Not much reading as of late, but scrolling through Youtube, a few prospecting videos (but it doesn't take me long to catch up there), then a couple of videos on Missing Persons Cases.
Now, I've watched all the Missing 411 Videos, which describe missing persons cases with a negligent lack of detail and salacious amount of speculation. Intriguing, if you're 8 years old and heading off to summer camp, otherwise I'm going to go with "Bigfoot and Flying Saucers Can't be THAT BUSY...".
But I find another channel, in which a reasonably intelligent person goes through missing persons files then discloses how in the end the victims are found. In every case there's a reasonable explanation, whether it be a landslide, a concealed abandoned well, mineshaft, or simply lost outside the search area.
This channel, it focuses on American Cases, largely desert environs where you think that the search would be relatively easy, given the low scrub and rocks. But they're not, and people frequently defy expectation, which is why they end up missing...
Anyways, it gets me curious about a few missing person cases closer to home. And here, in the mountains of BC or foothills and brush of Northern Alberta, well, it's pretty easy for people to go missing as well, and with a much less probable chance of recovery. In cases where they slip into a river - and end up in a lake, or the ocean, chances of recovery are low. Same with those suicidal people that jump off a bridge. Then there's those cases where clearly those missing were likely involved in criminal or gang activity, so no longer are you merely looking for a body, you're looking for a body that has been deliberately or purposely concealed. Then there are the cases where foul play is suspected, a "bad date" with a known violent offender who had access to a boat, a bitter divorce, custody battles, or last year the case of a certain missing person from Creston who, if you took the time to Google, had been charged with fraud the year prior, going to businesses door to door, and clearly I'd postulate the ill-will he generated caught up to him. There are quite a few like that, heartbreaking when the campaign to bring a mother's son home is renewed every couple of years, and when the only people who know what happened have themselves deceased, and there is no hope of closure. Despite the 'peaceable' nature of the Kootenays there are more than a few cases like that, where people don't trust the police to deal with matters in an efficient way and so take things upon themselves. These, find the right subreddit or Youtube video, will invariably unravel, the only thing left is to find the remains, which as I mentioned earlier can be nigh on impossible given the intentional or purposeful disposal of evidence.
And then there are those that simply disappear. Which is compelling, in that the mind (or mine at least) rebels against the mystery these cases present - think of the missing kid at Shambala a couple of years ago, who clearly had not recovered from the party, ran off into the woods, and was never seen of again. And too many more to list. The problem with these cases is that there's never enough information provided for you to make an accurate prediction as to what happened, or where they may be, people close to them/and the police rarely make public the victims state of mind, their associations, their possible motivations or intentions, etc. And so you're left with this indigestible mystery, not that's it in anyway a mystery, only you haven't been given enough information to figure it out.
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So a dark media diet that does my soul no good whatsoever. But there was one story, very curious I thought, and it's not anecdotal - the Youtube host highlighted the relevant bits in the police report. About a hunter that had went missing, 1968, and after several search parties and thousands of hours of searching it was abandoned.
Fast forward almost 50 years and another hunter stumbles across a partial set of remains, beneath a cliff, the hunter had been crushed by a very large falling rock which left very little visible by way of remains, only the skull and femurs projecting beneath the rock. A proper Wyle-Coyote.
When the assigned deputy went to notify the next of kin he tracked down the grand-daughter, who put him in touch with the wife, now in a home with early dementia. And she advised him she knew, that her husband had come to her the night before, told her where he was (and she gave the location, the same as the deputy had) and that he was coming home and would be seeing her soon...only, she had understood he'd be coming home alive but now understood he wouldn't. The deputy noted it was the most extraordinary interview he'd ever conducted.
But that's a different blog post, and the nearer you get the thinner the veil...