Monday marks the second anniversary since the Northern Thunderbird Air hangar went up in flames at the Prince George Airport, and the day the building's co-owner, Vern Martin, went missing.
Some members of Martin's large and widely-spread family have the same question now they did 730 days ago: where is he? And also, why are some other members of the family being so aloof?
Very little is publicly known about those final hours of Martin's activities. His truck was found parked in front of the inferno. He had an office upstairs in the hangar, in the general vicinity of where the fire seemingly started. There were confirmed sightings of him at the airport within 24 hours of the fire. All personal transactions on phones and financial accounts halted at that general time.
Some presume him dead, some hold out hope he is alive but police have one confirmed forensic fact: wherever Vern Martin is, he wasn't in the ashes of the hangar.
"No, no comment, I won't comment on any of it," Les Martin, one of Vern Martin's brothers, told The Citizen on Friday.
Attempts to reach other family members resulted in a similar reluctance to comment.
But some wondered out loud why so many in the family were holding back. The families of many missing people hope to draw out information and motivate investigators.
"They aren't behaving like people looking for a missing loved one," said Tannis Edwards, a niece of Martin's who felt a strong affinity for her missing uncle. "They are behaving like people who already know the answers. I've had people in the family say we are under a gag order. There is no such thing. There is no gag order except a few old men who don't want any of this talked about. So why not? Why don't they want anyone to talk?"
Greg Bunton wonders the same thing. He was Vern Martin's brother-in-law. His sister Beverley was married to Martin for 14 years until her passing in 2007. The two men remained close friends afterwards.
"Vern was at my house [in Alberta where Martin had business interests] a week before this all happened and I know he was called back to P.G. for a family meeting under false pretenses," Bunton said.
"He was told it was about one thing, but when he got there he found out it was about something else. I also talked to someone else who was in the meeting and I was told it got very, very ugly. There was a big confrontation centred on Vern."
No one is accusing anyone in Vern Martin's family of anything nefarious, said Bunton, only that "There is something weird going on. Too weird.
"It doesn't make any sense."
Prince George RCMP are also puzzled.
"Make no mistake about it, we do not know where he is," said police spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass.
"It is still under investigation and anybody in the public who has information is encouraged to call us. We have and we will continue to make every effort to locate him, and that effort is tied to the information we receive about the circumstances."
"I think it really does depend on someone who knows something stepping up and speaking to the police about what they know," said Edwards.
"I know that someone knows something that hasn't come to light."
The Prince George RCMP can be reached at 250-561-3300. Anonymous and untraceable information can be provided to the Crime Stoppers phone number (1-800-222-TIPS) or website (www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca).
