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By Dylana Kneeshaw

SEARCHING

Weekend search for Ryan Shtuka and Shannon White bears no fruit; future outings planned for SRD K9s

Jun 27, 2022 | 4:35 PM

KAMLOOPS — A team of around 20 volunteers and three search dogs combed through the Heffley Creek area over the weekend, searching for Ryan Shtuka and Shannon White. Both have become high profile missing person cases in the Kamloops area in the past several years.

Ryan Shtuka went missing in February of 2018 after leaving a party in Sun Peaks. Shannon White hasn’t been seen since leaving for work on November 1 of last year.

Both cases are separate missing person files however some search areas around the Kamloops area overlap. This weekend, Mike Ritcey with the Search Rescue Detection K9s of BC (SRD K9s) says he and several others teamed up to target the Heffley backcountry.

“There was a group searching the side hill. It was pretty hot and hats off to them, they did an excellent job and covered a lot of country. And then there was a group of us down along the creek, in the creek looking in log jams and stuff like that over the bank. A lot of area was covered,” Ritcey explains. “Unfortunately we never found anything — but there again, we’re making the search area smaller.”

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According to Ritcey, the SRD K9s new facility in Kamloops will be opened soon. And volunteers and their dogs plan to continue searching for long term missing people — including Ryan Shtuka and Shannon White.

“For me, I’ve been lucky enough to bring people back to people that have been lost. And the feeling that it gives them, you can see it’s worth it,” he adds.