After a string of recent searches as the snowpack has thawed—and another search planned for the coming weeks—RCMP is still no closer to finding any new signs of a Calgary man whose burnt-out truck was discovered in the Pemberton backcountry this winter.
Marshal Iwaasa, 26, was last seen Nov. 18 by family in Lethbridge, Alta. His charred pickup truck was found a week later near the Brian Waddington hut, along with several personal items, including a destroyed laptop, some clothes, three smashed cellphones and his personal ID, which were scattered near the scene. With the Lethbridge Police Service serving as the lead on the case, Sea to Sky RCMP has assisted in the missing person's case through a number of ground, air and canine searches of the area around Phelix Creek and the Phelix Creek Forest Service Road, where the truck still sits.
"As of this stage, we haven't found anything," explained Sgt. Sascha Banks, Sea to Sky operations support NCO with the Squamish RCMP. "The dogs, the drones, the foot searches, the bike searches, nothing has turned up anything in regards to being able to identify something that's pointing us in a specific direction at the moment."
In the months since his disappearance, Iwaasa's family has asked the public to hand out flyers between here and Lethbridge, and have launched a Facebook group that now counts close to 12,000 members. They have also hired a private investigator to look into the case, but so far have not yet had any significant leads.
"We haven't heard anything in the last six months about him," said Iwaasa's sister, Paige Fogen. "No new information or sightings have been confirmed. We've actually never really confirmed that he was up at the truck site, other than his truck being there and his belongings being found."
The scene where Iwaasa's truck was found has only led to more questions for the family about the possibility of foul play.
"The most scary thing for me was seeing the truck scene and what it looked like," noted Fogen. "Knowing my brother, I don't feel that he would torch his truck. He's a very smart guy. He's into the outdoors. He's very resourceful. I fully think if something crazy happened and he somehow managed to get his truck up there, he would have just waited until daytime and walked or run back down."
In a previous interview with Pique, Fogen also noted that while being an avid outdoorsman, her brother had never been to the remote area where his truck was found and had never expressed any interest in visiting there.
While investigators have not necessarily ruled out foul play, Banks said police "haven't found anything that would lead us to believe anybody met with peril there."
Local police have also worked with Pemberton Search and Rescue to scan what Banks called "an expansive area" via helicopter. She said authorities were planning another search in the coming weeks as the snowline continues to rise.
"There are multiple glacier lakes and things like that and they're still not melted, so we're looking at searching areas we're able to and then as the snowline starts to come higher and higher, obviously that will give us additional grounds to [search]," she said.
The RCMP is hopeful with more recreationalists in the area as the weather warms up that some new piece of evidence will come to light that could move the case forward.
The family's interprovincial search efforts have also been thwarted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"COVID has definitely made everything a little bit more challenging," Fogen said. "We are asking people to go and put up flyers, but we haven't been when everyone was under lockdown. But people continue to share and bring awareness online, so definitely the power of social media was helpful during that time to keep things going and keep [awareness about] Marshal up and out there."
Fogen said her family would not stop pushing for answers until they have closure. "As Marshal's family, we're always going to want more. That's the nature of the beast of being his family," she said. "It's not everyday normal practice for anyone right now, so I can definitely see it being more challenging, but at the end of the day, we just want to make sure that everyone is doing absolutely everything that can be done to bring answers to Marshal's disappearance."
Anyone with information relevant to this investigation is asked to call Pemberton RCMP at 604-894-6634, the Lethbridge Police Service at 403-328-4444, or Sea to Sky Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477 or at solvecrime.ca to remain anonymous.
