Nearly two years after her teenage son was last seen at a Prince George, B.C., motel, Phyllis Fleury is still searching for a sign that he’s OK.
Colten Fleury was 16 when he was reported missing on May 4, 2018, with RCMP scouring northern B.C. for weeks without success. Appeals to the public have also been fruitless.
Over the weekend, Fleury made the 780-kilometre journey to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for the 10th time since her son’s disappearance, once again following up on tips that the teen may have been spotted there.
“They’ve seen him here,” she said Sunday, as she spoke to people throughout the community. “Someone’s seen him.”
Colten was in the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development before his disappearance, living in a Prince George group home.
He was last seen the night of May 3, 2018, when he stayed with his mother at the downtown motel where she lived and worked. It was Colten’s first day back in her care.
“He got up at 7 in the morning, he didn’t bring no clothes, and he just left out the door,” Fleury said.
“I rolled over and I thought he was going to the bathroom. We checked all the cameras later and he just walked away … and we’ve never seen him again.”
Fleury’s trips to the Downtown Eastside are the same each time: handing out pictures to anyone who will stop and listen to her pleas for help, taping new posters to hydro poles.
As she talked to people in alleys and on the streets during this latest trip, she says she’s heard similar stories of someone seeing a boy who looks like her son.
Colten will turn 19 in October, and Fleury says she just wants to make sure her son is safe and healthy.
“I’m not here to take him home,” she said, holding back tears. “I’m not here to put him back in ministry care. I just want a hug from him and to tell him that I love him.”
Colten is described as a First Nations man, 5’8″ tall and 120 pounds, with brown eyes and short brown hair. He was last seen wearing a red hoodie and jeans.
In the past, RCMP have asked anyone who communicated with Colten through Facebook Messenger to reach out to investigators, along with anyone who knows people communicating with the teen.
Prince George RCMP are still asking anyone who sees Colten to contact them, or to submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers.
—With files from Grace Ke