Families of the missing put lives on hold as search goes on

EDMONTON — The doors are locked at B’s Diner and customers are fundraising to cover the rent as the owners use cadaver dogs to search the North Saskatchewan River.

Their son, Jeremy Der, went missing July 20, washed downstream during a camping trip, and now finding him or his body is far more important than the perogies and bacon that spoiled in the fridge.

Not far away, another group of family and friends will also be massing Sunday afternoon, picking up posters and donated packing tape to start another blitz along the Yellowhead Highway, one more effort to find St. Albert, Alta.’s Lyle and Marie McCann, the seniors who disappeared on a camping trip and were reported missing three weeks ago.

“There’s still hope,” says their son, Bret, trying to be the older brother who keeps everyone else together.

Der and the McCann’s disappearances are just three of more than 25,000 missing persons complaints expected to be filed with police in Alberta this year. Most are resolved quickly — RCMP report 96 per cent of their missing persons cases are closed within hours or days — but those that stay open drag for months and years, threatening to overwhelm loved ones left behind.

Families are stuck, unable to give up or move on, says Melanie Alix, whose son, Dylan Koshman, walked out his back door in south Edmonton and disappeared almost two years ago.

Her family still holds monthly candlelight vigils and is planning a new poster campaign this fall. She still speaks with police weekly, and is glued to the news every time human remains are discovered in Edmonton.

“Not to say that it would be easy to know that he’s dead, but there would be some kind of peace. We could bury him. But there’s no end,” she says from her home in Saskatchewan.

But guilt surfaces, too, she says. “I want him to be alive, and yet, as time goes on, it doesn’t seem possible. Yet there’s still hope. I’m so mixed up.

“The not knowing, the not ever resting. It’s continuous grieving.”

Der’s family has now been told his body might not surface until November, says Wells. “How do you come to rationalize when to go home?”

Al Young, a Calgary-based small businessman, watches families get overwhelmed becoming instant public relations managers and search and rescue co-ordinators on their own.

He started Missingpersonsalert.org last December after watching the family of a missing young mother from Saskatchewan struggle to e-mail posters between incompatible computer programs. The least he could do, he thought, was set up a website where families could post PDF versions to download and print.

He’s since been involved with 17 cases, the McCann’s case being the latest. Their Facebook group — Help us find our parents — ballooned to nearly 40,000 members and Young took over the work of answering 400 to 500 queries a day.

But even in that case, life slowly moves on. Speaking out through the media gave Bret McCann a sense of purpose during the first few days, but “I was dreading the day when no one called,” he says.

Now demands have slowed and an uncle warned him to pick up normal routines again. He returned to work for the first time Tuesday, worked half a day Wednesday as well, then hit a wall. He tried again Thursday.

Calling off a search before the mystery is solved is always difficult, but “a call has to be made,” says RCMP Sgt. Patrick Webb, a senior spokesman for the Alberta region.

In every case, police need to look at the circumstances and balance limited resources, he says.

Edmonton Journal