Search continues for missing Alberta couple

EDMONTON – The mystery of an elderly couple from Alberta continues to grow as their children become more frantic.

St. Albert couple Lyle and Marie Ann McCann last used their credit card on July 3.

They bought gas at 9 a.m. on their way out of St. Albert, heading to a campground in Chilliwack, B.C. to spend time with their daughter.

But one week later, waiting in vain at the Abbotsford airport, their daughter realized something was very wrong.

She called police, who had already found the couple’s RV on fire in Edson’s Minnow Lake campground. The SUV that they had been towing is still “I’m just obviously frantic here,” said Bret McCann, the couple’s son. “I’m hoping they’re out there somewhere. They may be hurt; it just doesn’t make sense.”

RCMP say the McCanns’ motorhome, a 1999 green and white Gulf Stream Sun Voyager, was found burning July 5 just outside a campground southeast of Edson.

The motorhome was identified through licence and registration, RCMP said.

Attempts to contact the registered owners were unsuccessful. It wasn’t until July 10 when the couple was reported missing that RCMP became suspicious.

"We do consider it as suspicious because of the circumstances of a burned vehicle associated with missing people," RCMP spokesman Sgt. Patrick Webb said. He was unable to say how the fire started.

Webb said that when the flames were extinguished, there were no apparent human remains inside. Now that the motorhome has been linked to the missing couple, RCMP will conduct a more thorough search, he said.

"We’re going to do a much more minute search on the motorhome, to find anything that may give us an indication on where these people might be," he said.

Webb said there’s no indication that the couple was staying at the Minnow Lake campground, but added the RCMP will continue to investigate to determine if that was the case.

At around 7 p.m. on July 5, the Edson fire department responded to a call of an RV on fire southeast of Edson, fire Chief Alan Schram said Monday.

"On arrival, they found an RV fully engulfed in flames." he said. "It was totally destroyed."

Schram added there is no indication yet as to how the fire started.

The couple were towing a light green Hyundai Tucson with an Alberta licence plate ZPK 289, which is still missing. RCMP are asking for the public’s help in locating the vehicle.

The investigation now involves the RCMP K Division Serious Crimes Unit, in addition to Edson and St. Albert detachments.

Lyle, 78, spent most of his career as a long-distance trucker, often carrying fuel to Prince Rupert or Vancouver, or bringing meat or fish back, said his son. Marie Ann, 77, was a stay-at-home mother of three, now grandmother to five and a great-grandmother to one.

Lyle retired five years ago and the couple used to take RV trips to the United States for several months at a time. The RCMP handout photo of their RV was taken in Colorado, where the pair stayed in one campground for a month, lining up their plants and flowers in the windshield.

In recent years, they’ve stayed closer to home, and the trip to Chilliwack this year was the first of the season. But both of them are still healthy and fit, Bret said, “healthy, energetic and vigorous.”

Marie Ann and Bret’s wife went garage-sale shopping the day before they left, and Lyle helped his son chop down a tree in his backyard. “He’s fitter than I am,” Bret said. “I’ve never been worried about my dad driving.”

Lyle and Marie were both raised on farms in the Red Deer area. They farmed together for a while when they were married, then moved to Edmonton in the 1950s when Lyle started a small trucking company.

They’ve lived in St. Albert since the 1960s.