Police officers are searching a rural property south of Bragg Creek, Alta., for possible human remains, a Calgary Police Service spokesperson confirmed to Global News Tuesday.
The search is in relation to a historical missing persons case. The spokesperson did not specify which case the search is connected to.
“This is going back a few decades,” S/Sgt. Sean Gregson said on Wednesday.
CPS investigators have been working with their search team and K-9 unit, along with ground-penetrating radar as part of the effort.
Gregson said CPS officers have been searching the property along Highway 762 for a few days and expect to wrap up the search for remains of one potential victim before the end of the week.
“While investigators are on scene searching for possible human remains, this search continues in the exploration stage and no discoveries have been made so far.”
Gregson said police don’t believe the current or previous landowners had anything to do with the missing person, but that the property “is probably a location of convenience more than anything.”
“This is a situation where we have information that’s come to us that we believe it’s reliable and we know that there’s families out there that are seeking answers and we have a duty to help bring closure to the families,” he said. “We believe the information is credible, so we’re going to do what we can.”
Gregson said Calgary police have been working with the RCMP’s major crimes division, since the search is in their jurisdiction.
“We believe it’s related to one of our files, so they’ve been assisting us. We’ve been communicating with them. But as it’s our investigation, we’re contributing most of the resources for it,” Gregson said.
The CPS spokesperson did not provide details about the property officers are searching but said it is a wide, open field.
Gregson urged anyone with information about historical cases to come forward to police if they haven’t done so, by calling the CPS non-emergency line at 403-266-1234 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers.
“If you have information that we may not have, we want to hear about it.”