Multiple rural sites scoured in hunt for missing Calgary trio
CALGARY - As police continue to search for a missing five-year-old and his grandparents, they have also been looking at business connections between the family and a man considered a person of interest in the case.
RCMP and Calgary police officers intensified their hunt for the missing trio at three locations in rural Airdrie on Monday.
They conducted meticulous grid searches around a slough and on a separate fenced field, both near a 16-hectare property owned by Archie and Doreen Garland, the parents of Douglas Garland, who police consider a person of interest in the investigation into the disappearance of Nathan O’Brien and Alvin and Kathryn Liknes.
The five-year-old and his grandparents were reported missing last Monday and were last seen at the Liknes family’s Parkhill home on June 29 following a weekend estate sale.
A source close to the family said Alvin Liknes and Garland had a dispute over a business deal years ago.
But police sources said this is just one of several avenues they are investigating in the case, which has captured international attention.
Douglas Garland once operated an illegal drug lab on the Airdrie property that has been searched by authorities since the weekend.
Police were called to the Garlands’ acreage after receiving a tip that it contained a late ’90s green truck similar to the one that was seen driving near the Liknes family residence several times on the evening of the disappearance.
Police took Garland, 54, in for questioning on Saturday, but he was released from police custody the following day.
Garland was then remanded in custody for two days at Calgary’s remand facility on charges of possessing identification in the name of Matthew Hartley, a 14-year-old Cardston boy killed in a 1980 car crash.
Garland appeared in court on Monday and spoke to Judge Mark Tyndale during a brief court appearance.
While court records indicated he had identity documents in Hartley’s name three days ago when police detained him, Garland told the court during his initial court appearance by closed circuit television that he had not had the chance to speak to a lawyer about the charge.
Tyndale adjourned the matter for about an hour so that Garland could speak to duty counsel. When Tyndale subsequently ordered Garland be held in custody for an additional 48 hours during which police can continue to interview him, Garland said a quick “thank you,” smiled into the camera and then exited the hearing room at the detention facility.
Although he served a 39-month sentence for drug trafficking in connection with the drug lab operated during the 1990s on the Airdrie property, Garland’s last brush with the law was a 2009 incident in Airdrie in which he failed to yield to a pedestrian and was fined $575.
Police remained at the Garlands’ property Monday as search crews scoured a slough about 500 metres from the property, and officials began searching a third location — a separate fenced field more than two kilometres away.
Forensics investigators in blue coveralls walked to the slough carrying masks, brown paper bags and cameras.
Fire personnel were also on the scene and brought a yellow rapid deployment craft, which spent several hours scouring the water.
RCMP and police officers took a lunch break around 1 p.m. and when they returned, a convoy of police vehicles rushed to a gated property, more than two kilometres northeast of the slough.
At the third search location, about 20 officers and a dog entered the property and conducted a grid search of the area.
Officers also conducted a grid search through bush and tall grass on land across the road from the slough.
Police have not provided media with an update on the case since Saturday when police confirmed the search was connected to the missing persons investigation.