[Unsolved] Ryan Shtuka: Missing in Sun Peaks, British Columbia

A Young Man Living His Dream

Ryan Shtuka was 20 years old and living his best life. He was working at the Sun Peaks ski resort in British Columbia, Canada—a dream job for someone who loved snowboarding and the mountains. He had a close group of friends, a bright future, and everything to live for.

On the night of February 17, 2018, Ryan went to a house party with friends. It was a typical night—music, laughter, good times. Around 2:00 AM, Ryan decided to head home. The walk should have taken 10 to 15 minutes.

Ryan Shtuka never made it home.

The Disappearance

When Ryan didn't show up for work the next day, his friends became concerned. They went to his apartment—he wasn't there. They called his phone—no answer. They searched the area—nothing.

Ryan had vanished without a trace.

Search and rescue teams were immediately deployed. Hundreds of volunteers combed the area around Sun Peaks. Specialized cadaver dogs were brought in. Helicopters searched from above. Divers searched nearby bodies of water.

Despite the massive effort, no sign of Ryan was found. No clothing. No belongings. No body. Nothing.

The Search Continues

Ryan's family refused to give up. His mother, father, and siblings traveled to Sun Peaks and launched an extensive search operation. They created the "Shtukasaurus” to coordinate ongoing search efforts and keep Ryan's story in the public eye.

The family has organized annual searches, raised funds for specialized search equipment, and worked tirelessly to keep Ryan's case active. They've appeared on podcasts, news programs, and social media to spread awareness.

Between Grief and Hope

In interviews, Ryan's mother has described the agonizing experience of having a missing child. She says she's caught "between grief and hope"—unable to fully grieve because Ryan is missing, not confirmed dead, but unable to move forward because there are no answers.

Every day, the family wakes up not knowing if Ryan is alive or dead, if he had an accident or met with foul play, if he'll ever be found.

What Happened to Ryan?

Several theories have emerged:

1.Accident - Ryan may have fallen or gotten injured in the cold and succumbed to the elements

2.Disorientation - He may have become disoriented in the dark and wandered into a dangerous area

3.Foul Play - Someone may have harmed Ryan (though there's no evidence of this)

The Truth Remains Unknown

Seven years later, Ryan Shtuka is still missing. His family continues to search, continues to hope, and continues to fight for answers.

If you have any information about Ryan Shtuka's disappearance, please contact:

•Sun Peaks RCMP

Ryan's family deserves answers. Ryan deserves to be found.

TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] On a cold February night in 2018, 20-year-old Ryan Duka left a house party in Sun Peaks British Columbia, and was never seen again. What should have been a 10 to 15 minute walk home turned into a haunting mystery that still echoes through the local community. In this episode, we follow the emotional journey of Ryan's family, their relentless search, and the global movement that grew from one young man's disappearance.

Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Hi, Mandy. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing quite well. I've seen you twice today, in 37 times this week, but yes, I said that like I'm complaining. I'm not.

I love seeing you. It's just we've been very, very busy. We have busy bees. This week we have, yeah, we have subscriber content that's been recorded this week. We've had regular episodes recorded this week, and we've even had some interviews recorded this week. [00:01:00] So it's been wild. An extremely busy week. Maybe the busiest that we've ever had.

I, I think it is, and it really does sound kind of sad, like now that you're saying it out loud and I'm hearing it, it's like we had to talk to people right. For an hour. Like it's kind of a wild thing. It's so much more involved in that and I'm so thankful for it. But it really, a lot, it's a lot of coordinating that goes into it for sure.

Absolutely. Yeah. And so, um, but it's all been really good and I'm very excited about it. We haven't done a weather update in a while. We should let our weatherhead know how it is here. It's kind of pretty today. It is. Well, actually this weekend foolish, I feel like is a little, it's going to be a little cooler this weekend than what it has been.

Oh, yes. But we've been experiencing very summer like temperatures. It's been raging me. Did I tell you I got a personal fan that like I can connect to my clothes now and it's like the pictures on Amazon just show people like working in trees wearing this thing. When you said like personal fan, I was picturing like a person following you around.

It was just like, Hey, Melissa. [00:02:00] Never, truly never, I would pray for that person. Um. No, but like it's all like outdoors, like construction workers and stuff like that. And I'm like, I'm sitting in a little, you know, my little back room just editing and like hot as can be sweating. So anyway, yeah, it's uh, you know, yeah.

That's kind of been the weather. Yeah. But it's pretty today. It'll be pretty this weekend. And I'm very thankful. So anyone who's commented on the weather, thank you so much. Also, tons of Spotify comments this week. I have to go check them out. I did see an email that came in. It said Spotify sends us like a every once in a while to be like, oh, you have however many new comments this week.

Mm-hmm. And so this week I was like, I saw the number of them and I was like, oh, mm-hmm. Okay. I have a lot to catch up on. Yeah, there was even like a hi from Australia. I was like, yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. Um, all very kind and wonderful, so thank you guys for that. Yes. But Mandy, I am looking forward to getting into the episode this week.

Our dear friend Hailey, this is one she's worked on with the family. Um, all that to say that I've known about this story through [00:03:00] Hailey, through some of the pictures she's posted, and of course we'll get into that a little bit later. But I'm, um, I'm honored that we get to share the story this week. Me too.

Ryan John Marcus Duka was born on March 17th, 1997 in Alberta, Canada to parents, Heather and Scott. It was actually Ryan's mom, Heather, who worked with Hailey to produce this episode. Ryan grew up in the small town of Beaumont with his two younger sisters, Jordan and Juliana. Right from the start, Ryan was full of curiosity.

Though his mom described him as being a scrawny little thing when he was a baby. He quickly grew into a talkative and energetic kid who asked a ton of questions. Ryan loved being outdoors and could usually be found outside doing something. His interests included dinosaurs, superheroes, bay blades, and trading cards like Pokemon and Yugi.

O. As Ryan got older, he earned a reputation for being smart, funny, and a little bit sarcastic. [00:04:00] His mom said that he was perfectly imperfect, but he was a kid with a kind heart and a playful spirit. Ryan liked to tease people, especially his little sisters, which. Of course. Yeah. But he always would make it up to them in his own way.

One of his sisters, Jordan, remembered that Ryan would drive them to school or buy them snacks as a way to kind of say, sorry, without actually having to say it. That's such a big brother thing to do. A hundred percent. It's really a sibling thing to do anything to avoid actually saying you're sorry. Right?

Mm-hmm. In his teen years, Ryan started to pull away from his parents a little more, which is something that teenagers often do. He would occasionally challenge them, especially his dad, but he always knew that his parents had his back and he could go to them for support or advice anytime other than those typical teen growing pains.

Heather said that Ryan and his sisters were all respectful, responsible kids who never gave them any real trouble. After Ryan graduated high school in 2015, he wasn't [00:05:00] sure exactly what he wanted to do next. He tried going to a university for a year, but he just couldn't nail down a clear direction. I remember when I was that age coming out of high school.

Mm-hmm. Trying to figure out what I wanted to, what direction I wanted to go, and I remember being so frustrated, feeling like I should know what I wanted do and I should have more of a plan for my life at that point. Right. But I just didn't and everything, there were things I was interested in, but I would say I spent two years at college before I.

Realized I didn't even want to go at that point, you know, and finally just stopped going. I said, I'll go back if I, um, you know, come up with something I truly wanna do. And then I had my son. So I not, I ended up not going back and I, now, I'm thankful I didn't pursue the things I thought I wanted to back then.

Yeah. So I, I kind of just related to that, you know, feeling like I know I went to school, I tried it out, but still don't. No, if I wanna do anything, you know, there or what I wanna do there, that's just such a tough time in a young adult's life. Yeah. I feel like unless you have like, I'm gonna be a doctor, I'm gonna be a [00:06:00] lawyer.

Like those things that you know, that you know, that, you know, it's kind of scary. Like we're looking at that with my daughter. She's going into 11th grade and I've said like, do you know what you wanna do? She's eight. Like honestly, no. Okay. And how could you, that's okay, you know? Yeah, exactly. I'm like, you're still so young.

There's so much like life to live and things to do, and who knows what. Will even be available in years. Well, exactly. That's what I'm about to go down a whole spiral about ai. So let's, yeah. Okay. We'll, we'll keep, gotta move on. Keep on. Yes. Heather did say that Ryan was very smart. He was smart enough to do anything that he wanted to do.

He just didn't know what that was. Eventually he started working for his dad's construction company. Even as an adult, Ryan stayed close with his family and trusted his parents. He always turned to them when he needed help, and it was never a doubt how much they all loved and cared for each other as a family.

In late 2017, Ryan decided to try something new. He and his friend James made plans to move to Sun Peaks, which was a small ski resort [00:07:00] town in British Columbia, and they were going to work through the winter season. Ryan really loved snowboarding, so this move meant he could hit the slopes as often as he wanted to that winter.

Ryan was nervous to tell his parents about his plans at first. Which Heather thought was because he didn't want to disappoint them, or maybe he thought that they wouldn't understand, but Heather and Scott were very supportive of the move. They knew their son was 20 years old and wanted to experience life.

Ryan would only be gone for a few months. So really what was the harm? His parents encouraged him to make the most of it, and to have a blast. On December 1st, Ryan packed up his car and said goodbye to his family, giving his parents a hug and a kiss on the cheek before setting off on the nine hour drive from Beaumont to Sun Peaks.

Heather recalled that Ryan seemed anxious to leave that day, but they had no idea it would be the last time they saw him. Sun Peaks wasn't really just your average town. There's a population of around 600 ish people. Uh, it's more [00:08:00] of a ski resort with a town actually built around it. It sat about 60 kilometers from Kim loops and attracted people from all over the world each season.

And this resort had its own unique vibe. It was isolated and small and had a snow globe kind of charm that made it seem like it was truly in its own little world. Ryan and James moved into an older cabin near the entrance of the resort and shared a tiny room with four other roommates, including a guy named Chris from Australia who happened to have a lot in common with Ryan.

The cabin was cramped and there was nothing special about it, but. It served its purpose. Ryan got a job working in the lift department, helping skiers and snowboarders get up the mountain. His coworkers spoke highly of him and described him as genuine, confident, and well-liked. He fit right in and really had no enemies there.

Ryan loved his time at Sun Peaks so much that he didn't even go home for Christmas that year. He really only had [00:09:00] two days off, and so with this nine hour trip there and back, well 18 hours, that's like the entire thing basically. Yeah, exactly. You just be in the car the whole time. Exactly, but his family was coming to visit him in February, which they were really looking forward to in January.

Ryan told his dad that he had achieved 36 days in a row of snowboarding and had even landed his first back flip. He was super proud and really just having the time of his life. So Ryan's job at the ski resort was set to wrap up on April 1st, and he planned to return to Alberta around April 17th or 18th.

He was going to go back to work for his dad's construction company just like he did after high school. But everything changed on Friday, February 16th, 2018. The day was just an ordinary day for Ryan. That evening, he finished working his shift in the at Sun Peak Ski Resort and clocked out 7:00 PM. Ryan returned to the cabin.

He shared with his roommates and made plans with three of those roommates, [00:10:00] James, Chris, and Kristen to go out for the night. Ryan wore dark jeans, a white and gray t-shirt, a navy blue jacket, gray vans, and a burgundy baseball cap with a logo from a rugby club that he once participated in called the Northwestern Athletic Association.

Things were pretty casual to start off with, the group went to a popular spot called Massa's Bar and Grill, where they had one drink and after that they walked over to Bottom's Bar where there was a silent disco happening. I've heard of a silent disco. Literally just heard the term, but did not know exactly what a silent disco was.

So if you're like me and you're not really sure what it is, it's where everybody wears headphones and you can choose between different DJs and that's your music only in your ears. Mm-hmm. So the room looks quiet from the outside. I'm sure it's actually not quiet. It probably has like the ranges. Sounds like.

And imagine you have headphones on, so everything's gonna be so, um, like. [00:11:00] If I have headphones on, I'm like, I feel like I can't see normally. Right. Breathe normally. Like if I'm at the gym, I'm like, you can't huff People can hear you. Yes. So imagine like it's just like squeezing of sneakers and people like huffing and puffing around.

But it's cool I've seen. Yeah. You know, like from somebody's perspective and I can see how that could be really cool. Yeah. I mean, I. Actually, I'm interested in like going to one. I'm gonna look it up and see if there's anything like that nearby. I'm sure there is. It's the only club I would wanna go to for sure.

I would just wanna sit in a corner and maybe you read it. Sounds fun. But after leaving Bottom's Bar, the four friends then went to a house party on Burfield Drive, which was just a few minutes walk from their cabin. The party was pretty small and most people were fellow resort employees or regulars from the ski community that lived locally.

Reports estimate that there were somewhere between 30 to 50 people at the party, but Ryan wasn't someone who was known to party with strangers. He was a social person, but he only really did things like that with people that he knew [00:12:00] and trusted his mom. Heather said that she believes Ryan probably did have a few drinks that night, either at the bar or at the party.

At around 2:10 AM the party started to wind down and one of Ryan's roommates said he was tired and he was ready to leave. By that time, James had already left and a short time after that, Chris and Kristen were also ready to go home. The two of them left before Ryan with a third person. As they were all leaving, they noticed Ryan was standing up and it looked like he was putting his shoes on and getting ready to head out as well.

They were called that he had his blue jacket in his hand and they just assumed that he was leaving, but nobody actually asked him or confirmed or asked if he wanted them to wait up for him. That moment of Ryan being seen, standing up, getting ready to go is the last confirmed sighting of him. Ryan left the party sometime after 2:10 AM but no one knows exactly what time or what happened after that.

The walk back to his [00:13:00] cabin should have been simple and quick. It was only about 300 meters away or really like a 10 to 15 minute walk. Ryan had taken this route before down Burfield drive to a short path, next to a small stream that led straight to his cabin that night, though it was extremely cold outside.

By 2:00 AM the temperature had dropped to 22 degrees and it only got colder by 9:00 AM the next day. It was about 17 degrees. On top of that, three centimeters of snow fell overnight and up to 15 centimeters. More was expected throughout the day, Saturday, but Ryan never made it back to his cabin. He also failed to show up for his shift at 11:00 AM.

His supervisor actually sent a text to one of Ryan's roommates just to check in to make sure everything was okay. He said that Ryan had not arrived at work yet, and it was a really busy day on the mountain, so they hoped he'd be in soon, and that message was really the first sign anyone [00:14:00] had that something was wrong.

Up until that point, the roommates didn't even realize that Ryan was missing. They assumed he had already gone to work, but when they checked his room, they noticed that his ski pass and his work boots were still there, which of course doesn't make any sense if that's where he was headed, and Ryan would never miss work.

He was someone that was very reliable, but now he wasn't even answering calls or texts. Ryan's roommates started reaching out and looking for answers. They posted in a local Sun Peaks Facebook group. They sent messages to their other friends. They called people and they even looked at local security footage to see if Ryan was anywhere on camera.

But they found nothing. No one had seen Ryan and he wasn't in any of the footage they looked at. They called the local hospital, but there was no sign of him there either. And that's when they were advised to contact the police At 8:47 PM police were alerted that Ryan Stua had vanished because Sun Peaks is such a [00:15:00] small community, the local police known as the RCMP.

And Camloops was called into help. They arrived at the cabin around midnight and the roommates filed an official missing persons report back in Beaumont, Alberta, over 370 miles away. Heather received a text that no mother should ever have to receive. She learned that her son was missing. Heather immediately called the police in Sun Peaks to confirm her worst nightmare, and by the time she hung up the phone, she and Scott were getting ready to head out the door and go to Sun Peaks themselves.

Heather later said that she just knew something wasn't right. Ryan would never miss work without a reason or without saying something. Scott's intuition told him that something was wrong too. He later said that the hairs on the back of his neck stood up when he learned that Ryan was missing, and he also had the sense that something terrible had happened.

Ryan's parents got in the car and made the nine hour drive to British Columbia. Heather said it was both the longest and the shortest drive she'd [00:16:00] ever experienced. It was just nine hours of panic, dread, and silence along the drive. Heather kept checking her phone, just hoping for any kind of update, and that's when she actually noticed something that made her heart sink.

Earlier that morning, she had sent Ryan a really simple text message. It just said, good morning, Lovebug. But now Heather was noticing that that message hadn't even been delivered. Every 15 minutes or so, Scott had to pull the car over so they could just catch their breath. They were both really panicking.

The last time they had even heard from the RCMP was at 2:00 AM and they had not heard a word since then. So their minds were racing with thoughts that the authorities might just be waiting for them to arrive in Sun Peaks to deliver bad news. The search for Ryan began as soon as he was reported missing.

Camloops Police brought in search dogs to try and track Ryan Scent from the party on Burfield Drive, but the trail went cold almost immediately. Officers spoke with [00:17:00] Ryan's roommates and others who had been at the silent disco earlier that night in hopes that someone may have seen Ryan leave the party or heard him say where he was going, but nobody they talked to had any answers.

The police also looked into Ryan's phone records, social media and bank activity, but there was also nothing there. There were no messages, no transactions, just no sign of Ryan, but also no evidence that he had left Sun Peaks either. The police really had no leads on Ryan's whereabouts, and they told Heather and Scott to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

They said it was unlikely that Ryan would be found alive due to the harsh weather conditions. We have so much more to get into after a quick break, to hear a word from this week's sponsors. And now back to the episode. So before the break, we were discussing these first hours and the first real days of Ryan Duke's disappearance after a night out.

Camloops Search and Rescue, known as KSAR, set up their first temporary [00:18:00] command post at the ski patrol office on Sunday. RCMP. Sergeant Doug Aird explained to CFJC today that the focus was on a three to four block radius near where Ryan was last seen, but the fresh snowfall had made the search so much harder.

He said there's almost a foot of fresh snow. That's kind of where we think he is. But the snow was soft and deep, and a member of the search team said that if Ryan had stepped off the trail, there would be some evidence of that, but there wasn't. And of course that only raised more questions. The cold, of course, was also a factor, and investigators fear that Ryan May have fallen and been hurt or.

Maybe tried to take shelter somewhere and was exposed to the elements overnight when the temperatures were below freezing. Heather said she didn't think Ryan would've been dressed for that type of cold. He left the party wearing jeans and a jacket, no gloves or snow gear. They started to wonder if Ryan tried to take shelter somewhere [00:19:00] to escape the weather and possibly got stuck.

The RCMP asked the public to search everywhere, like in their cars, in their outbuildings, just anywhere they could think of on their property, and they also asked people to review any security footage, dash cam footage, or even trail cam footage that they might have from that night. Searchers went door to door throughout the village asking for any leads.

Nothing came up. The search for Ryan was one of the largest ever conducted in the area with authorities deploying every resource they had. This included canine units, drones equipped with infrared cameras, snowmobiles, and helicopters. The infrared technology could even detect footprints buried beneath layers of fresh snow, which is fascinating to me.

Me too. That that is. I did not think that was possible, so that's really cool. Searchers were also able to find trails they wouldn't have seen on foot alone, but none of these things led them to Ryan. The [00:20:00] searchers used poles to feel for anything that might be hidden underneath the surface of the deep snow Banks and Ryan's Dad's Scott dug holes in the snow himself desperately looking for any clues.

Scott even brought in an excavator to move large piles of snow in hopes of finding his son or even just finding anything that belonged to Ryan At this time, the theory was that Ryan was possibly a little intoxicated after a night out, and that he had wandered off the path and gotten lost. The terrain in the area was a little tricky with patches of dense woods and winding trails.

Just a few minutes from where he was last seen. Heather and some of the volunteers retrace the route that Ryan would've taken home that night, and it took them 18 minutes to walk it. But knowing that Ryan already knew this route very well, they believed that he would've likely made it in about 10 to 15 minutes.

But unfortunately, there were several directions that Ryan could have gone when he left the party, and any of those paths could have taken him off course. [00:21:00] By the evening of February 18th, just one day after Ryan was discovered missing, Kamloops Search and Rescue announced that they had completed all the tasks required of them for a missing person's case in that environment with no leads, no sightings, and no physical evidence.

They had no choice but to suspend their official search. They concluded that if Ryan was still in Sun Peaks, he was no longer alive. This was a crushing blow, but the RCMP continued to investigate. I can't imagine what that would feel like for Heather and Scott to hear after one day this search and rescue team saying that I, I know that like they have obviously protocols and stuff like that of course, but it does sound so like, it just sounds very.

I don't know. I don't wanna say insensitive because like you said, they're following literal written protocols, but like it feels that way, you know, to me a little bit. Right. I'm just like, there's no gray area. Right, exactly. The family ended up setting up a [00:22:00] command center at the Grand Hotel where they stayed for a couple of weeks before moving to Hearthstone Lodge.

Eventually they relocated to the P two parking lot next to the high school. All thanks to Ryan's family who continued running and staffing the center themselves. Heather said that the family wasn't given much guidance on how to move forward, which meant they were really all on their own and they had to take matters into their own hands if they wanted to keep the search alive.

So Scott and Heather moved to Sun Peaks to keep looking for Ryan while their two daughters stayed in Beaumont and traveled back and forth to support their parents. The Shukas stayed in the mountain resort for 14 weeks, combing every inch of the area where Ryan might have gone, but a lot of their time was just spent waiting for snow to melt in hopes that the spring thaw would actually uncover something.

Heather told the media quote, Scott and I will stay until the last bit of snow has left. At this point in time, we'll put our lives on hold if only for a little bit to focus on Ryan and make sure he can come home with us. [00:23:00] We'll wait until there is a 100% sign that he is not here at Sun Peaks and then we can go home.

We won't leave until he comes with us. Sadly, such a big commitment does come with a cost. Searching for a missing person is expensive and can be very relentless. There's travel fees, equipment rentals, and the cost of a private investigator, and those costs were all stacking up along with the emotional toll of just being away from home and still not having answers as to where their son even was.

Heather decided to start a GoFundMe to help cover these expenses, and their first goal of raising $20,000 was met very quickly. Within just eight days of Ryan's disappearance, the movement to find him grew bigger and bigger. Starting with a Facebook post and a local group that turned into a full scale social media campaign that even included an Instagram page a.

And the missing Ryan Kuka page. Volunteers came from all over to search for Ryan with hundreds of people showing [00:24:00] up to Sun Peak to search the mountainside for any clues. There were ground searches taking place daily at this time, which Heather said was so touching. She said that it was comforting to know that Ryan had spent his last three months in such an amazing community.

Heather didn't believe that her son had just up and left town out of the blue. That would've been extremely out of character for him, but she was willing to accept any possibility. At this time, she didn't know whether Ryan was alive or not, and she wondered if she as a mother would just have a sense about something like that.

She said, I wish I knew. On February 26th, a $5,000 reward was offered and that was increased to $15,000. A few weeks later, flyers with Ryan's face on them were posted all over town and banners and billboards went up around Sun Peaks and the surrounding areas. But the days went by and still. There was no sign of him to keep hope alive and to keep Ryan's name at the forefront.[00:25:00] 

His friends and family created a logo of a small green dinosaur inside a green heart. This logo was printed on flyers and stickers and search gear, and it became a symbol of the love they had for Ryan and of course for Ryan's love of dinosaurs. Ryan had been really obsessed with dinosaurs since he was a kid.

He used to constantly ask to play dinosaur guessing games where he would describe a species, and you'd have to guess what it was. He was actually so into it that Heather and Scott actually took up learning paleontology just to keep up with Ryan's interest. Melissa, you know exactly what that's like, that when I read that, I was like, I've never related to something so much.

It's like I thought of you immediately. I was like, this reminds me of Melissa and hers. Son, because he always has interests that just keep going and going deeper and deeper uhhuh, and eventually you get to a point where you're like, well, now I have to learn everything about this. It's so true. It's like you want to learn because it's a way of connecting with your kid.

And then like sometimes when they have these, like [00:26:00] things are so into, there's no one else for them to talk about it. So I'm not gonna just have him, you know, go off on his own. So I love that they were like, you know what? Me too. We're gonna learn paleontology. So awesome. So when talking about the logo, Heather said quote, dinosaurs lived a million years ago and yet we still remember them.

That too will be your legacy Ryan end quote. And you can't say that without, or hear that. Or read that without getting chills. It's just. A mother's love, you know, so the green dinosaur on the logo was affectionately named the Stu Osa, and it actually became the mascot of the search to bring Ryan home.

Ryan's family has always believed that someone somewhere knows something and. And in an effort to encourage that one person to come forward, the family has sent thousands of 3D printed green dinosaurs out into the world with a little laminated tag and a QR code that goes to the Missing Ryans Stua Facebook page.

It also has a poem on the back that reads quote, [00:27:00] you found a Stua Sours. My name is Ryan Kuka. I am Esca Sours. I'm a curious type and so love adventures. Of course, I'm traveling the world with my story to just tell of how loved I am and so missed as well. Pick me up and handle with care. Take a picture with me anywhere.

You can take me home or leave me right here. All I ask is your picture. You'll share just one more thing before we say goodbye. Kindness is something in which I believe it's how we get by. Please do something kind for his soul. You don't know. Random acts of kindness will help the love grow. So sweet. I love that little poem.

The circulation of the Stu KoSA led to Ryan's story going viral after someone posted one they found in the wild. Ryan's missing page grew by 8,000 members in 24 hours, bringing the total number of followers to over 70,000 in April of 2025. Heather said she likes to see these dinosaurs and where they've ended up.

She's [00:28:00] seen photos of them in temples and even in the Russian Federation. The dinosaurs made its way to 86 countries and has been scanned over 10,000 times. But beyond that, seeing the OSA travel around the world is somewhat cathartic for Ryan's family. Heather explained that if Ryan were here, he would at least have the opportunity to travel to these places all over the world and to meet the amazing people who are sharing his story.

But in his absence, the dinosaur gets to go do that, and they get to live vicariously through that, through seeing the photos and hearing from people across the world. So the family just gets really excited to see where the Du OSAs will end up next. Me too. The dinosaurs also bring awareness to victims of crime in general and can cause people to look around and realize that there's a disparity in how cases are covered and that there are so many families out there who need help.

In early April, 2018, the searches for Ryan shifted to focus on a different part of the village. [00:29:00] They brought in a helicopter, search dogs and excavator and more. This search was prompted by new information from someone who was at the party with Ryan that night. The person had a text message that may have indicated that Ryan left at around 1:40 AM rather than two 10.

Interestingly, someone else had come forward three days into the investigation and said that they saw someone matching Ryan's description walking on Fairway's Drive towards Eagle Court at 1:55 AM. This area was near the downtown area of the village. This person's tip was actually disregarded initially because the police believed that Ryan was still at the party until 2:10 AM but now that it had been revealed that he might have left much earlier, this information was looked at again.

There was also some confusion because the first description put out by the RCMP had an incorrect height of five six listed for Ryan when he was taller than that, and the person who said that they [00:30:00] saw a man that matched his description walking was taller than five six. So the police dismissed the idea that that person was Ryan.

How would you even know? You know, like that seems like, okay, the time thing, I guess if they're like, no, he definitely left it this time. Height thing that irritated me honestly. The height thing, the time, the time thing irritated me because it's not that much time difference. Like you would think that you would be looking into anything that happened maybe between like 1:00 AM and 3:00 AM or something a little bit, a bigger of a window and not just giving like a 30 minute thing and saying it can't be this, you know, that's.

It seems a little too close to me. Someone, one of the two of them could have, you know, one person at the party or this person that said they saw him could have been wrong about the time, you know? Right. It's definitely possible, but the picking out somebody's height, like just to hear, if you asked me if I was driving by somebody, I could not tell you how tall they were at.

No. I could tell you maybe what they had were wearing, but if you asked me anything about like height. Build or anything, I'm probably not gonna be able to help you unless you, unless it's very, something that really stands out in unique in some way, then you might [00:31:00] be able to kind of, but I feel like no close is maybe all you're gonna get from me if I have to describe a person.

Honestly, unless you were walking through, uh, like Wawa where they have all of the height and you know, like on the door right where you can see when somebody walks through. That's the only way I would know Your height. Yeah. When Heather found out that Ryan May have been walking towards downtown, she thought that was a little strange considering how late it was, but there was actually a pizza place nearby that was open until 2:00 AM and she thought maybe Ryan wanted to go there before going back to his cabin.

Searches started to focus their efforts on a very specific area between Burfield Drive and Fairways Drive. They checked for surveillance footage, but unfortunately they found that the cameras in that area were not working that night. Another thing that always drives me crazy. Same. Why do we have cameras if they're not working?

In May, the search and rescue team would return to search the area once the snow had melted and they had more visibility of the ground, and that same month the [00:32:00] RCMP announced that a man named Jim had come forward with a bit of information. He told them that he had heard what sounded to him like an angry or violent interaction near where the party was occurring.

He said he heard a man's voice ly say, get in the car. Get in the effing car. Jim had reported this to the RCMP and spoke to them a few times, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. But Heather says that where Jim was located was actually quite a ways from the party. The police maintained that even with this information, they still had no evidence of foul play.

It was also revealed in May that Ryan's cell phone had pinged at 3:00 AM on February 17th in Sun Peaks, but the exact location was unknown. This told Heather that her son was still in Sun Peaks. Not long after his disappearance, though many people doubted her since it had been so long and the snow had melted and they still hadn't found him.

But Heather remained hopeful that Ryan was just somewhere they hadn't been able to search yet. [00:33:00] Meanwhile, Heather and Scott were missing a lot back home with their daughters. Their oldest was getting ready to graduate from high school as Ryan's disappearance continued to devastate their family. Heather said at this time it felt like they were in some kind of nether place where they couldn't quite feel grief, but they also couldn't quite feel hope.

Every day. She said was like Groundhog's Day, just waking up, searching for Ryan, then going to sleep and doing it all over again the next day. After they had been in Sun Peaks for 10 weeks, Heather said if they didn't find Ryan soon, that she and Scott would need to return home because of course their daughters needed them too at the end of May, the couple made the tough decision to leave.

They knew that their best opportunity to find Ryan had passed, but Heather still believed in her heart that her son was still there somewhere. They planned to return in a few weeks to do another search and would continue to search once a month. Until the snow began to fall again in [00:34:00] February of 2019.

One year had passed since Ryan was last seen, and the RCMP had no new leads and were not sharing any information. They had followed up on more than 300 tips and sightings, including one where someone said Ryan was working as a lifeguard, but none of the sightings led to Ryan. One of Ryan's roommates, Chris said, I have absolutely no idea what happened to him.

All I know is that I don't believe he would've gone anywhere with people he didn't know. I don't believe he would've wandered off into the woods or was drunk enough to wander off without knowing where he was. I know for a fact he was young, fit and experienced in cold weather. Some people questioned Kris's decision to leave the party without Ryan, but he said he just didn't think about it at the time.

He thought if Ryan wanted them to wait up for him, he would've said so. And we've had a few stories like this recently where it's like a friend, uh, leaves a party Yes. And doesn't realize the other one. [00:35:00] And it's one of those things, you can't put that on someone. I you can't. And I do feel like, uh, I mean.

Stories like this are definitely a cautionary tale and to, uh, point out Sure. How important it is to make sure that you use the buddy system and that you and your friends always stay together when you go out, especially at night and especially if you're drinking and things like that. And just kind of a reminder to make sure you're reiterating that with.

See young people in your life, but it is very common. When I was younger, I used to always leave places by myself and or, you know what I mean? I would just even tell people like, don't worry about me. I'm fine. You don't have to wait for me. Just girl being a young person, you know, being like, all right, see you later.

See you tomorrow. Whatever it was. And yeah, you don't really think anything of it when you're that age. You're in your young twenties, you, you know, you're. Don't know, you don't think about things that, well, you feel invincible at that age, too. Like that's a huge thing. And it's not done in a, a, you know, a nefarious way where you're like, oh, I just don't care about you, so I'm gonna leave you here.

You know, and you can figure it out on your own. I don't think that's the case at all, whenever you hear about this, where like, friends leave a party and somebody kind of gets left [00:36:00] behind. But yeah, I don't think it was anything, uh, intentional, you know, that anyone left him there by himself. Sadly, though, time continued to pass with the no movement in the case.

Every year on the anniversary of Ryan's disappearance, though Sun Peak Ski Resort hosted an event called Run for Ryan, and we still have more to get into after one last break to hear. Were from this week's sponsors. And now back to the episode. Before the break, we were discussing the search for the missing Ryan Duka in Sun Peaks Canada.

And at this point in the story, his family has been searching for him. For 10 weeks and his parents have decided to make the tough decision to return home to their daughters. The search for Ryan continued though, and in May of 2019, drones were donated to the search effort and they were used to view sun peaks from a new angle.

The drones were a specifically hoping to spot the burgundy hat that Ryan was said to have been wearing the night. He disappeared and they hoped that the drones might be able to spot it better than people who were [00:37:00] searching on foot. By February of 20 21, 3 years had passed and the RCMP said they still received tips from time to time and they always followed up on them, but they acknowledged the fact that it was concerning that the police had so few answers.

At this point in the investigation, one member of the search and rescue team said that anytime he trains his search dogs, he always takes them to the area that Ryan disappeared from and hopes that they might find something. By this time, the search had shifted to finding Ryan's belongings more so than his body, which would likely not be intact after that length of time.

Later in 2021, Heather came together with the family of Another Missing man, Dominic Nien, to form the Freebird Project. This is a nonprofit with the goal of creating an online hub of information and resources on missing people in Canada. This organization was born out of frustration over the lack of professional help that the stukas received while they were searching for their son.

In March of [00:38:00] 2022, in honor of Ryan's 25th birthday, a forensic artist created an age progressed sketch of Ryan. The artist explained that in order to make Ryan look older, she made his bone structure and facial features stand out more and made other features more pronounced. A spokesperson for the RCMP said that the investigation would remain open until Ryan was found by October of 2022.

Many theories about what happened to Ryan had surfaced. Some believed that it was possible that Ryan was hit by a drunk driver, and the driver took his body with him and hid it out of fear or panic. A former Sun Peaks news reporter said there had been other cases of pedestrians being hit by drunk drivers late at night in the area, so the theory wasn't entirely farfetched.

But there were also no reports of a damaged car anywhere, and there was no blood on the ground or any sign that someone had been hit and killed by a car, which if it was snowy and everything, you would think they would have tire marks or something that would show signs [00:39:00] that a vehicle had gone off the road or something had happened, right?

Heather said she also doesn't fully believe in this theory because of that lack of evidence, and she believes that someone would have also heard the accident. Another popular theory is that Ryan overdosed at the party and the others who were there just got rid of his body. Gene Strong, a journalist for the Sun Peak News claimed that Ryan was using recreational drugs the night he disappeared, but no other sources actually mentioned this.

However, overdoses were very common in that area, and Western Canada was facing an opioid crisis at the time. Heather thinks the only reason people from the party would lie about what happened is if something happened to Ryan at the party. But if Ryan did overdose at the party. It really didn't make sense that they would let more people come over.

And Heather says that she knows for a fact that more people went over after Ryan left, which I think makes a lot of sense for sure. Like obviously you're gonna be freaking out. You're not [00:40:00] gonna let more people come over. On top of that, the ski lodge had a policy that if anyone overdosed, that would be no risk of losing their job.

They just had to call the volunteer firefighters for help. So. If that happened, why wouldn't Ryan's friends have just called for help? Which I think this is such an important thing that they have in place there, because there are, I mean, I lost a family member, right, to something like this because people panicked and they didn't wanna get in in trouble for, right.

And or people being afraid, right. Being afraid to call for help because of the repercussions of whatever you know has been going on or whatever they were doing. Right. And that is really sad that people die in those kind of situations because other. Someone is too scared to call for help. But yeah, in this case, everyone kind of at the party was familiar with the ski resort or worked there and would have known about this policy and would've been familiar with it.

So yeah, it doesn't make sense why other people who worked at the same place would. Not call for help if that was what happened. Yeah, but there had been really no indication that the overdose theory is based in fact, [00:41:00] and nobody from the party has said anything to that effect. Heather told us that her theories change day to day based on how they're feeling, but the reality is that they just don't know.

She said they continued to search in Sun Peaks because there's no evidence that would lead them anywhere else. Heather said there are two theories out there that upset her because Ryan isn't here to defend himself against them. One is that somehow Ryan was a massive drug dealer and was killed because of that.

Heather and Scott later found out that Ryan was using drugs. Nothing hardcore, just more common things that young adults would be trying at that age. But Heather doesn't believe her son was a drug dealer by any means. He's not even from the area. He's there for two whole months. Yeah. So for him to not only get into the drug scene but like become be high up, right?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Not likely. No. It would be pretty, pretty insane. So Heather also said that the last time she saw Ryan, he was perfectly normal [00:42:00] and there was zero indication that he was dealing drugs. The second theory that really bothers Heather kind of goes hand in hand with this first theory, but it's that Ryan somehow owed a massive debt for drugs.

However, Ryan's bank records don't support this theory since there were regular amounts of money going in and out. He had money at the time of his disappearance and it didn't appear that he was in debt. Ryan's sister Jordan told, never seen again that her brother's disappearance has affected her sense of safety, and now she's more paranoid about how she's going to get home and just has anxiety when she goes places.

Juliana, Ryan's other sister. Shared that since he went missing, she's appreciated her family even more. Heather published a book titled Missing from Me in December of 2022. In it, she recounts Ryan's life and her grief over his disappearance, and you can find this book on Amazon. In 2023, a woman named [00:43:00] Indigo Johnson published a children's book about Ryan's disappearance called The Kindness Quilt.

It's the story of a small green dinosaur who goes missing and the whole community works together to bring him home. Indigo actually first wrote this book as an assignment for her education degree, which I think is so. Cool. And just so yeah. To do a project like this for, you know mm-hmm. Really for Ryan's family, you know, and, and using, you know, doing that for something that she's submitting for her education degree.

Yeah. I think that's really special. But she was just one of many strangers who volunteered in Ryan's search, and she has since become very close with his family. Wow. 10% of the profits from this children's book go to the Free Bird Project, and that was the nonprofit that Heather, uh, had a part in starting up.

You can also find this book on Amazon as well. Heather and Scott still make regular trips to Sun Peaks to continue their search for Ryan in the woods that surround the area. There are green ribbons tied to the trees that mark [00:44:00] places that have already been searched. As of 2025, Heather and Scott either go up to Sun Peaks to meet directly with the RCMP or they will have a regularly scheduled phone call with them.

They have a good relationship with the authorities there, and they're all working together to find Ryan. As a reminder, 20-year-old Ryan Duka was last seen in the early morning hours of February 17th, 2018 after leaving a house party on Burfield Drive in Sun Peaks, British Columbia. At the time, he was wearing dark gray jeans, a white and gray shirt, a blue jacket, and a burgundy hat.

Ryan has blonde hair and brown eyes. He's six feet tall and weighs around 180 pounds. Anyone with information is asked to contact Camloops Rural RCMP at 2 5 0 3 1 4 1800, or you can contact Crime Stoppers at 1 802 2 2 8 4 7 7 and thank you so much to Heather Ryan's [00:45:00] mom for sharing your story with us. I know she worked together with Haley to put this together and I don't know this.

It just hurts, especially being a parent for both of us and hearing these stories. And there's no way to not put yourself, try to put yourself in that place, but you can't even, because there's no way we can understand what somebody's gone through, but you know, the love like a parent has for their kids.

So it's just, and it's it heart and it's heartbreaking to think, I mean, losing a child in any way or not knowing where they are or having them go missing. Mm-hmm. It's never, that's always going to be a terrible thing no matter what the circumstances are, but. This is different in a sense than losing someone in an accident.

This is having someone missing and just having no answers and knowing that they were just outliving their life, having a good time. Right. They were out. The last thing they were doing was something fun, you know? They were out having fun and just trying to enjoy the time. You know, enjoy the winter, enjoy this time that he was [00:46:00] spending up there in Sun Peaks.

Yeah, and that's just really. So hard I feel like to come to terms with as a mom is to think like he wasn't doing anything wrong. He was out with his friends. He was getting ready to go home for the night. Like it's just not fair. Yeah. And I think it's interesting what she said about, uh, being between grief and hope because he's missing you.

You are not gonna wanna let go of that hope because it's your baby course. You're always gonna have that hope, but then it, it's gotta be how you can't really grieve either. So that's like. Being in limbo. I, I really feel for her in that. The whole family in that sense. Yeah. Yeah. So our hearts definitely go out to the Duka family.

We will share all the information about where you can find Ryan's missing page. We'll share more information about the Duka Sora so you guys can see that. Um, it's really adorable, and thank you guys so much for listening to this story. This was a really special one that we were very honored to share.

And that was it for this week, but we will be back next week. Same time, [00:47:00] same place. New story. Have a great week. Bye.