‘A nightmare’: B.C. family struggles for answers after son Jeff Surtel vanished 10 years ago

For an entire year, Dawn Surtel thought about ending her life following the disappearance of her son from their home in Mission, B.C.

Seventeen-year-old Jeff Surtel vanished just after midnight on April 29, 2007. He was last seen by neighbours riding a blue CCM mountain bike, with a yellow fork.

WATCH: Mission family appeals for information on missing son

1:49 Mission family appeals for information on missing son

Despite weeks of searching in the heavily wooded areas of Mission and Hatzic, just over an hour’s drive from Vancouver, neither he or the bike have ever been found.

“It’s been a nightmare,” Dawn Surtel told Global News. “I didn’t eat for a week. Not one drop of food, I couldn’t sleep.

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A decade later, the family is still haunted by Jeff’s disappearance and continue to search for their beloved son, who would have turned 27 in February.

“It’s never-ending. There is not one day that goes by that I don’t think about Jeff,” said his father, Gary Surtel. “He’s always in the back of my mind. I look at every young man I pass on the street or I see anywhere I look. I am always looking for his bike. It has never gone away.”

WATCH: Parents of Jeff Surtel issue plea for missing son

0:34 ‘If anyone can help us in any way’: Parents plea for missing son

Gary remembers sitting and quietly talking with his teenage son in the front room of their home in Mission the night before he vanished. Jeff had been upset after being grounded from the computer for a week after receiving poor grades on his report card.

“I said ‘Goodnight,’ and I went up to bed and that was the last time I ever saw him,” he said. “It was absolute dread. Just in the pit of your stomach.

“You’re hoping that he took off and he’ll be found, or he’ll come back in a day or two. But it was just dread, that’s all I can say — it’s the worst thing.”

With the 10-year anniversary of his disappearance on Saturday, the Surtel family and police are hoping someone will come forward with new information.

Dawn says she’s convinced something happened that night in April of 2007, and that he didn’t just run away.

“He got hit by a car, something happened and somebody covered it up,” Dawn said. “I think those people that know what happened, need to come forward and just tell somebody. Tell the police.”

The latest numbers from RCMP’s National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) shows there were 45,288 reports of missing children in 2015. However, 58 per cent of those reports are removed within 24 hours, and 91 per cent were removed within a week after the children are found.

The CanadasMissing.ca website currently lists 155 missing persons’ cases involving children under 18.

READ MORE: Diana Saunders still searches for her 3 missing sons

Const. James Mason, with Mission RCMP, says there have been a number of tips over the years, most of them in relation to potential sightings, but nothing has led to Jeff’s whereabouts.

“In regards to Jeff’s disappearance, the circumstances behind his disappearance are unknown at this time,” he told Global News. “We are hoping that this interview is going to renew attention to the file and encourage anyone that has information … to come forward and contact police.”

Mason says with cases involving long periods of time, investigators can be hampered as people with vital information may move, people are unaware they have important information, or those with information may no longer be alive.

READ MORE: Crimes involving children especially ‘devastating’ for police, experts say

However, he says the investigation is still an open and active missing person’s case, and there is no evidence to suspect foul play.

“There has been nothing so far in the investigation that would lead us to believe that in the disappearance of Jeff Surtel, there is any involvement of foul play,” Mason said. “We would definitely consider bringing in a homicide investigation team, should the investigation lead us in that direction.”

But with so few answers in their son’s disappearance, the Surtel family is wondering if Jeff could be among the hundreds of unidentified remains lying in morgues and cemeteries across Canada.

Canada’s missing-persons DNA databank delayed

0:33 Gary Surtel says it was ‘absolute dread’ when he realized his son was missing

WATCH ABOVE: Gary Surtel says it was ‘absolute dread’ when he realized his son was missing

They also believe Canada’s long-awaited national missing-persons DNA databank could be the key to giving them closure.

The RCMP said in a statement there are currently 588 sets of unidentified remains in Canada. The Ontario Coroner’s Office said in an email the province currently has 245 unidentified remains, while the BC Coroners Service says it has 182 unidentified cases.

Victims’ families say the DNA databank could be instrumental in helping coroners and police solve cases by comparing the DNA of missing persons with samples taken from unidentified human remains across the country. It would also be connected to the RCMP’s national DNA databank, which contains evidence from crime scenes and those convicted of a criminal.

READ MORE: More than 20 years later, Celine Ethier still searches for answers in daughter’s disappearance

The DNA-based databank has faced delay after delay, following the first public consultations that were held in 2005. Formal legislation was introduced by the former Conservative government in 2014, along with an $8 million budget for the missing persons index.

Judy Peterson, whose daughter Lindsey disappeared at the age of 14 in 1993, has been a key advocate behind the measure and has pleaded with seven different public safety ministers for this tool that could help hundreds of Canadian families find peace.

“Obviously I’m frustrated… I was frustrated then in 2014, when they told me it would be 2017,” she told Global News.

“Now, to be told two months before it’s supposed to be live, now it’s going to be another year, it’s really disappointing and I was so looking forward to having it go live and having seen some results from it.”

READ MORE: Putting a name to human remains

The databank was expected to be launched in April 2017, but Peterson and other families across Canada were let down when Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale announced in February it would be delayed until 2018.

“This is not just about my case or the millions of people that know all these missing people, and getting them some sort of comfort of knowing what happened,” Peterson said.

“It’s the fact that this is going to be a tool so that police can actually do some investigation on cold cases, and cases where they have nowhere to start.”

Public Safety Canada says they remain committed to the National Missing Persons DNA Program and “is currently examining how best to implement the program as soon as possible.”

“To ensure the responsible use of taxpayer dollars, as well as the usefulness of this tool for investigators across Canada, the government is reviewing the program’s service delivery model,” a spokesperson for Public Safety Canada said in an email. “The government will look to implement the program early in 2018.”

Meanwhile, the Surtel family continues to be tortured by the unanswered questions in their son’s disappearance.

“When you don’t have answers, you make up stories that maybe he is married and living with children in Alberta. Maybe he is a drug addict living on the street,” Dawn said. “It goes from bad to worse, and you just gotta pick a story that you can live with.”

Anyone with information regarding Jeff’s disappearance is asked to contact the Mission RCMP directly at 604-826-7161 or by email at bcrcmp@rcmp-grc.gc.ca. To remain anonymous, contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS). Safety tips and information about missing children can also be found at missingkids.ca.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection continues to provide support to the Surtel family in the search for Jeff and dozens of other families across Canada. The Centre has caseworkers on call 24-7 to assist families when a child is missing and can be reached at 1-866-543-8477 (1-866-KID-TIPS) to access support. 

— With additional reporting from Adam Miller and Ricardo Serrano