
known as after Bar.

606
00:34:19,599 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 2: Oh how they clarified that?

607
00:34:21,119 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 3: Well, no, I just added that. Okay, I just thought

608
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,000
it was funny, like no one wanted to go home

609
00:34:26,079 --> 00:34:29,119
yet when the bar ended. Yeah, to be twenty again

610
00:34:29,159 --> 00:34:29,760
because there's.

611
00:34:29,679 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: Nothing to do. Yeah, So what was the road that

612
00:34:32,599 --> 00:34:35,559
was on again? I'm trying to find it? Burfield Burfield Okay, Yeah,

613
00:34:35,559 --> 00:34:38,199
they don't have them labeled on Google Maps until you

614
00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:40,880
go to the street. Oh really, that's like literally how

615
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:42,760
remote this is. So I'm just kind of jumping in

616
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:44,400
and learning the different roads.

617
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:46,280
Speaker 3: And I mean, look, you can ski literally right up

618
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:49,280
to the center of town everything. Yeah, it's a creek

619
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:52,400
side village way all right, I'll find it, like we've

620
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:54,719
been saying a few times now. The house was only

621
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,280
a few minutes walk from the cab and Ryan shared

622
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,920
with his roommate. The party was described as a rout,

623
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:04,239
small and mellow gathering of mostly resort employees and regular

624
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:08,159
skiers with fewer than fifty people in attenance. That sounds

625
00:35:08,159 --> 00:35:11,840
like a pretty big house party. Feenie recalled that most

626
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:14,880
of the people there were regulars or lifties, and I

627
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:18,760
knew it was really a pretty mellow gathering rather than

628
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,000
a party. So let's get into the disappearance. So the

629
00:35:22,119 --> 00:35:25,199
last sighting the group stayed at the house party on

630
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:30,039
Burfield Drive until early hours of Saturday morning, probably around

631
00:35:30,039 --> 00:35:33,760
one thirty am. Chris, his girlfriend Kristen, and another friend

632
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,639
decided they were ready to head home. The walk was

633
00:35:36,679 --> 00:35:39,559
short along the road and the trail they used regularly.

634
00:35:39,639 --> 00:35:43,000
One roommate had already left the party earlier and walked home.

635
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,519
As Feenie and his girlfriend prepared to leave, Ryan was

636
00:35:46,519 --> 00:35:50,119
seen standing up. It appeared he was putting his shoes

637
00:35:50,159 --> 00:35:53,480
on and pulling on his putting on his blue coat

638
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:56,320
as if he was also preparing to leave with them.

639
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,199
Nobody though, actually asked Ryan if he was heading home

640
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,400
or offered to wait for him that moment. Ryan standing

641
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:05,559
up at the party, apparently getting ready to go, was

642
00:36:05,599 --> 00:36:08,880
the last confirmed sighting of him, so he was last

643
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:11,679
seen potentially getting ready to leave the party. No one

644
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,280
had seen him since. So the time now is approximately

645
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,840
two ten am in the morning on Saturday, February seventeenth.

646
00:36:19,599 --> 00:36:22,199
So however, some late oh what do we.

647
00:36:22,159 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 2: Got the center from where they were to, like the

648
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,920
center Burfield Drive is like seven thousand feet of walking

649
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:33,639
like the most okay, direct path, So not he was

650
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,400
up here and they walked to this block right here.

651
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:39,760
Speaker 3: Let me see if I know exactly where the house

652
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,519
party was. I mean this though, the house party was

653
00:36:42,559 --> 00:36:44,000
on Burfield Drive somewhere.

654
00:36:44,119 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I'm so. This is Burfield Drive. Yeah,

655
00:36:47,119 --> 00:36:49,800
so somewhere in this area.

656
00:36:50,039 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, But like I said, this is approximately

657
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,079
two ten in the morning on February seventeenth, though there

658
00:36:57,199 --> 00:37:00,760
was some later evidence that complicated the timeline. A text

659
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,559
message from someone at the party would later suggest Ryan

660
00:37:03,599 --> 00:37:06,440
may have left closer to one forty am. Nobody the

661
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:09,760
party remembers actually seeing Ryan walk out the door, and

662
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,079
people who arrived at the party shortly after did not

663
00:37:12,159 --> 00:37:13,360
recall seeing him there.

664
00:37:13,559 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 2: So there is a picture of him at the party.

665
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,199
Speaker 3: Oh no, this was the last known picture of him

666
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:19,159
at the silent deed.

667
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:19,679
Speaker 2: Let's go.

668
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:21,280
Speaker 3: No, he went to a house.

669
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 2: I meant, yeah, I met the disco, my bad.

670
00:37:24,559 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 3: And I'm not really shocked that people weren't quite sure

671
00:37:28,039 --> 00:37:30,719
on what time it was at the house party. So

672
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:34,960
they've been drinking all night. Yeah, having fun like you're

673
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:37,559
not gonna get probably a lot of reliable witnesses of

674
00:37:38,119 --> 00:37:41,639
what time. Fro that ghosts. He just does the Irish goodbye.

675
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:43,519
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have a couple of friends that do that,

676
00:37:43,599 --> 00:37:44,960
and it's just like when they go, it's like no

677
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,599
one knows. Yeah, our friend Dan, if he's listening, shout

678
00:37:47,639 --> 00:37:49,920
out to Dan. Yeah, he's working on the castle right now.

679
00:37:50,159 --> 00:37:53,199
Yeahs he held back to get back to work. You're

680
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,880
not allowed to listen. He was notorious.

681
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,119
Speaker 3: You'd be talking him one minute, you'd go to get

682
00:37:58,119 --> 00:37:59,800
a beer and come back and he's just gone.

683
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 2: Oh he came out to the rave on my birthday

684
00:38:02,119 --> 00:38:03,320
and he was just gone.

685
00:38:03,440 --> 00:38:03,760
Speaker 1: He did it.

686
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 2: He's still doing it. Yeah, but good for him. He's

687
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,039
do what he wants to do. Good job, Love love

688
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:10,360
you Dan.

689
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:17,039
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we keep stressing. The walk from the party

690
00:38:17,039 --> 00:38:20,880
to Ryan's cabin was less than a thousand feet and

691
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:23,639
it should have taken him approximately ten to fifteen minutes.

692
00:38:24,039 --> 00:38:26,920
Speaker 2: A lot from the party to his cabin was less

693
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,960
than a thousand feet Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go just

694
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,920
get an idea of Okay, that's like up or down

695
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,840
the block from the center of Burfield Drive is like

696
00:38:35,960 --> 00:38:37,039
two thousand feet long.

697
00:38:37,159 --> 00:38:42,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, so okay, so that's not Yeah, it's not that far.

698
00:38:42,599 --> 00:38:46,159
Ten to fifteen minutes, very familiar. He's done this many times.

699
00:38:46,559 --> 00:38:49,519
That's with no snow, no snow to be fair, or

700
00:38:49,679 --> 00:38:53,559
at night when it's you know, but like look at Okay,

701
00:38:53,559 --> 00:38:55,800
this is where I understand what they're talking about with

702
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,000
the type of blizzard conditions and stuff.

703
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:01,519
Speaker 2: But I can't imagine getting lost on this road even

704
00:39:01,519 --> 00:39:03,840
in a blizzard. There's houses on each side. So for

705
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,559
those listening, like it is like one of those paved roads,

706
00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:10,199
it's like kind of dirt kind of paved, but there's

707
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,719
like full on houses right next to each other lining

708
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:17,360
the entire street. Yeah, and they're not small. They look

709
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,679
like two occupancy houses built straight up, two garages on

710
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:23,079
each side. I don't know. I mean, when you get

711
00:39:23,079 --> 00:39:24,960
to the ends, I can see like it gets into

712
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,880
open mountain. But yeah, okay, I don't know, Well, unless

713
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:31,559
you're that like had that much to drink.

714
00:39:32,159 --> 00:39:35,159
Speaker 3: I mean that never happens. Now we'll get into theories.

715
00:39:35,159 --> 00:39:38,079
I think there's an interesting theory here that I don't think.

716
00:39:38,239 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 2: Okay, I think this side, yeah, this side of Burfield

717
00:39:40,519 --> 00:39:42,320
only has houses on one side. All right.

718
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,639
Speaker 3: And again, like we said, the description of what these

719
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:47,199
roads would be like in the winter is just be

720
00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:51,280
narrow passageway, a narrow carved path with snow on both

721
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,320
sides up to your chest potentially. Yeah, so it really

722
00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:56,760
kind of would just guide you along. You would just

723
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:58,639
if you just stayed in the middle.

724
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,360
Speaker 2: Of that, stumbling around, You're just gonna go down whatever

725
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,360
shoot you're on, maybe because it does branch off. If

726
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:06,639
you look at you know, keep going down, you'll see

727
00:40:06,679 --> 00:40:10,280
that it branches off into other little roads. Okay, no,

728
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:11,639
fair enough, fair enough, But.

729
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 3: I was kind of make the point is it would

730
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:16,320
be really hard to get lost on this road in

731
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:18,480
the winter. If you've got those steep snow banks on

732
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,199
both sides, it would be really tough to.

733
00:40:20,519 --> 00:40:24,280
Speaker 2: But if they're cutting into other trails like ski trails, yeah,

734
00:40:24,320 --> 00:40:26,480
which it does. Yeah, And that's kind of what I'm thinking,

735
00:40:26,519 --> 00:40:29,679
is like right here, yeah, like where do you go? Yeah,

736
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:31,599
if you're stumbling around and you go the wrong way.

737
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 3: And remember he's only been here for two weeks. Yeah,

738
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,039
so he's not that familiar with the area. Okay, and

739
00:40:38,119 --> 00:40:41,280
if you've had a few drinks, obviously that compounds everything

740
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:41,719
going on.

741
00:40:42,199 --> 00:40:43,320
Speaker 2: Yep, fair enough.

742
00:40:43,519 --> 00:40:48,159
Speaker 3: There was no single obvious path. There's several routes available

743
00:40:48,199 --> 00:40:52,119
that he could have taken, and each opened into more terrain.

744
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:56,199
Conditions were extreme around two am. Temperatures were very cold,

745
00:40:56,360 --> 00:41:02,800
snow was falling, visibility was low, and he who knows,

746
00:41:03,039 --> 00:41:06,679
I guess you could have wandered off. So the next morning,

747
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,880
Ryan's roommates wake up on Saturday morning, Ryan's not in

748
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,920
the cabin. At first, this didn't raise immediate alarm. They

749
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,840
assumed he had gone to work early for his eleven

750
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,199
am shift, or perhaps he stayed out at the party,

751
00:41:19,320 --> 00:41:22,199
gone home with someone, or crashed on the couch somewhere else.

752
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,199
As the day went on, concerns started to grow. Ryan's

753
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,320
supervisor at the resort reached out to one of his

754
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:30,679
roommates because Ryan had not shown up for his shift.

755
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,800
Missing work was completely out of character for Ryan. As

756
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,559
the afternoon progressed and Ryan still did not still didn't appear,

757
00:41:38,599 --> 00:41:41,639
his roommates tried calling and texting him, there was no response.

758
00:41:42,199 --> 00:41:44,559
They noticed that Ryan's work boots and ski card were

759
00:41:44,599 --> 00:41:47,440
still at the cabin, making it clear that he never

760
00:41:47,559 --> 00:41:51,920
had returned home or gone to work. The remates began

761
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:55,800
trying to piece together what had happened. They posted in

762
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:59,159
a local sun Peaks Facebook group asking if anyone seen Ryan.

763
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:01,639
They reached out to people who had been at the party.

764
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,480
They reviewed whatever security footage they can find in the area,

765
00:42:05,559 --> 00:42:08,920
hoping to spot Ryan walking home, but unfortunately they did

766
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,239
not find anything. Ryan did not appear on any footage,

767
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:16,840
and notably, like Joe mentioned earlier, the security cameras installed

768
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:21,280
by sun Peaks Corporation viewing the single road into the

769
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:24,119
resort and other areas weren't operational at the time, so

770
00:42:24,519 --> 00:42:28,480
those cameras would have really helped figure out what happened

771
00:42:28,519 --> 00:42:31,440
to Ryan, And of course they weren't working.

772
00:42:31,559 --> 00:42:33,679
Speaker 2: As it always happens. Yeah, what are we watching here?

773
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:35,800
I've got a video pulled up. They made like a

774
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:38,800
little documentary called Peaks and Valleys a Search for Ryan

775
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,119
Stuka and I saw it a shot of people walking

776
00:42:42,159 --> 00:42:45,280
on the village with snowfall. Okay, now this isn't as

777
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:49,400
much as there was, but there's some lighting. Yeah, from

778
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:51,679
what I understood from some comments, I think there's like

779
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,840
a video of the mom doing the walk from the party. Okay,

780
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:58,480
So I'm gonna try and find that and get that playing.

781
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:01,559
If you want to keep going, yeah, I'll pause when

782
00:43:01,599 --> 00:43:02,039
I find it.

783
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 3: So by the evening, the roommates called the local hospital,

784
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:09,400
which had no record of Ryan. The hospital advised them

785
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:12,679
to contact the police. So this is really kind of

786
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:17,320
When Ryan was reported officially missing at approximately eight forty

787
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:20,679
seven pm on Saturday of February seventeenth to twenty eighteen,

788
00:43:21,599 --> 00:43:24,760
and because Sun Peaks is a small resort community with

789
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:30,039
no permanent police presence, officers from a neighboring town the

790
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:35,119
RCMP responded. Officers arrived at Ryan's residence around midnight, and

791
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,400
a formal missing person's report was filed. One of Ryan's

792
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,480
roomates also decided to contact Ryan's mother, Heather, who was,

793
00:43:42,599 --> 00:43:45,480
like we said, nine hours away in Beaumont, Alberta, with

794
00:43:45,639 --> 00:43:48,880
Ryan's father, Scott. The text message read, in essence, Ryan

795
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,599
had not come home from a previous night, had not

796
00:43:51,679 --> 00:43:54,000
shown up for work, and they had filed a missing

797
00:43:54,079 --> 00:43:58,400
person support both parents felt immediately that something was terribly wrong.

798
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,280
Ryan did not miss work, He did not disappear without

799
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:04,840
telling anyone. So Heather checked her phone and realized that

800
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:07,360
a text she had sent Ryan that morning, good Morning

801
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,760
love Bug, had not been delivered. Heather and Scott called

802
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,719
the police themselves to confirm that Ryan had been reported missing.

803
00:44:14,559 --> 00:44:16,320
As soon as they hung up, they got in the

804
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,159
car and began the nine hour drive the sun peaks,

805
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:21,599
and Heather would later go on to describe that as

806
00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,639
the longest and the shortest drive of her life. I

807
00:44:25,679 --> 00:44:29,519
can't imagine so. Scott later said that the hairs on

808
00:44:29,599 --> 00:44:31,679
the back of his neck stood up when he learned

809
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,039
Ryan was missing, and he had a gut feeling that

810
00:44:34,119 --> 00:44:38,599
something terrible had happened. It's now February eighteenth. This is

811
00:44:38,639 --> 00:44:41,480
when the initial search kicks off. The search for Ryan

812
00:44:41,519 --> 00:44:45,199
began almost as soon as you were reported missing. The

813
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:48,559
police brought in search dogs deployed him near the party

814
00:44:48,599 --> 00:44:52,199
house on Burfield Drive. Investigators hoped the dogs could maybe

815
00:44:52,280 --> 00:44:57,360
pick up Ryan sent and establish a direction of travel. Unfortunately,

816
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,320
the dogs could not find one, and the the trail

817
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:04,840
almost instantly went cold. So officers spoke with Ryan's roommates

818
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:08,199
and others who had been at the Silent Disco and

819
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,239
at the house party, hoping maybe someone had seen Ryan

820
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:13,599
leave or heard him say where he was going, but

821
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:17,440
nobody had answers. Police also began checking Ryan's phone records,

822
00:45:17,519 --> 00:45:21,800
social media accounts, bank activity. Nothing had been used, so

823
00:45:22,119 --> 00:45:24,960
since he was last seen, there were no messages, There

824
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:29,599
was no transactions, no really digital signs of any life,

825
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:33,079
but also no evidence that Ryan had left sun Peaks,

826
00:45:33,639 --> 00:45:38,519
so very interesting. The one digital trace was a cell

827
00:45:38,559 --> 00:45:42,840
phone ping at approximately three am on February seventeenth that

828
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:48,000
placed Ryan's phone somewhere in sun Peaks. Unfortunately, they were

829
00:45:48,039 --> 00:45:51,800
not able to get an exact location from just one

830
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:54,559
one cell phone ping, because that would have really helped

831
00:45:54,559 --> 00:45:55,280
the investigation.

832
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least get like a general area of where

833
00:45:58,559 --> 00:45:59,639
he could be. Yeah.

834
00:45:59,760 --> 00:46:03,039
Speaker 3: So so on Sunday, February eighteenth, search and rescue teams

835
00:46:03,039 --> 00:46:06,920
set up a temporary command post at the Ski Patrol Office.

836
00:46:07,559 --> 00:46:12,199
OURCMP Sergeant Doug Aird explained that the initial search focused

837
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:14,880
on the three to four block radius where Ryan was

838
00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,639
last seen, but fresh snowfall nearly a foot of snow

839
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:22,559
made the search very difficult. A member of the search

840
00:46:22,599 --> 00:46:26,000
team noted that the snow was soft and deep and

841
00:46:26,039 --> 00:46:29,199
if Ryan had stepped off the trail, there should have

842
00:46:29,199 --> 00:46:32,199
been evidence of it, and there wasn't any. What really

843
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:36,039
began as a local response quickly escalated into a full

844
00:46:36,079 --> 00:46:40,679
scale operation. We had three separate command centers established a

845
00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:45,199
coordinate efforts across the resort and surrounding areas. Search teams

846
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:49,360
deployed every tool available, snowmobiles, helicopters, They even had drones

847
00:46:49,679 --> 00:46:54,360
equipped with infrared cameras. Searchers were digging through snowbanks. They

848
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,280
were probing snow with poles. They went door to door

849
00:46:57,360 --> 00:47:00,199
through the village. Ryan's father, Scott dug holes in the

850
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:04,000
snow around Ryan's cabin and use an excavator to move

851
00:47:04,079 --> 00:47:06,239
large piles of snow. So they were wondering maybe he

852
00:47:06,800 --> 00:47:09,840
passed out in the snow and got buried. Police asked

853
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:14,199
all Sun Peaks residents to check their vehicles, sheds, garages, outbuildings,

854
00:47:14,440 --> 00:47:18,000
any unlocked structures, considering the possibility that Ryan may have

855
00:47:18,159 --> 00:47:21,760
entered a car building to escape the cold and became trapped.

856
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:26,320
Residents were asked to review security footage, dash camera footage,

857
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:30,119
and trail camera footage not only for Ryan's presence, but

858
00:47:30,159 --> 00:47:33,320
for any other people or vehicles in the vicinity at

859
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:37,239
the time he went missing. Despite all of these searches,

860
00:47:37,639 --> 00:47:41,280
in all of these efforts, in this small little area

861
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:45,760
where I couldn't imagine someone going missing, nothing was found.

862
00:47:46,119 --> 00:47:50,320
It's pretty wild and despite all of these efforts, by

863
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:54,119
the evening of February eighteenth, just one day after Ryan

864
00:47:54,559 --> 00:47:58,000
was discovered missing, the search and rescue announced that they

865
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:02,559
had completed all their required tasks for a missing person

866
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,480
in that environment. So with no leads, no sightings, no

867
00:48:06,519 --> 00:48:09,280
physical evidence, they had no choice but to formally suspend

868
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,559
the search on February nineteenth of twenty eighteen. So this

869
00:48:12,639 --> 00:48:16,199
might go down as the shortest search and rescue operation

870
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:20,559
we've ever covered on a case. So one day Sadly,

871
00:48:20,599 --> 00:48:23,239
officials were already planning for the worst and stated that

872
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:25,519
if Ryan was still in sun Peaks, they believed he

873
00:48:25,559 --> 00:48:28,519
was no longer alive because they had found no clothing,

874
00:48:28,599 --> 00:48:32,320
no belongings, and no indication of where he had gone.

875
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:35,760
So by late February twenty eighteen, the family is starting

876
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:40,000
to take over. The police investigation did remain active, but

877
00:48:40,079 --> 00:48:43,039
the formal search and rescue operation was over. Ryan's family

878
00:48:43,079 --> 00:48:47,159
and friends immediately began organizing their own efforts. Heather and Scott,

879
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:50,880
his parents, relocated to sun Peaks and established a command

880
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,480
center of their own. They were joined by family and

881
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,000
friends from Beaumont and a rapidly growing network of volunteers

882
00:48:57,119 --> 00:49:01,079
from across British Columbia in Alberta. By February twentieth of

883
00:49:01,119 --> 00:49:04,480
twenty eighteen, the sun Peaks community organized a third day

884
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:08,719
of searching along alongside the family, with about twenty people

885
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:11,840
gathering in front of the sun Peaks Fire Hall. R

886
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:15,039
CMP officers and two members of the Police Dog Service

887
00:49:15,079 --> 00:49:19,679
continued participating. Later that day, a candlelight vigil was held

888
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:22,960
in front of the village day Lodge. On the twenty second,

889
00:49:23,599 --> 00:49:26,800
they even brought in a spiritual medium and family friend,

890
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:31,559
Darren Donahey, traveled from a Birda to assist. She thanked

891
00:49:31,599 --> 00:49:35,320
the community, the police, the search and rescue team, and

892
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:40,559
appealed publicly, quoting we really need those that last saw

893
00:49:40,639 --> 00:49:44,280
him to come forward. One of Ryan's sisters asked people

894
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,440
to light a candle in their window to spread hope.

895
00:49:47,599 --> 00:49:50,960
On February twenty sixty, or twenty six of twenty eighteen,

896
00:49:51,599 --> 00:49:55,480
Nine days after Ryan the Ryan's disappearance, the family announced

897
00:49:55,480 --> 00:49:58,559
a five thousand dollars reward for any information leading to

898
00:49:58,599 --> 00:50:03,360
his location. Dan's family and community volunteers continued combing the

899
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,559
area of Burfield Drive daily. It's now March of twenty eighteen,

900
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:12,599
so from about March seventh to March ninth, the Canadian

901
00:50:12,679 --> 00:50:17,960
Search and Disaster Dogs Association known as the arrived at

902
00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:21,840
sun Peaks with specialized search dogs. Despite their expertise, the

903
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:27,920
team again found nothing. On approximately March twelfth, after serious

904
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,320
contemplation and no new leads, the family increased the reward

905
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,840
from five thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars for information

906
00:50:35,039 --> 00:50:38,800
leading to Ryan's recovery. They even set up a GoFundMe campaign,

907
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:42,079
which was set up by friends and family approximately eight

908
00:50:42,119 --> 00:50:45,719
weeks into the ordeal. It began to raise significant funds,

909
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:50,079
eventually exceeding ninety five thousand dollars. So the money went

910
00:50:50,159 --> 00:50:53,119
directly to covering the family's living expense in sun Peaks

911
00:50:53,199 --> 00:50:56,800
and back in Beaumont, as well as billboards, flyers, a

912
00:50:56,800 --> 00:51:01,199
private investigator, and the rewards. Social search may have ended

913
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:05,239
rather quickly, but this also has to be one of

914
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:10,719
the largest family initiated search operations I've ever read about

915
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,000
in all the different cases we've covered. It's pretty amazing

916
00:51:14,039 --> 00:51:16,480
the family is able to pull all this off. What

917
00:51:16,519 --> 00:51:17,360
are we looking at here?

918
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 2: On their Facebook page, they just created these like Stukasaurus

919
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,480
says that you could sell and it information. Yeah, it's

920
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:27,280
like a cute little things that you can buy and

921
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,119
it has information about Ryan on it.

922
00:51:29,599 --> 00:51:30,320
Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.

923
00:51:30,519 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just I'm on Ucasaurus's Yeah, I'm on the

924
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,400
Facebook page on I like, I think for Milwaukee's coming up.

925
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:42,000
That might just because local ad or something, but interesting. Yeah,

926
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:44,280
I'm gonna see if there's any Do they still sell them?

927
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,679
Maybe we should get one for the studio potentially, I'll

928
00:51:47,679 --> 00:51:50,480
look into that. To this and two of what was

929
00:51:50,599 --> 00:51:53,119
up here on top I'll find out. Okay.

930
00:51:53,639 --> 00:51:56,800
Speaker 3: So, flyers with Ryan's face were posted throughout the resort,

931
00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,400
and banners and billboards went up around some peaks and

932
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,760
the shoun air surrounding areas. The green dinosaur ris became

933
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:05,079
a symbol of Ryan, with people around the world posting

934
00:52:05,119 --> 00:52:08,159
photos with little green dinosaur figures on a Facebook page

935
00:52:08,519 --> 00:52:12,840
dedicated to him. So helping his family. Imagine Ryan traveling

936
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:17,079
the world. So pretty cool. It's now April twenty eighteen.

937
00:52:17,199 --> 00:52:20,039
So early in April, the search shifted to a different

938
00:52:20,079 --> 00:52:23,519
part of Sun Peaks Village. This was prompted by new

939
00:52:23,559 --> 00:52:27,079
information from someone who had been at the party with Ryan.

940
00:52:27,639 --> 00:52:31,840
That person had text messaged. That person had a text

941
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,199
message suggesting Ryan may have left the party at around

942
00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:37,840
one forty am rather than the previously assumed two ten am,

943
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:42,639
and I had mentioned this earlier. Additionally, another individual came

944
00:52:42,679 --> 00:52:46,400
forward saying they saw someone matching Ryan's description round one

945
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:50,880
fifty five am walking on Fairways Drive toward Eagle Court,

946
00:52:51,159 --> 00:52:55,400
an area closer to the village's downtown court. This tip

947
00:52:56,039 --> 00:52:59,559
had initially been dismissed because it did not align with

948
00:52:59,599 --> 00:53:03,239
the two ten am timeline. Once it became clear that

949
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:07,320
Ryan may have left earlier, investigators revisited the information. The

950
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:10,800
witness was described as sober and had an exact time

951
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,840
for the sighting, so Ryan's mom would goes on to

952
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:15,519
say that it would have been unusual for Ryan to

953
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:19,880
walk towards downtown at that hour, but acknowledged he may

954
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:22,440
have been heading to Mountain High Pizza, which was open

955
00:53:22,559 --> 00:53:26,480
until two am so very interesting. We kind of have

956
00:53:26,559 --> 00:53:30,119
conflicting timelines of what's going on. You looking up Mountain

957
00:53:30,199 --> 00:53:34,679
High Pizza. I'm gonna try to let's see, that's like

958
00:53:34,800 --> 00:53:37,079
right back into town. Yep, there it is.

959
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 2: It's like literally back where he was, yeah, or for

960
00:53:41,440 --> 00:53:44,960
the for the disco. If I remember, I'm gonna be

961
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:47,360
like really yeah, because there's the disco and the pizza

962
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:48,159
places right here.

963
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:50,719
Speaker 3: So he went to the at the disco, went to

964
00:53:50,760 --> 00:53:54,239
the house spring Berfield, and then potagially went right back there,

965
00:53:55,280 --> 00:53:58,800
which I mean if he's been out, I remember getting

966
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:01,159
party and drinking, and then I would go to Papa

967
00:54:01,199 --> 00:54:04,199
John's Pizza every time. If there was a pizza place open,

968
00:54:04,239 --> 00:54:04,800
You're going.

969
00:54:04,639 --> 00:54:07,119
Speaker 2: We're right by our house, was the Papa John Like,

970
00:54:07,239 --> 00:54:09,880
we would walk to blocks, get all the whole pizza

971
00:54:09,920 --> 00:54:12,679
and bring it back it like yeah, So this doesn't

972
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:14,679
seem that far fetched to me. That does not.

973
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:18,599
Speaker 3: I could easily see he's hungry, go get some food.

974
00:54:18,639 --> 00:54:19,760
Speaker 2: I would one hundred percent do.

975
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,079
Speaker 3: That would make sense why he left early if he

976
00:54:22,119 --> 00:54:23,119
knows they close it too.

977
00:54:23,519 --> 00:54:24,519
Speaker 2: Yeah.

978
00:54:24,679 --> 00:54:29,159
Speaker 3: Very interesting. So we do have conflicting timelines. But like

979
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,559
Joe and I said, I can totally see him doing

980
00:54:32,599 --> 00:54:35,280
that before going home. At this time too, the family

981
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:38,199
is now bringing in a helicopter, search dogs, and an

982
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:41,880
excavator to search the new area. They began to explore

983
00:54:41,920 --> 00:54:45,400
the region in a more methodical way, using excavators and

984
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:49,639
bobcats to move snow while volunteers perform grid searches. Despite

985
00:54:49,679 --> 00:54:53,239
all of these more focused efforts, again, nothing was found.

986
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:56,559
So by May Ryan had been missing for twelve weeks.

987
00:54:57,119 --> 00:54:59,519
The family's command center had moved from the hot from

988
00:54:59,519 --> 00:55:04,400
a hotel into the old health center portable building sun peaks.

989
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:07,960
More than seven hundred volunteers had helped search over the

990
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:12,199
preceding months, which is wild, and the daily ground searches

991
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:15,000
had taken place every single day since Ryan's disappearance, So

992
00:55:15,280 --> 00:55:18,840
for twelve weeks they've been searching and over seven hundred

993
00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:23,760
volunteers had chipped in, which is crazy. In May, the

994
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:27,480
RCMP shared publicly that a man named Jim Reid had

995
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:31,280
come forward with new information. Jim had been staying with

996
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:33,599
friends near the house where Ryan lived on the night

997
00:55:33,679 --> 00:55:35,960
of the disappearance. He told investigators that he heard what

998
00:55:36,119 --> 00:55:40,519
sounded like an angry or possibly violent interaction outside in

999
00:55:40,559 --> 00:55:43,320
the middle of the night, I heard a guy's voice

1000
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,760
and it was mad Reid said. The person he heard

1001
00:55:46,800 --> 00:55:49,400
was yelling, get in the car, Get in the effing car.

1002
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:52,800
Reid reported what he'd heard. The police and the RCMP

1003
00:55:53,000 --> 00:55:57,000
followed up with him several times. However, Heather later noted

1004
00:55:57,000 --> 00:55:59,960
that it was determined Jim had been a significant day

1005
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:02,719
distance from the party and she was not certain what

1006
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:07,039
he heard had anything to do with Ryan, so very interesting.

1007
00:56:08,159 --> 00:56:12,039
Also in May, Heather, this is when Heather publicly revealed

1008
00:56:12,039 --> 00:56:14,159
for the first time that Ryan's cell phone did ping

1009
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:18,559
at three a m. On the seventeenth in sun Peaks,

1010
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,719
and like I had mentioned earlier, the exact location fortunately

1011
00:56:22,719 --> 00:56:26,920
cannot be determined. To Heather, this confirmed that her belief

1012
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:29,880
that Ryan was still in sun Peaks after leaving the party. However,

1013
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:33,840
many doubted this conclusion, especially as the snow continued to

1014
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:37,559
melt and Ryan still had not been found. So now

1015
00:56:37,920 --> 00:56:41,119
the search had shifted from finding Ryan alive to obviously

1016
00:56:41,199 --> 00:56:46,199
recovery effort. Heather told the sun Peaks Independent News. I'm

1017
00:56:46,199 --> 00:56:49,039
going to quote we're now looking at more of a discovery.

1018
00:56:49,159 --> 00:56:52,719
Likely someone will stumble across him, and that's heavy we'd

1019
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:55,280
hoped we would be able to find him while he

1020
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:58,239
was still in the snow and preserved with no animal

1021
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:02,880
contact or decomposition. In May of twenty eighteen, search and

1022
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:06,039
rescue teams returned to sun Peaks for a formal organized search.

1023
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:12,079
This was the last official organized search involving major RCMP

1024
00:57:12,960 --> 00:57:17,199
and SAR resources until twenty twenty one. The combined search

1025
00:57:17,239 --> 00:57:21,239
effort was massive, so three formal searches had involved police

1026
00:57:21,320 --> 00:57:25,800
and SAR canine units, drones with infrared cameras, snowmobiles, the

1027
00:57:26,519 --> 00:57:29,760
RCMPS air Force helicopter, and upwards of forty to six

1028
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:36,239
SAR technicians and seventy volunteers. Metal detectors, avalanche probes, shovels, snowshoes,

1029
00:57:36,239 --> 00:57:39,480
and excavators were all used. Hundreds of hours were spent

1030
00:57:39,639 --> 00:57:42,960
on the search and investigation, and again nothing was found.

1031
00:57:43,519 --> 00:57:47,719
So it's now June of twenty eighteen and the family

1032
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:51,400
is finally returning home. At the end of May. In

1033
00:57:51,440 --> 00:57:55,079
more than almost three months of living in sun Peaks

1034
00:57:55,719 --> 00:57:58,840
and searching every day, HEATHERN. Scott made the agonizing decision

1035
00:57:58,880 --> 00:58:02,039
to return home the Boma. Their daughters needed them, Heather

1036
00:58:02,119 --> 00:58:04,679
told sun Peaks Independent News that she still believed Ryan

1037
00:58:04,800 --> 00:58:07,079
was in sun Peaks, but their best chance of finding

1038
00:58:07,119 --> 00:58:11,880
him had passed as spring deepened and undergrowth began to thicken.

1039
00:58:12,400 --> 00:58:15,360
So every single day Ryan was searched for. Heather said,

1040
00:58:15,719 --> 00:58:19,639
we never took a day off, and the family still

1041
00:58:19,679 --> 00:58:22,280
planned to return regularly and did so, coming back to

1042
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:25,880
sun Peaks approximately once a month to search as weather permitted.

1043
00:58:26,639 --> 00:58:30,079
It's now November twenty eighteen, so as sun Peaks prepared

1044
00:58:30,119 --> 00:58:35,000
for another busy ski season. A major CBC investigation examined

1045
00:58:35,239 --> 00:58:39,239
how Ryan's disappearance continued to haunt the community. The RCMP

1046
00:58:39,519 --> 00:58:43,280
had remained tight lipped, creating what one community member called

1047
00:58:43,320 --> 00:58:48,559
a vacuum of information. This silence had fueled a wild

1048
00:58:48,639 --> 00:58:52,880
speculation rumor throughout the resort. Gene Strong, editor of the

1049
00:58:52,880 --> 00:58:57,639
sun Peaks Independent News Catalog, the theories circulating online. So

1050
00:58:58,119 --> 00:59:01,119
here you go. These are pretty interest theories that were

1051
00:59:01,360 --> 00:59:04,679
going around at the time. So abduction, to sex trafficking,

1052
00:59:04,719 --> 00:59:08,079
to be involved in the drug trade, to aliens, to

1053
00:59:08,159 --> 00:59:10,840
an animal attack, any other wild theory you can think

1054
00:59:10,880 --> 00:59:14,519
of has come up online. I think this was her quote.

1055
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:18,159
Beyond the rumors, Yeah, beyond the rumors. Ryan's disappearance had

1056
00:59:18,320 --> 00:59:23,880
instilled genuine fear in the community, particularly among young seasonal workers.

1057
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:28,199
Retired RCMP investigator Brian Smith, a twenty five year veteran

1058
00:59:28,199 --> 00:59:32,239
who had investigated several missing persons cases and also had

1059
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:35,480
experience as a ski patroller in back country guide, had

1060
00:59:35,519 --> 00:59:38,280
traveled from Alberta to help with the search at the

1061
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:42,599
request of the family. His initial conclusion was that Ryan

1062
00:59:42,719 --> 00:59:44,960
had wandered into deep snow and gotten lost in the

1063
00:59:45,039 --> 00:59:48,679
rug and train. However, in an interview with one of

1064
00:59:48,719 --> 00:59:52,119
Ryan's friends, changed his mind. The friend seemed to be

1065
00:59:52,280 --> 00:59:55,159
very nervous and very afraid for himself, which was unusual.

1066
00:59:55,519 --> 00:59:59,320
Smith said, my gut told me that this was the

1067
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:02,079
most This was most likely a homicide, not just a

1068
01:00:02,119 --> 01:00:06,760
missing person. So they really don't know, and speculation is

1069
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:11,519
running rampants. After extensive interviews with everyone involved in Ryan's disappearance,

1070
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:16,239
the RCMP maintained their position that at this time, there's

1071
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:19,679
no evidence that anything criminal happened. She added that police

1072
01:00:19,679 --> 01:00:22,079
did not believe people in the Sun Peaks area should

1073
01:00:22,079 --> 01:00:26,199
be concerned about their safety. However, the RCMP was careful

1074
01:00:26,239 --> 01:00:30,360
never to definitively rule out foul play. Ryan's mother struggled

1075
01:00:30,360 --> 01:00:34,800
against the speculation. She was quoted, He's not confrontational, he's

1076
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:37,079
not an instigator. He's not one of those people that

1077
01:00:37,119 --> 01:00:40,079
would go out of his way to start something. She

1078
01:00:40,159 --> 01:00:43,280
goes on to say, we don't know why Ryan went missing.

1079
01:00:43,719 --> 01:00:46,639
We don't know how we went missing. We don't know

1080
01:00:46,840 --> 01:00:49,719
where he went missing. We want to believe that we'll

1081
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,199
find him. That's a parent's love, that's a parent's love

1082
01:00:53,239 --> 01:00:56,559
will be so strong. So it's now February nineteenth, it's

1083
01:00:56,639 --> 01:01:00,239
one year since his disappearance. This marked the first you're

1084
01:01:00,280 --> 01:01:03,440
obviously of his disappearance. The family, their daughters, and a

1085
01:01:03,519 --> 01:01:06,280
large group of family and friends gathered and sun Peaks

1086
01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:10,000
to mark the occasion with a fundraising dinner a candlelight vigil.

1087
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:13,920
In other events, sun Peaks Resort organized a run for

1088
01:01:14,039 --> 01:01:17,559
Ryan on February sixteenth, approximately one hundred people gathering at

1089
01:01:17,559 --> 01:01:21,400
the top of a green run off the Sunburst chairlift.

1090
01:01:21,519 --> 01:01:25,159
Green flags were distributed and everyone skied down together as

1091
01:01:25,199 --> 01:01:27,639
the sun broke through the clouds. Sounds pretty cool.

1092
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:28,800
Speaker 2: That sounds so awesome.

1093
01:01:29,199 --> 01:01:31,599
Speaker 3: By this time, the RCMP had followed up on more

1094
01:01:31,639 --> 01:01:34,400
than three hundred tips and reported sightings, including one where

1095
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:37,440
someone claimed Ryan was working as a lifeguard in another location.

1096
01:01:37,920 --> 01:01:41,199
None of the tips actually led to anything. The police

1097
01:01:41,239 --> 01:01:43,880
said there was no evidence to suggest Ryan had met

1098
01:01:43,880 --> 01:01:46,480
with foul play. At the same time, there was no

1099
01:01:46,559 --> 01:01:49,239
evidence of anything being found at all, so they really

1100
01:01:49,440 --> 01:01:55,840
don't know. The RCMP's Major Crimes Unit and Investigation Unit

1101
01:01:55,880 --> 01:02:01,559
were reviewing the file. So now Ryan's Chris, He's back

1102
01:02:01,559 --> 01:02:04,960
in Australia, spoke publicly about the uncertainty. He said, I

1103
01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:07,039
have absolutely no idea what happened to him. All I

1104
01:02:07,079 --> 01:02:09,199
know is that I don't believe he went anywhere with

1105
01:02:09,239 --> 01:02:13,440
people he didn't know, wandered off into the woods, or

1106
01:02:13,519 --> 01:02:16,599
was drunk enough to wander without knowing where he was going.

1107
01:02:16,679 --> 01:02:19,039
So he was young and fit experience in cold weather.

1108
01:02:19,960 --> 01:02:22,920
He also addressed the online harassment he had received after

1109
01:02:22,960 --> 01:02:25,280
traveling a band for a pre planned trip with a

1110
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:28,840
friend from Australia approximately two weeks after the disappearance. He

1111
01:02:28,880 --> 01:02:32,639
faced online criticism implying he was involved in harming Ryan,

1112
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:35,800
covering up what happened, or lying to police. He even

1113
01:02:35,840 --> 01:02:41,159
received death threats, so people very passionate about Ryan's case.

1114
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:45,239
The first year's search had been the largest ever conducted

1115
01:02:45,239 --> 01:02:48,159
in the area. The valley had been scoured by hundreds

1116
01:02:48,199 --> 01:02:52,519
of volunteers from around the world, professional searchers, search dogs,

1117
01:02:52,559 --> 01:02:57,440
cadaver dogs. You had tactical teams, private investigators, psychics, a

1118
01:02:57,559 --> 01:03:03,000
dive team, drones, helicopters, a plane and nothing was found.

1119
01:03:03,280 --> 01:03:07,159
It's like, I just don't understand because he couldn't have

1120
01:03:07,199 --> 01:03:07,800
gone far.

1121
01:03:07,960 --> 01:03:11,960
Speaker 2: No, like given the snow in the direct like it

1122
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:13,159
it's just wild. That is wild.

1123
01:03:13,239 --> 01:03:16,559
Speaker 3: It is wild. So it's spring fall of twenty nineteen.

1124
01:03:17,000 --> 01:03:19,280
Beginning in April of that year, the family began a

1125
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:24,800
more methodical approach to searching sun Peaks. Again. Excavators and

1126
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:27,719
bobcats are brought in the move snow, while volunteers performed

1127
01:03:28,719 --> 01:03:32,960
systematic grid searches. They're not giving up hope that they're

1128
01:03:32,960 --> 01:03:37,519
going to find something. In May of that year, drones

1129
01:03:37,559 --> 01:03:39,719
were donated to the search effort and were used by

1130
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:43,000
sun Peaks from a new angle. The drones were specifically

1131
01:03:43,119 --> 01:03:46,559
tasked with spotting the burgundy hat that Ryan was said

1132
01:03:46,559 --> 01:03:50,079
to have been wearing the night of his disappearance, and

1133
01:03:50,119 --> 01:03:54,440
they were hoping that the aerial technology might locate where it,

1134
01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:57,119
you know, in an area where ground searchers weren't able

1135
01:03:57,159 --> 01:04:00,360
to get to, and over the course of twenty eight nineteen,

1136
01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:04,039
the family organized approximately seven search operations that Aaron continued

1137
01:04:04,039 --> 01:04:07,000
to meet regularly with law enforcement during their visits. They

1138
01:04:07,039 --> 01:04:10,119
came to sun Peaks about once a month, and when

1139
01:04:10,159 --> 01:04:13,159
winter conditions prevented effective searching, they came simply to feel

1140
01:04:13,159 --> 01:04:16,480
connected with Ryan and the community that knew him, and

1141
01:04:16,559 --> 01:04:20,480
again throughout twenty nineteen, nothing was found. It's now February

1142
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:24,760
twenty twenty two years since his disappearance. The family continued

1143
01:04:24,760 --> 01:04:27,760
their annual tradition of gathering in sun Peaks for candlelight

1144
01:04:27,880 --> 01:04:32,199
vigil and memorial events. The RCMP had still not determined

1145
01:04:32,199 --> 01:04:35,719
what happened around On the anniversary, they reiterated that there

1146
01:04:35,760 --> 01:04:39,119
was no evidence of foul play. There was no police

1147
01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:42,719
presence station some Peaks itself. A community members noted a

1148
01:04:42,800 --> 01:04:45,760
significant detail. The last signal from his phone obviously was

1149
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:50,840
three am. They're still hung up on that fact that

1150
01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:53,400
his phone did ping, and they're wondering what happened to

1151
01:04:53,480 --> 01:04:54,000
his phone then?

1152
01:04:54,039 --> 01:04:54,559
Speaker 2: Did it die?

1153
01:04:54,719 --> 01:04:57,920
Speaker 3: Was it destroyed? His bank accounts were mad untouched?

1154
01:04:58,480 --> 01:04:58,639
Speaker 1: You know?

1155
01:04:58,840 --> 01:05:01,760
Speaker 3: There was no indication that he left town February twenty

1156
01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:06,880
twenty one, three years after his disappearance. Again really no

1157
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:11,360
new information. The RCMP keeps telling media they're still receiving

1158
01:05:11,400 --> 01:05:15,760
tips from time to time. They acknowledged that the lack

1159
01:05:15,840 --> 01:05:19,280
of answers was concerning. One of the members of the

1160
01:05:19,320 --> 01:05:22,079
local search and rescue team said that whenever he trained

1161
01:05:22,119 --> 01:05:24,280
his search dogs, he always took them to the area

1162
01:05:24,320 --> 01:05:28,119
where Ryan disappeared, hoping they might find something. By this point,

1163
01:05:28,159 --> 01:05:30,840
the search had shifted to find Ryan's belongings more than

1164
01:05:31,159 --> 01:05:34,320
even his remains, which would likely no longer be intact

1165
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:37,719
after that length of time. It's now late May of

1166
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:40,320
twenty twenty one, more than three years after his disappearance,

1167
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:43,119
the RCMP returned to some peaks for the first significant

1168
01:05:43,119 --> 01:05:45,679
boots on the ground search since May of twenty eighteen.

1169
01:05:46,760 --> 01:05:50,920
RCMP Constable Crystal Evelyn confirmed the operation was related to

1170
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,760
the search of Ryan. The plan called for local Mounties

1171
01:05:54,840 --> 01:05:58,519
and specialized RCMP Search US to be on site looking

1172
01:05:58,559 --> 01:06:01,559
for information that could lead the run. The weekend search

1173
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:06,400
on May twenty ninth and thirtieth and filve approximately sixteen officers,

1174
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:11,559
a mix of Mounte's and Southeast District tactical troop. Heather

1175
01:06:11,639 --> 01:06:14,400
and Scott made the trip to sun Peak's, unwilling to

1176
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:17,400
wait at home for the results. Heather we go on

1177
01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:20,000
to reflect how the years have changed her approach. She said,

1178
01:06:20,000 --> 01:06:22,000
after three years, one of the most painful truths is

1179
01:06:22,039 --> 01:06:25,119
how I've learned to manage my expectations. The last time

1180
01:06:25,159 --> 01:06:28,039
we had an official organized search was May twenty eighteen.

1181
01:06:28,639 --> 01:06:32,360
I thought the snow had melted, and with so many volunteers,

1182
01:06:32,440 --> 01:06:36,079
Ryan surely would have been found. For two days, I

1183
01:06:36,159 --> 01:06:40,119
prayed and hoped, and then grieved all over again. Obviously,

1184
01:06:40,199 --> 01:06:43,480
the search did not find Ryan. In a Facebook post

1185
01:06:43,480 --> 01:06:46,440
from May thirty first of twenty twenty one, Heather wrote,

1186
01:06:46,800 --> 01:06:49,119
it matters little what personal opinions you or I have

1187
01:06:49,239 --> 01:06:52,760
regarding Ryan's disappearance. The goal remains to search until I

1188
01:06:52,800 --> 01:06:56,039
am dust or dirt because my son matters. That is

1189
01:06:56,119 --> 01:06:58,320
what I can do. That is what I will do.

1190
01:06:59,000 --> 01:07:02,280
And Heather ed she was impressed with the thoroughness of

1191
01:07:02,360 --> 01:07:07,519
the RCMP search and hope to incorporate similar techniques in

1192
01:07:07,559 --> 01:07:11,239
future family organized searches. They are still searching. It's it's

1193
01:07:11,800 --> 01:07:15,719
amazing they keep it going year after year. It's October

1194
01:07:15,760 --> 01:07:20,000
of twenty twenty two. Now, so Ryan's case is starting

1195
01:07:20,039 --> 01:07:23,159
to gain national international intention when it was featured on

1196
01:07:23,360 --> 01:07:27,599
season three, episode twelve of Paramount Plus's documentary series Never

1197
01:07:27,679 --> 01:07:30,960
Seen Again, which aired October tenth of twenty twenty two.

1198
01:07:31,360 --> 01:07:35,039
The episode explored how Ryan disappeared after house party during

1199
01:07:35,159 --> 01:07:37,679
a fierce winter storm, and how a promising twenty year

1200
01:07:37,719 --> 01:07:42,559
old could simply vanish. It's great, we always say, end

1201
01:07:42,559 --> 01:07:46,719
of the day, it's the more exposure a case can get,

1202
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:49,360
the better. So yeah, absolutely, his case is finally getting

1203
01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:54,760
some international hits. In November twenty twenty two, Heather published

1204
01:07:54,800 --> 01:07:58,639
a book titled Missing from Me. The nonfiction account recounts

1205
01:07:58,920 --> 01:08:02,119
the case of Ryan's disappearance in the ski town and

1206
01:08:02,159 --> 01:08:05,159
takes a reader through Heather's transformation from a parent to

1207
01:08:05,280 --> 01:08:09,440
a search and rescue coordinator to missing person advocate. The

1208
01:08:09,480 --> 01:08:13,199
book became an Amazon bestseller. Heather described it as a

1209
01:08:13,239 --> 01:08:16,359
testament to the strength found in vulnerability and the power

1210
01:08:16,920 --> 01:08:21,439
of words to heal and connect. So very interesting. What

1211
01:08:21,640 --> 01:08:24,399
had begun as daily social media posts to keep people

1212
01:08:24,399 --> 01:08:27,359
informed had evolved into sharing of stories about Ryan and

1213
01:08:27,399 --> 01:08:30,680
the family's experience of living in sun Peaks and searching

1214
01:08:30,840 --> 01:08:33,960
for him every day. At the time, the Facebook page

1215
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:37,520
dedicated to Ryan had grown to nearly fifty five thousand followers,

1216
01:08:37,560 --> 01:08:40,640
so a lot of people were really interested in this case.

1217
01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:43,840
So it's now February twenty twenty three, we're five years

1218
01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:48,119
from his disappearance. Again, the families returning to sun Peaks

1219
01:08:49,199 --> 01:08:53,039
to mark the fifth anniversary. The annual Run for Ryan

1220
01:08:53,079 --> 01:08:56,600
event was held on the seventeenth. It was followed by

1221
01:08:56,600 --> 01:08:58,880
a candlelight vigil and a book signing for the Missing

1222
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:01,720
for Me at the sun Peaks Grand Hotel and Conference Center.

1223
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:06,279
After Ryan's disappearance, how they co founded the Freebird Project

1224
01:09:06,319 --> 01:09:09,960
with Tammy Neuron, Kate Sinclair, and one other woman. Tammy

1225
01:09:10,000 --> 01:09:15,520
and Kate's brother, Tomic Neuron and his girlfriend Ashley had

1226
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:20,239
gone missing in twenty seventeen when their plane disappeared near Revelstoke.

1227
01:09:20,600 --> 01:09:23,479
The wreckage was found in September of twenty eighteen. So

1228
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:25,960
the families would go on to combine their experiences in

1229
01:09:26,000 --> 01:09:29,199
ground and aerial search operations to offer support and resources

1230
01:09:29,199 --> 01:09:33,199
to other families of missing loved ones across Canada. This

1231
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:37,880
organization eventually became a registered nonprofit, so it just goes

1232
01:09:37,960 --> 01:09:41,079
on twenty May of twenty twenty three, there's more searches,

1233
01:09:41,199 --> 01:09:44,319
nothing's found. October of twenty twenty three, they upped the

1234
01:09:44,319 --> 01:09:48,439
reward to twenty five thousand dollars. They keep reflecting on

1235
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:52,720
the complexity of the different searches. And February twenty twenty four,

1236
01:09:53,279 --> 01:09:58,199
it's six years since its disappearance. They hold a candlelight

1237
01:09:58,279 --> 01:10:02,399
vigil again and and they're doing searches. They're doing events

1238
01:10:02,439 --> 01:10:08,720
to try to keep this search alive. Now it's far

1239
01:10:08,840 --> 01:10:12,000
enough out that they really are not getting any increase

1240
01:10:12,039 --> 01:10:15,960
in tips anymore from people. That makes sense, Yeah, there's

1241
01:10:17,199 --> 01:10:19,920
fewer and fewer tips coming in every year. But then

1242
01:10:21,039 --> 01:10:24,239
in May of twenty twenty four, they reported a notable

1243
01:10:24,239 --> 01:10:27,520
increase in the number of tips regarding Ryan's disappearance. So

1244
01:10:27,600 --> 01:10:30,039
Sue Brown, a lawyer and investigator with the organization, said

1245
01:10:30,039 --> 01:10:31,640
they had received quite a number of tips in the

1246
01:10:31,640 --> 01:10:34,359
past couple of months, following a period where they had

1247
01:10:34,439 --> 01:10:37,560
been where there weren't very many. Some of the tips

1248
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:41,680
showed consistency with each other and with tips received in

1249
01:10:41,720 --> 01:10:45,319
the past containing verifiable details worth following up on. Very

1250
01:10:45,359 --> 01:10:48,199
interesting how it kind of ebbs and flows The tips

1251
01:10:48,239 --> 01:10:51,079
So now we're to February twenty twenty five, this is

1252
01:10:51,279 --> 01:10:54,880
seven years after his disappearance. Again, they return to the area.

1253
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:59,840
They're doing their candlelight vigil, They're holding events, they are

1254
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:06,239
still doing family searches. Unfortunately, nothing has ever found. They

1255
01:11:06,359 --> 01:11:09,439
still maintain regular communications with the family about the case.

1256
01:11:10,439 --> 01:11:12,560
Police would inform the family of some of the tips

1257
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:15,800
they received and whether they were believed credible. But they've

1258
01:11:15,800 --> 01:11:18,680
been very accountable to us, Heather said. It's very comforting

1259
01:11:18,880 --> 01:11:21,600
for us to know that the investigation is not considered

1260
01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:24,399
a cold case, but still actively reviewed and worked done.

1261
01:11:25,039 --> 01:11:27,119
Despite all of this, Heather acknowledge, I think we still

1262
01:11:27,119 --> 01:11:30,359
feel like it's groundhog Day. It's still February seventeenth of

1263
01:11:30,399 --> 01:11:32,920
twenty eighteen. It's still the same thing over and over.

1264
01:11:33,560 --> 01:11:36,960
We don't have any real new information. Then, in August

1265
01:11:37,039 --> 01:11:39,960
of twenty twenty five, there is a story published called

1266
01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:41,920
Into Thin Air. I think Joe was looking at the

1267
01:11:42,000 --> 01:11:47,079
video of that, and it goes into the volunteers with

1268
01:11:47,119 --> 01:11:49,640
the search, the recovery and detection of K nine team,

1269
01:11:50,199 --> 01:11:53,439
all that kind of stuff. Very interesting documentary, our news

1270
01:11:53,439 --> 01:11:59,039
report check it out. February twenty twenty six, Just a

1271
01:11:59,119 --> 01:12:02,399
few months ago, it was eight years since its disappearance,

1272
01:12:02,880 --> 01:12:08,800
and the family, community menor community members gathered once again

1273
01:12:09,039 --> 01:12:11,319
at the top of some Burst Express Lift for the

1274
01:12:11,439 --> 01:12:15,680
eighth annual Run for Ryan. In early February twenty twenty six,

1275
01:12:16,119 --> 01:12:19,800
Heather launched a new GoFundMe fundraiser tied to Ryan's birthday month,

1276
01:12:20,800 --> 01:12:24,159
and the fundraiser stated Ryan has been missing for eight years.

1277
01:12:24,640 --> 01:12:28,800
That means eight birthdays, eight years missed of moments, gatherings, milestones,

1278
01:12:28,800 --> 01:12:31,199
and a life yet not fully lived. The funds were

1279
01:12:31,720 --> 01:12:36,239
designated for outgoing ongoing search efforts, including travel, logistics, and

1280
01:12:36,359 --> 01:12:40,720
search related expenses. It raised over ten thousand dollars. On

1281
01:12:40,840 --> 01:12:44,800
March eighteenth, twenty twenty six, a separate go fund me

1282
01:12:44,920 --> 01:12:47,279
was organized to help support Ryan's family during what was

1283
01:12:47,319 --> 01:12:49,479
described as an incredibly difficult time as they cope with

1284
01:12:49,520 --> 01:12:50,000
their loss.

1285
01:12:50,119 --> 01:12:52,560
Speaker 2: It was a day before my birthday. There there you go,

1286
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:53,479
on March nineteenth.

1287
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:56,960
Speaker 3: So, as of April of twenty twenty six, as we

1288
01:12:56,960 --> 01:12:59,439
were recording, he has not been found. There's been no

1289
01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:02,600
trace of it, no clothing, no personal belongings, no remains,

1290
01:13:03,479 --> 01:13:07,800
nothing has been found. His cell phone, social media, bank accounts,

1291
01:13:07,840 --> 01:13:12,520
no activity since the night he went missing. The RCMP

1292
01:13:12,720 --> 01:13:16,000
investigation remains open active foul play has not been ruled out,

1293
01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:19,000
but no evidence of criminal activity has been found. So

1294
01:13:20,279 --> 01:13:24,159
very puzzling, and I'll go through theories quickly here.

1295
01:13:24,199 --> 01:13:26,359
Speaker 2: I feel like this is the most active case over

1296
01:13:26,399 --> 01:13:28,239
a long period of time we've done in a while,

1297
01:13:28,279 --> 01:13:31,800
if not ever, Yeah, every year there. I mean, like

1298
01:13:31,880 --> 01:13:34,960
the fact that they're still doing stuff is pretty incredible. Yeah.

1299
01:13:35,000 --> 01:13:37,319
I feel for the mom and the family.

1300
01:13:37,560 --> 01:13:43,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. The first theory, the most obvious, is

1301
01:13:43,119 --> 01:13:48,159
exposure misadventure. You know, this is the most straightfor forward explanation.

1302
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:53,880
Ryan walked out into minus ford degree fahrenheit with active snowfall,

1303
01:13:54,079 --> 01:13:57,399
got lost, wandered off the road, and succumbed to hypothermia.

1304
01:13:57,880 --> 01:14:03,199
The conditions supported he was underdressed, likely intoxicated, visibility was

1305
01:14:03,239 --> 01:14:05,479
near zero, and the tree line was ten steps from

1306
01:14:05,479 --> 01:14:08,439
the road. Search and Rescue initially believed he fell into

1307
01:14:08,520 --> 01:14:11,279
a gully that was buried by heavy snow that weekend,

1308
01:14:12,079 --> 01:14:15,600
and this was kind of the working assumption by law enforcement.

1309
01:14:15,760 --> 01:14:20,399
It's a straightforward explanation, I think based on you know,

1310
01:14:20,479 --> 01:14:26,159
maybe he was more intoxicated than people thought and who knows. Yeah,

1311
01:14:26,199 --> 01:14:28,880
he could have gotten cold pretty quickly. He may have

1312
01:14:28,960 --> 01:14:31,000
gone and got pizza first, and we don't know, but

1313
01:14:31,079 --> 01:14:36,199
I think he was drunk. It was very cold, snowing, windy,

1314
01:14:36,840 --> 01:14:41,239
he was underdressed. I think exposure very likely theory yep

1315
01:14:41,760 --> 01:14:45,000
three number two hit and run. So this was an

1316
01:14:45,039 --> 01:14:47,439
interesting theory. So the theory goes Ryan was struck by

1317
01:14:47,439 --> 01:14:50,399
a vehicle on the dark, icy road, possibly by another

1318
01:14:50,439 --> 01:14:54,359
impaired driver, and the driver panic loaded the body and

1319
01:14:54,439 --> 01:14:58,920
dumped it somewhere between sun Peaks and Kamloops. Former sun

1320
01:14:58,920 --> 01:15:01,760
Peaks News reporter noted that there had been other cases

1321
01:15:01,760 --> 01:15:04,279
of pedestrians hit by drunk drivers late at night in

1322
01:15:04,319 --> 01:15:08,399
the area, so it wasn't far fetched. Area residents on

1323
01:15:08,479 --> 01:15:12,239
Reddit have also called this the local consensus theory. So

1324
01:15:12,279 --> 01:15:15,159
a lot of locals feel that this is what actually

1325
01:15:15,239 --> 01:15:15,880
happened to them.

1326
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:17,840
Speaker 2: That makes me feel like that happens a lot.

1327
01:15:18,399 --> 01:15:20,800
Speaker 3: Yes, But the problem with this is there was no

1328
01:15:20,920 --> 01:15:24,199
damage vehicle reported, no blood on the road, no tire

1329
01:15:24,239 --> 01:15:27,880
marks or evidence of an impact. And Heather herself doesn't

1330
01:15:27,920 --> 01:15:31,119
fully believe this theory given the total absence of physical

1331
01:15:31,159 --> 01:15:34,640
evidence and the likelihood someone could have heard a collision.

1332
01:15:35,199 --> 01:15:36,359
But then I would counter, what.

1333
01:15:36,319 --> 01:15:39,479
Speaker 2: If someone's in a big truck, Well, like there was blood,

1334
01:15:39,520 --> 01:15:41,600
but it got covered up by snow and as snow melts,

1335
01:15:41,960 --> 01:15:42,439
washes away.

1336
01:15:42,560 --> 01:15:43,119
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1337
01:15:43,520 --> 01:15:46,479
Speaker 2: So I think I don't think that's folly ruled out.

1338
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:50,600
Speaker 3: I think if locals believe that's the consensus, that tells

1339
01:15:50,640 --> 01:15:52,960
me that is a bigger problem than.

1340
01:15:53,239 --> 01:15:56,760
Speaker 2: I And it tells me like they went right to that. Yeah.

1341
01:15:56,880 --> 01:15:59,960
So there's a feeling from the people who are in

1342
01:16:00,159 --> 01:16:02,159
the area based on just like you said, like it's

1343
01:16:02,199 --> 01:16:05,079
probably happening a lot more than they say, and there's

1344
01:16:05,079 --> 01:16:07,600
no cops in the town. Yeah. So you and it's

1345
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:10,680
late at night, nobody's there, and that person's drunk. Yeah,

1346
01:16:10,720 --> 01:16:12,640
I don't think that's I didn't think about that.

1347
01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:15,600
Speaker 3: But I and you load the body in your car

1348
01:16:15,760 --> 01:16:18,119
and then you just drive out of some peaks and

1349
01:16:18,159 --> 01:16:19,760
you're out in the middle and oer and you just

1350
01:16:19,800 --> 01:16:22,159
toss the body. Yeah, and they didn't search it. They'll

1351
01:16:22,199 --> 01:16:22,760
never find it.

1352
01:16:23,039 --> 01:16:23,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1353
01:16:23,640 --> 01:16:27,439
Speaker 3: So third theory kind of ties in with theory number

1354
01:16:27,479 --> 01:16:29,960
two as foul play. So this is where it gets unsettling.

1355
01:16:30,039 --> 01:16:32,760
Jim Reid, Like we said, this was the guy who

1356
01:16:32,880 --> 01:16:35,359
heard the someone yelling get in the car, getting the

1357
01:16:35,439 --> 01:16:39,079
fing car in the middle of the night, so retired

1358
01:16:39,239 --> 01:16:43,680
RCMP investigar Brian Smith, who initially believed the exposure theory,

1359
01:16:43,800 --> 01:16:46,600
changed his mind after interviewing one of Ryan's friends who seemed,

1360
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:50,119
like I said earlier, very nervous and afraid of himself.

1361
01:16:50,159 --> 01:16:52,880
He says his gut reaction that this most likely was

1362
01:16:52,920 --> 01:16:56,319
a homicide, not just a missing person, and a lot

1363
01:16:56,319 --> 01:16:59,960
of online speculation ranged from drug related violence to someone

1364
01:17:00,159 --> 01:17:03,920
at the party having a grievance, and sun Peaks has

1365
01:17:04,000 --> 01:17:07,479
a large transient workforce, so seasonal workers could leave town

1366
01:17:07,560 --> 01:17:11,520
without raising suspicion. The problem with this, though, is after

1367
01:17:11,600 --> 01:17:14,920
extent of interviews that law enforcement did with everyone involved,

1368
01:17:15,159 --> 01:17:18,920
there was no evidence of criminal activity, and Ryan was

1369
01:17:19,000 --> 01:17:22,399
universally described as a non confrontational no enemies, no debts,

1370
01:17:22,439 --> 01:17:25,399
no known conflicts. A lot of people thought it was

1371
01:17:25,439 --> 01:17:29,000
a pretty big stretch to say that he got into

1372
01:17:29,000 --> 01:17:32,479
some fight and was killed. And they think it's even

1373
01:17:32,520 --> 01:17:34,399
crazier to think that he was a drug dealer who

1374
01:17:34,439 --> 01:17:36,880
was killed and that he you know, over a party.

1375
01:17:37,399 --> 01:17:40,079
Speaker 2: After all this time, somebody would have said something, yeah, exactly,

1376
01:17:40,079 --> 01:17:43,640
there's too many people involved that wouldn't necessarily even get

1377
01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:45,800
in trouble for like, yeah, I saw him, or he

1378
01:17:45,880 --> 01:17:49,720
regularly was doing these nefarious things. Like I feel like

1379
01:17:49,760 --> 01:17:52,560
people would say that, Yeah, if I knew somebody that

1380
01:17:52,680 --> 01:17:55,880
I was a coworker and that I knew deult drugs

1381
01:17:55,960 --> 01:17:57,800
or did bad stuff, and then all of a sudden

1382
01:17:57,840 --> 01:17:59,920
he's missing, yeah, I'd be like, yeah, I think he

1383
01:18:00,159 --> 01:18:02,880
was into that. Yeah, like even speculatively, and it doesn't

1384
01:18:02,920 --> 01:18:03,960
sound like that was the case.

1385
01:18:04,119 --> 01:18:09,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think either exposure, I think that could easily.

1386
01:18:09,119 --> 01:18:11,359
But I think you they would have. They searched so

1387
01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:14,319
much that I think they would have found something. I

1388
01:18:14,359 --> 01:18:16,720
think likely I'm going with hit and run.

1389
01:18:16,880 --> 01:18:19,600
Speaker 2: I'm going hit and run or some other thing where

1390
01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:20,920
he got moved.

1391
01:18:21,119 --> 01:18:23,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think on that one, I think someone really

1392
01:18:23,680 --> 01:18:25,800
drunk hit him, probably in a truck or something. He

1393
01:18:25,880 --> 01:18:28,600
hit somebody. It might not leave a dent, I mean.

1394
01:18:28,680 --> 01:18:30,680
Speaker 2: Or I'm guessing a lot of the cars up there

1395
01:18:30,680 --> 01:18:34,199
are damaged already. I'm just thinking of like small towns,

1396
01:18:34,279 --> 01:18:37,520
like resources are scarce. It's not like there's a big

1397
01:18:37,560 --> 01:18:40,439
car dealership replacing car Like everyone's probably fixing their own stuff,

1398
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:43,000
keeping it running. As long as possible, like nice slide

1399
01:18:43,039 --> 01:18:46,239
off the road and hit stuff. You know, looking at

1400
01:18:46,279 --> 01:18:47,760
some of the areas, you could tell some of the

1401
01:18:47,800 --> 01:18:52,239
cars weren't great. So I I just because they didn't

1402
01:18:52,279 --> 01:18:55,920
find anything like immediately, I doesn't That doesn't mean anything

1403
01:18:55,960 --> 01:18:56,159
to me.

1404
01:18:56,680 --> 01:19:01,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, if it's actively snowing, and if he's wearing like,

1405
01:19:01,279 --> 01:19:04,760
there's not necessarily gonna be blood if he got hit

1406
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:06,560
by a car or you get hit with it by

1407
01:19:06,560 --> 01:19:08,960
a truck with this thing, yeah, and that lighting, that

1408
01:19:09,000 --> 01:19:10,119
truck already looks beat up.

1409
01:19:10,479 --> 01:19:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and they have the metal bars that like

1410
01:19:12,920 --> 01:19:14,479
like they're not going to guard. Yeah, they're not gonna

1411
01:19:14,479 --> 01:19:14,960
get dented.

1412
01:19:15,600 --> 01:19:19,079
Speaker 3: No, And there might not necessarily be blood from that, yeah,

1413
01:19:19,239 --> 01:19:21,640
Or like you said, if there was blood, it's gonna

1414
01:19:21,640 --> 01:19:23,960
be covered up pretty quick quickly and to looted.

1415
01:19:24,159 --> 01:19:27,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, washed away asn't melt. Yeah.

1416
01:19:28,079 --> 01:19:30,159
Speaker 3: I think that's a pretty good theory. I think it's

1417
01:19:30,159 --> 01:19:32,520
a pretty good theory too. And if the locals, if

1418
01:19:32,520 --> 01:19:35,239
that's what the locals think, like they are more plugged

1419
01:19:35,239 --> 01:19:38,920
in to what's going on exactly. And I mean, can

1420
01:19:38,920 --> 01:19:41,560
you imagine a resort town that has no police force.

1421
01:19:42,039 --> 01:19:44,479
Of course, people are gonna be drinking and driving. Yeah,

1422
01:19:44,520 --> 01:19:48,279
you're gonna just wherever you want. Yeah, who's gonna pull

1423
01:19:48,279 --> 01:19:51,079
you over? And we're not advocating, we're not advocating for that,

1424
01:19:51,119 --> 01:19:53,920
but I'm just saying it's human nature. Like I Yeah,

1425
01:19:54,039 --> 01:19:57,520
I just assume if there's no police presence and the

1426
01:19:57,560 --> 01:20:01,840
locals think that that's the likely theory because this has

1427
01:20:01,840 --> 01:20:05,600
a history of happening, that seems pretty logical to me.

1428
01:20:05,800 --> 01:20:11,039
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Or exposure, Yeah, it's between those two

1429
01:20:11,079 --> 01:20:13,039
for sure. Yeah. I just I'm with you on that

1430
01:20:13,079 --> 01:20:15,000
when they search so good in the exposure and it's

1431
01:20:15,000 --> 01:20:17,920
not like he would have gone far off into like

1432
01:20:18,000 --> 01:20:20,920
the woods. Yeah, it would be way too much effort. Yeah,

1433
01:20:20,920 --> 01:20:23,399
it was like one hundred yards an hour. Yeah, something

1434
01:20:23,439 --> 01:20:23,600
like that.

1435
01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:25,800
Speaker 3: If you're like drunk, you probably even slower.

1436
01:20:25,840 --> 01:20:29,079
Speaker 2: I mean, you just wouldn't do hard things. No, he

1437
01:20:29,119 --> 01:20:30,640
would go where you could. You would go to get

1438
01:20:30,680 --> 01:20:35,840
pizza exactly, Like seriously, Yes, well, so I'm I'm with

1439
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:38,479
you on that one. Yeah. I think I think it's

1440
01:20:39,039 --> 01:20:40,760
I will say, I am do you have like an

1441
01:20:40,760 --> 01:20:41,600
off the deep end?

1442
01:20:42,000 --> 01:20:44,840
Speaker 3: Umm? I didn't even think of an off the deep end?

1443
01:20:45,239 --> 01:20:48,800
We always just say aliens. Maybe last squatch. Yeah, you

1444
01:20:48,800 --> 01:20:53,039
gotta get more creative than that yet. Okay, alien abduction,

1445
01:20:53,119 --> 01:20:53,560
I don't know.

1446
01:20:55,199 --> 01:20:59,720
Speaker 2: I saw somebody said something like serial killer or something potentially.

1447
01:20:59,439 --> 01:21:03,840
Speaker 3: Okay, but they have There hasn't been any other reported

1448
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:07,399
disappearances in sun Peaks or murders or anything, or like

1449
01:21:07,479 --> 01:21:08,279
the cops are.

1450
01:21:08,159 --> 01:21:10,239
Speaker 2: In on it somehow. It was like an officer or

1451
01:21:10,359 --> 01:21:13,000
somebody somebody friends of the cops. So when they go investigate,

1452
01:21:13,119 --> 01:21:14,279
like I hit this guy and they're like, oh, we

1453
01:21:14,319 --> 01:21:17,079
haven't found anything. Yeah, wink wink. That could be an

1454
01:21:17,159 --> 01:21:19,279
off the deep end. This is all pure speculation and

1455
01:21:19,560 --> 01:21:22,600
listen for legal reasons. Maybe the resort is in on it.

1456
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:26,479
Speaker 3: They don't want they don't want that to like, it's

1457
01:21:26,600 --> 01:21:29,319
better to have him just gone missing than oh, how

1458
01:21:29,640 --> 01:21:30,399
violent happened.

1459
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:33,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, and scare away anyone who's coming there. Yeah. I

1460
01:21:33,319 --> 01:21:36,000
think yeah, I mean those are definitely off the deep end,

1461
01:21:36,039 --> 01:21:41,000
but I think it's just I mean an accident or exposure, Yeah,

1462
01:21:41,279 --> 01:21:43,600
that's well. In the accident and then I mean murder

1463
01:21:44,279 --> 01:21:48,720
basically manslaughter, yes, second degree when drunk, yeah, second degree

1464
01:21:48,760 --> 01:21:52,039
and then hiding covering the evidence, yes, because of freaked.

1465
01:21:51,800 --> 01:21:52,920
Speaker 3: Out serious crimes.

1466
01:21:53,119 --> 01:21:54,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not saying they're not serious, but it's not

1467
01:21:54,960 --> 01:21:57,239
like intentional, like I'm gonna go find him and get them. No,

1468
01:21:57,560 --> 01:21:59,119
like it was just like one of those things.

1469
01:21:59,119 --> 01:22:02,039
Speaker 3: So I will counter and say, if you're that drunk,

1470
01:22:03,000 --> 01:22:06,239
but suddenly you're that coherent to pull off hiding a

1471
01:22:06,279 --> 01:22:07,920
body in the middle.

1472
01:22:07,640 --> 01:22:11,079
Speaker 2: Of nowhere, yeah, but still okay, fair enough? All right.

1473
01:22:11,319 --> 01:22:14,760
Speaker 3: I mean we've coming from Wisconsin. Lots of people sadly

1474
01:22:14,800 --> 01:22:17,359
do drink and drive, and a lot of times they

1475
01:22:17,359 --> 01:22:19,560
can't even get out of their car when they get

1476
01:22:19,600 --> 01:22:20,000
pulled over.

1477
01:22:20,319 --> 01:22:23,239
Speaker 2: That's true. All right, Well, we want to know what

1478
01:22:23,279 --> 01:22:25,479
you think, so thanks again for tuning into our show.

1479
01:22:25,520 --> 01:22:28,000
We appreciate all of you for listening and sharing locations

1480
01:22:28,039 --> 01:22:30,000
and known with your friends and family. Be sure to

1481
01:22:30,079 --> 01:22:32,640
like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube,

1482
01:22:32,640 --> 01:22:35,239
where you can find the videos of each episode. Also,

1483
01:22:35,319 --> 01:22:37,840
if you'd like to support the show monetarily, please visit

1484
01:22:37,880 --> 01:22:40,920
our website or Facebook store to buy some cool Sweet swag,

1485
01:22:41,279 --> 01:22:43,960
and you can also subscribe to our patron account or

1486
01:22:44,079 --> 01:22:47,479
YouTube and Apple subscriptions. We all have access to special

1487
01:22:47,520 --> 01:22:50,880
events and additional shows for paid customers only. Lastly, when

1488
01:22:50,960 --> 01:22:53,720
enjoying the beauty of nature. Whether backpacking, camping, or simply

1489
01:22:53,760 --> 01:22:57,399
taking a walk, always remember to leave no trace. Thanks

1490
01:22:57,399 --> 01:22:59,079
and we will see you all next time.

1491
01:23:11,279 --> 01:23:11,319
Speaker 1: The

