Private investigator takes up search for missing Merritt man

Jun 22, 2016 | 11:12 AM

MERRITT, B.C. — A private investigation firm based in the Lower Mainland is reviving the cold case of a missing Merritt man.

On October 22, 2013, 44 year old Dean Morrison went missing from the Stump Lake Ranch.

He hasn’t been seen since, but private investigator Dennis Gagnon believes there is a chance Morrison is still alive.

“I’m 50/50 on it, based on the preliminary interviews of a few individuals so far, there seems to be a possibility that he walked away from everything and may still be alive. The other aspect is that he would be deceased on the property.”

Gagnon says he doesn’t blame RCMP for not uncovering more clues into Morrison’s disappearance, but wants to devote his firm’s resources to take up the cause.

“They have a case load, they’re limited with resources. We are going to apply our resources, and then we will see what we can come up with in regards to any clues if he has run away, walked away from life, or if he is deceased. We don’t have that answer yet.”

Gagnon adds his investigators will visit Stump Lake next month to conduct interviews and carry out a search of the property.

“[We’ll] first search the property, and go over the last day of Dean, and put that together and then do an investigative strategy on it. Obviously the forensic interview of the last people that saw him – there were two of them – is going to be critical, and we will build our investigation on that.”