Mother of B.C. man missing for a year travels to Banff after son's ID card found
The mother of a missing 21-year-old man from Whistler, B.C., travelled to Banff on Sunday in the hopes of tracking down her son, who was last seen by his family nearly a year ago.
"We want to poster the city. I want to put posters everywhere. If he was here, he travelled here somehow, on a bus, hitchhiking, he had to have eaten food here or something. Somebody out here may have seen him," said Heather Lynskey.
William (Willy) Lynskey was studying computer programming at BCIT in Vancouver at the time of his disappearance. In April 2017, his brother realized Lynskey hadn't come home the previous night and wasn't responding to texts, Heather told CBC.
The 21-year-old was last seen boarding a Greyhound bus to Edmonton on April 12, 2017, on CCTV.
He checked into the Century Casino Hotel in Edmonton the next day.
Cell tower records show that his phone pinged a Calgary cell tower on April 14, which led to Vancouver police closing their investigation.
His social media and bank accounts haven't been used since he went missing, and in May 2017 Whistler RCMP opened a missing persons file.
Sometime in the fall, his ID was found in between the cushions of a couch in Banff's Cascade Plaza mall. The maintenance worker that found the ID reported it on a Facebook site, but it wasn't returned to police until early March 2018.
"All the way through, the same thing happens. I get totally elated. There's some bit of information. I'm so excited to see that this is here. Maybe he's here, maybe this is what he has don," Lynskey's mother said.
"And then I find out it's from October or November last year. And then I'm deflated again and I go, oh. But at least it means his ID was here, was he here? Does someone have his ID? It just becomes a big question again."
Heather travelled from her home in Whistler to Banff on Sunday. She spoke with the man who found her son's ID and put up posters in the hopes of bringing her boy home.
"Our whole hope is to find him, or find traces of where he's gone and hopefully find him safe. I mean this little town is so close to Whistler. It's very similar and it seems to me to be a comfortable place like Whistler. It seems like a logical place for him to be," she said.
Const. Steve LeClair of Whistler RCMP said the investigation into Lynskey's disappearance is still active.
"His identification was there, which would tend to lead us to believe he was there at one point," LeClair said.
He said there was a possible sighting of Lynskey in December in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.
Lynskey's mom said she just wants her son to know there are people who care about him.
"Oh my god, I want him to know we love him so much. And he's so missed and we're so worried about him ... we just want to know he's okay. And if he needs any help, we're there to help him from a distance. Anything he needs, we're there for him," she said.
Lynskey is a white male, with brown hair and hazel eyes. He's six feet two inches tall, and weighs 250 pounds. When he was last seen he had a full beard and short hair.
Anyone with information as to his whereabouts is asked to contact Whistler RCMP at 604-932-3044
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