Police “hopeful” trio will be found alive; will continue to search Airdrie acreage indefinitely
Posted Jul 8, 2014 3:29 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There are still more questions than answers in the city’s Amber Alert investigation, but Calgary police say this is still a missing persons case.
CPS and RCMP continue to scour multiple areas of northeast Airdrie land in the hopes of finding evidence into the disappearance of five-year-old Nathan O’Brien and his grandparents, Alvin and Kathryn Liknes, although there is still no sign of the missing.
Police say they will be out searching indefinitely, and some items have been seized from the site.
Items have also been taken from the Liknes’ Parkhill home and some analysis is complete, but investigators won’t say what those items are.
As for the truck that was seized on the weekend, Kevin Brookwell with the Calgary Police Service said they are still working on its relevance to the case.
Brookwell said there’s no indication at this point to believe Nathan, Alvin and Kathryn aren’t alive.
“We have probably close to 100 people still involved in this investigation,” he said. “We will continue to put the resources we need to into this investigation, and at this point, there’s no indication otherwise, so, we are hopeful we will find them alive,” he said.
Brookwell said there are other investigative leads, but there are no other persons of interest at this time besides Douglas Garland and he also confirmed Garland’s sister is in a common-law relationship with a member of the Liknes family.
The Parkhill home and property in Airdrie are still the primary search areas.
Insp. Garrett Woolsey with the RCMP Special Tactical Operations Team said the search area is several square kilometres.
“We don’t know currently if we’re going to have to search that entire area, it’s based on the priorities from the investigators,” Woolsey said.
Brookwell added they believe around 200 people went to an estate sale at the Liknes’ home the Sunday before they disappeared, and only 88 people have come forward.
Anyone with information on the case is encouraged to call police or CrimeStoppers.
