Owen Rooney: Corpse Found.

As has always been assumed, but never hoped, Owen Rooney never made it far from that clinic.

His remains have been found about two miles away from the LKP. He was weak and disoriented and had received improper medical care. How far did they expect him to go? It appears he either walked off a cliff or was chased off a cliff by an unknown predator.

RIP

Owen Rooney. Canada. Grand Forks, BC

I will be posting shortly on the situation involving the Rooney Family and the events of August 2010 following the Shambala Music Festival and the disappearance of Owen Rooney from Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada after having received a vicious beating in nearby Christina Lake, BC.

Addendum:
I've posted before about the ever-present tension between the authorities conducting a search and the family members of those who are missing. This is common and understandable. John Ramsey wanted the roads and airports closed. One Texas family wanted to venture into rugged territory and do it so prematurely that any scent clues would be destroyed before searchers and search dogs arrived. In the United States, it is usually the county sheriff who is charged with balancing the safety of the searchers with the likelihood of the mission's success.

I've posted about the natural desire of family members to seek an alternative that allows them an emotionally acceptable situation. In my analysis of the Fifth Estate segment on Owen Rooney I contrasted the Fifth Estate's award winning segment on Eric Wilson from decades earlier. The former cop who was extremely blunt with the Wilson family was indeed on the right track. He was not tactful but neither was he prone to give false assurances or instill a false hope.

In the Fifth Estate segment Sharon Rooney is quoted as saying "when we've done all that we can do". It would seem that the family is likely to soon acknowledge that they have reached that point. The Horsemen have not been totally inactive but their focus has been relatively local. We wish them good luck, but they will earn no rousing cheers on this case. The cheers will go to the close-knit loving family and the friends of Owen Rooney.

The Fifth Estate segment on Owen Rooney

Please understand that I have great respect for The Fifth Estate and for the Canadian documentary series entitled The Fifth Estate. I've long admired the program but am disappointed in the quality of the segment that was recently aired in relation to the Owen Rooney case.

There is always a difficult situation when someone is missing. How much time and effort will be spent? What resources will be utilized? What risks will searchers be exposed to? What funds will be expended? What avenues appear most likely to be fruitful? What steps should have priority and what should be back-burnered?

I've posted before about the courage of the Derek Kelly family in immediately insisting that the RCMP consider their "missing person" to be a victim of homicide. Do you think the Derek Kelly family didn't want their Derek to be alive. I'm sure they did. Desperately. Yet they faced facts and they faced the RCMP which, if I recall correctly, took two years to officially term it a homicide.

I've posted about Eric Wilson's family. This decades old case is relevant solely because The Fifth Estate's award winning documentary on it focused mainly on the attitude of law enforcement versus the attitude the family was encouraged to take.

Was the Fifth Estate's program on the missing Owen Rooney a service to the community and to the family? There are different viewpoints on that matter. A family wants to have hope. Journalists are not supposed to go around dashing hopes much less taking pleasure in doing it. Would the family and the Fifth Estate benefit from a different emphasis? I don't know. I think so. I think it is the duty of the Fifth Estate to make a judgment and to exercise discretion rather than merely take press releases from the police and publicize them unedited and unscrutinized. A sense of balance, a sense of fairness and a bit of common sense should be the emphasis of the Fifth Estate. A great many things are possible, some are clearly more probable than others but an analysis should not avoid that which is unpleasant to contemplate.

The Eric Wilson documentary won an award. I don't think the recent show on Owen Rooney will be winning any journalism awards. Fair and balanced? We are not here to split an already fine hair. The RCMP did poorly in the Derek Kelly case and the Fifth Estate was not there to expose the RCMP to public scrutiny. The RCMP has done poorly in the Owen Rooney case and once again the RCMP has not been subjected to public scrutiny by the Fifth Estate.

Owen Rooney, Eric Wilson ... so what's changed since 1978?

Please Note: I've had this post held here in draft form for quite some time and did not want to post it for fear that family members might view it. Now that the Fifth Estate will be broadcasting a segment on March 11th 2011, I've decided to post this item. My regrets to the family and despite the content and tenor of this post, my continued hope that I am wrong.

Owen Rooney, Eric Wilson ... so what's changed since 1978?

The award-winning documentary Just Another Missing Kid, which was first broadcast on the Fifth Estate on CBC-TV on April 7, 1981, is an indictment of the apathy and bureaucracy of the legal system on both sides of the border. So what are the differences between the late seventies and the present day? Have law enforcement agencies changed their practices? Will they ever change?

Eric Wilson was 19. Owen Rooney was 24.
Eric Wilson was a Canadian citizen. Owen Rooney was on a working holiday in Canada.
Eric Wilson was last seen in the United States. Owen Rooney was last seen somewhat near the border of the United States and Canada.
Eric Wilson was last known to be in good health. Owen Rooney was last known to have suffered a serious neurological injury and to have been misdiagnosed and poorly treated.
Eric Wilson involved the legal system in Canada but primarily in the United States.
Owen Rooney involved the legal system in the United States but primarily in Canada.

There are some differences between the two disappearances but lots of similarities.

After considerable time was wasted by a variety of police agencies giving them the runaround, the Eric Wilson family had the good fortune to encounter a cop who told them "I'm not going to waste my time and your money running around all over the place looking for an amnesia victim: Either your son is a no-good louse who stole your car and is off somewhere doing drugs or he was a good kid who has been murdered. Which is it?" Yes, he said exactly that. Tactful ain't it! He was really and truly subtle in his approach to a very delicate issue at a time of a family's greatest need for tact wasn't he? There is one advantage however: he didn't bankrupt the family and let the case grow cold by wasting time looking all over the place for a non-existent victim of amnesia. Instead he started the ball rolling on a homicide investigation and he was the one who actually solved the case despite the "best efforts" of several police agencies and the FBI who all said "runaway kid" or "joined a cult".

The Owen Rooney family had the misfortune to have dealt with the RCMP who were only too perfectly happy to rubber-stamp the file as "Missing Person" and to leave it like that as the family ran all over Canada looking for an amnesia victim selling trinkets door-to-door. The loss of such deeply coded information as one's name is extremely rare. The loss of it for an extended period of time is even more rare. The loss of one's name while wearing a hospital bracelet is absurd beyond contemplation. The RCMP know this, yet they allow the Owen Rooney family to grasp at straws. It is so much easier on the RCMP to have the family scattered all over Canada tracking down dubious sightings than to have the family in Grand Forks breathing down the RCMP's neck and demanding action.

Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. Sometimes its the right thing to do!
Try to do it tactfully if you can, but call a spade a spade! You ain't sparing the family from grief by holding out false hope. You are only prolonging their ordeal. And what is worse, you are only aiding the perpetrators to evade capture. One would think the RCMP would know this. They had not learned that lesson when The Fifth Estate did the Eric Wilson documentary in 1980, let us see if the RCMP has learned that lesson now.

Missing persons posters, newspaper features, TV "news" puff pieces can continue indefinitely. What has been the result so far? A "sighting" on Vancouver Island as one of three door-to-door salesmen when neighbors report there were no salesmen of any description at all during that time. A "sighting" in Alberta of a person so paranoid he could not have been hired for any job at all much less hired as a truck driver for some employer too foolish to ever ask to see a driver's license. What sort of investigative leads are these? Is it any wonder the Horsemen reach for a drink rather than for the reins of their steeds and go galloping off into the sunset?

Perhaps its time for the well respected Fifth Estate to prepare another award-winning documentary. This time, perhaps they will focus on informing the Canadian people that their RCMP is not there to tactfully hold hands and talk nonsense about amnesia just because there are heartbroken parents involved. No matter how attractive the RCMP finds Owen's sisters to be, its not the job of the RCMP to plant false hopes in the breasts they are staring at. What are the Horsemen going to do? Ride off in search of the criminals a year later because they were too busy sitting on their duffs while jotting down a series of endless vague sightings of utterly no merit whatsoever? There are people who couldn't tell an Australian accent from an Austrian accent but let them see a flyer or read a human interest piece in a weekly newspaper and suddenly they are experts at Australian accents as well as recalling descriptions of persons they saw weeks before even though they can't recall what they had for breakfast that very morning.

Families are under extreme emotions at times such as these and are not always able to properly assess their various options. The RCMP are supposed to be professionals. A bruise or contusion to an ear lobe is one thing, but bleeding from the ear canal is a sign of a serious neurological incident involving leakage of cerebral spinal fluid and impaired cognitive functioning. Suggesting a trip to a first aid station to obtain a band-aid is simply an absurd response of a police officer who views bilateral bleeding from the ear canals. A statement that people are trying to kill him is not necessarily paranoid behavior. The whole world may not be trying to kill him, only a limited few. The RCMP should have been aware that those limited few would-be murderers know how to get to that first aid station also. And if those malevolent few should happen to arrive when the only person who can give evidence against them is outside at a picnic table, there is no reason for them to hesitate to get done what has to be done and which they came fully prepared to do. Mental impairment simply made their job easier for them.

Now just to continue with the parallels between the Eric Wilson case, let me point out that Eric Wilson was keeping in touch with his parents via roadside payphones. That was the manner in which things were done back in the pre-historic era before cell phones, twitter and facebook. No one is more capable than the family to know how many times Owen would routinely keep in touch with his friends and relatives. The family has a general impression of his cell phone use but the RCMP has raw data available to it. Surely the RCMP doesn't really think a person with electronics training walks away from a non-functioning cell phone. Surely the RCMP knows in this day and age that young people rarely venture away from the internet these days. Surely the RCMP should have the wisdom to know that this is not and never has been a missing persons case. Surely the RCMP should have the courage to admit that to themselves and to act accordingly. So which is it that the RCMP lacks: common sense or courage?

NOTE: Additional information recently released about the messages to a girl friend show Owen Rooney to have been severely confused as to time and place. He not only thought someone who was two provinces away was in his immediate vicinity but that for some reason he thought she was in one particular house according to the two men who severely beat him.

The Fifth Estate: The well-respected Canadian news magazine will be airing a short segment on Owen Rooney and the search for further information about him. March 11, 2011.

No Stone Unturned? An Owen Rooney update.

What is a desperate family to do? Ignore "low grade ore"? The family has to track down all these vague sightings and deal with the distracting calls from psychics offering vague visions and uncertain knowledge.

Those of us who are emotionally detached from the situation tend to focus less on amnesia and more on foul play. Therefore we focus on Grand Forks, BC rather than all these dream-catcher sightings on Vancouver Island or in Calgary. The family members do not have the luxury of discounting such sightings. Or perhaps they do have that option but choose to fully explore the low-grade ore because that is all the ore that they have available to them.

Reports are of paranoid behavior but is that a proper terminology for a belief in a limited few being after him? If everyone or if a large segment of the population is believed to be intent on doing someone harm, then the term paranoid may come to mind, but if its a limited few perhaps simply enemy is the proper term. This view becomes even more relevant when the loud argument at a Grand Forks eatery is considered since the people who accosted Owen Rooney were described as "scruffy looking". The reported argument in Yacky Jackis seems to be much more of a lead than these sightings in Calgary. Yet the view of the RCMP is that there is no Yacki Jacki lead to pursue and no efforts are being made or will be made in that direction.

He was severely beaten not merely "involved in an altercation" as the RCMP are wont to downplay the situation. The people who beat him may have become fearful of facing criminal charges and been unaware of any defects in his communicative abilities. Yet Grand Forks was searched and there were helicopter over-flights there as well. Since the severe beating was elsewhere there is a likelihood the persons involved live in Christina Lake and may have taken Owen Rooney there from the area of the hospital picnic table. Those who administered the severe beating and were perhaps fearful of facing serious criminal charges would surely know which medical facility to go to since there are so few in the very rural area. If they force or lure Owen Rooney away from the hospital it is clear they will no longer face any charges. The best way to beat a murder rap is to never be charged with it much less go to trial on it. This is true, even if the rap were only going to be Assault with Grievous Bodily Harm. If you kill the complaining witness, the case ends right then and there. I've no idea what animosity existed prior to the concert but the argument at Yacky Jackis and the fight at Christina Lake may provide some indication that he did indeed have enemies. Perhaps they were the same set of enemies, perhaps not, but if these were the people supplying the very colorful phrase "paranoid behavior" to the police then certainly the RCMP should be a good bit more careful. Certainly those who administered the beating, no matter how confident of their story being believed and no matter how confident of their legal grounds know that removing the complainant from the picture entirely removes any possibility of the RCMP ever charging them with any offense at all. No charges to answer to means no legal fees, no arrest, no trial, no risks at all. Given the severity of the beating that was administered it is rather clear that the persons involved have little hesitancy to utilize extreme violence whenever they wish to.

Sure the family must track down all these geographically remote sightings that presuppose an amnesia situation lasting several months, but what options do they have? Sometimes family members face reality squarely such as the relatives of Derek Kelly who insisted right from the start that the "missing" Derek Kelly should be considered by the RCMP to be a murder victim. Often its hard for family members to be appreciative of risks involved. One Texas family wanted to send relatives into a rugged area to search for a missing family member and was upset when Canadian authorities banned not only family members but all volunteer searchers. Canadian authorities wanted to preserve the scene for the use of scent dogs and the authorities also were mindful that the terrain was rugged and searchable only by technically trained and well-equipped teams. Often family members want unrelenting efforts expended despite the risks to searchers and the financial costs involved in continuing a search. Yet, I am mindful that many Search And Rescue missions have been terminated prematurely. One search for a man who is believed to have gone missing from a California wilderness area near his home was terminated promptly because of the risks to searchers, the expenses involved and the fact that there had been freezing nights in an area known to be populated by mountain lions. Yet some people, aware that no partial remains have ever been located, focus on a life of wealth and leisure and prior good moral conduct. None of his friends or acquaintances think he would knowingly expose searchers to risks or family and friends to an emotional burden of doubts as to his status. What weight should be given to these contrary viewpoints? Should the family members viewpoints be given great weight? Even those people who only knew him years previously have stated that while they hope he simply opted for a "do over" in life, they do not think he would be the type of person who would cause undue alarm or cause the expense of a search.

Is Owen Rooney without his wallet, without his hospital bracelet and without his memory as to his identity or his recent abodes? Well, family members often do want to cling to hope and hope for a person having severe and prolonged amnesia yet somehow making a living selling trinkets is a way of clinging to hope of continued life. Continued life is what the family wants most. Hope of continued life is their greatest strength but it can also be their greatest weakness as it is a source for distorted perceptions and evaluations of evidence. If he was severely mentally confused after leaving the hospital, he would at the very least have noticed his hospital band on his wrist as would anyone he encountered. Even if he was without any other identification that would be a clue to him and to others. Severe and prolonged general amnesia after trauma is actually quite rare. Deeply encoded memories such as one's own name are very rarely lost. Reports of his earning a living by driving a truck for a decorative stone retailer seem strange when one wonders how a mentally confused and disoriented person who is unaware of his own name and lacks a drivers license could ever have obtained such a job.

I too would hope that Owen Rooney is still alive. However, I'd be looking for him in remote areas between Grand Forks and Christina Lake. And I'd be looking for the attackers and the couple at Yaki Jackis. I would not be traipsing all over Vancouver Island trying to track down door to door vendors and I most particularly would not be doing this after I learned the initial report was by a woman whose neighbors all said there were no door-to-door salesmen of any sort for that entire week.

Is this analysis distressing to the family? Well, I'm glad they are probably not going to be reading it, but distressing or not, I feel that a proper assessment is that his troubles began at that hospital. I don't know if he actually did get up and wander away from that picnic table as is reported. Very little else has emerged from the hospital and its close-mouthed staff. So how is it that this "he stood up and ambled away" has emerged. It surely puts the hospital in a better light and I am therefor suspicious of it simply because it is exculpatory and is just about the only statement that the hospital was willing to make. He lugged those belongings with him all of that day even after the accident. He lugged it to the bus station and then to the hospital, but he amiably sauntered away from it after receiving contra-indicated drugs? Well, its possible, but I wouldn't put any money on it. He was in a confused state prior to the hospitalization and drug administration but he still had a concern for lugging his backpack around with him. Yet the hospital claims that they saw him simply get up and saunter off without any concern at all. Strange behavior on his part. Even stranger behavior on the part of the hospital and its employees.

Search for Owen Rooney, BC, Canada.

Owen Rooney ingested mushrooms at an outdoor music festival and became disoriented. He was clearly the victim of an assault that was serious and beyond anything needed for the defense of property or of a person.

His initial encounter with the police took place when he had two black eyes and was bleeding from each ear which gives rise to fears of a serious concussion. He accepted a ride to a bus station but left the bus station to seek medical treatment at a nearby hospital where he was clearly mistreated.

He wandered away from the hospital without the backpack he had taken with him from the bus station and without a wallet or cell phone. Not having been located in the Grand Forks, BC area the search was extended to Vancouver although simultaneous inquiries were made in Alberta since he had recently texted a young lady from Alberta.

The search is now focused intensely on Vancouver Island and the nearby Lasqueti island, a rural area famed for its counter-culture lifestyle. There are reports of him having sold Dream Catchers door to door on Vancouver Island. His Australian accent would be distinctive although his speech might still be slurred due to his injuries. The reports from Vancouver are doubtful to some since they all follow televised reports of an initial sighting that appears to be of dubious value.

He is young and used to traveling light but I would still have focused the search in the vicinity of the Grand Forks hospital and at truck stops in the area. I know he had a brain injury and had been improperly administered morphine which would have depressed his mental acuity even more, yet he left the exterior picnic table without returning to the hospital to obtain the backpack containing his non-functioning cell phone and other belongings. It is possible he merely became disoriented at that outside picnic table. Surveillance cameras at the hospital are few and do not have any recording capability.

The Grand Forks Gazette has editorialized about the inaccuracies of the social media and has stated that the Gazette will endeavor to provide reliable information but so far I've not seen anything in the Gazette about the police officer who contacted a man with cerebral spinal fluid oozing from each hear and merely drove him to a bus station. Nor have I seen anything in the Gazette about improper administration of morphine to a severe concussion patient much less to a patient who was so disoriented he could not find his way back to his room in a very small and uncomplicated clinic. I've not seen any explanation in the Gazette about the mysterious statements that rather than being a patient with a severe concussion he was only there because he had no where else to go. I've not seen anything in the Gazette about the confusion concerning whether the player had his wallet or not; he certainly had it when initially confronted by the police. I've not seen any Gazette evaluation of the SAR mission. The Gazette has complained of the inadequacies of the social media. Perhaps the editorial staff of the Gazette should be focusing their attention on the Gazette. I wonder if the editorial staff of the Gazette think that a Canadian who had just expressed concern over his belongings would get up from that picnic table and go ambling off to the western potato field and leave those belongings behind? Its not exactly an exciting destination and its not exactly well renowned as a good place for hitchhikers.