Search for missing couple not over, RCMP say

EDMONTON — A day after a candlelit “vigil of hope” for a missing elderly Alberta couple, RCMP officers are reassuring the public their search for Lyle and Marie McCann is not over.

Rumours that police have stopped searching for the McCanns are false, RCMP spokeswoman Doris Stapleton said Sunday.

“To be really clear, the forensic search of the arrest site and at the Nojack campground have been completed,” Stapleton said.

“However, I want it to be very clear to everybody, the search for the McCanns has not ended and will never end until we find them.”

Major crimes officers continue to investigate tips coming in, she said.

Hundreds of people attended a vigil Saturday night in the couple’s hometown of St. Albert, Alta., which marked three weeks since Lyle, 78, and his wife Marie, 77, were last seen leaving that city.

They were in their RV, towing a Hyundai Tucson. Two days later, on July 5, the RV was found in flames at the Minnow Lake campground, west of Edmonton.

The couple’s daughter, Trudy Holder, reported them missing July 10 when they failed to meet family in Abbotsford, B.C.

Their Hyundai was found abandoned July 16 in woods near Niton Junction, also west of Edmonton.

Last week, RCMP completed a search of a campground less than an hour from where the McCann’s vehicles were found and less than five kilometres from where police arrested a person of interest in the case.

Travis Vader, 38, was picked up in MacKay, Alta., on outstanding warrants. He is in custody and has been moved to Edmonton where he will appear in court on Tuesday.

No one has been charged related to the McCanns’ disappearance.

Edmonton Journal