Surrey Mounties to profile missing person each month
Almost three years after a Surrey father of two vanished en route to Clinton on a business trip, the trail is cold.
Yashpal Mehay had absolutely no reason to go away, said police — he had a happy family life, no money troubles, no involvement with crime — and his disappearance is a mystery that haunts Cpl. Holly Turton, head of the Surrey RCMP’S Missing Persons Unit.
“He left a young family behind, with no reason to go,” said Turton. “It’s a real mystery, and there’s so little to go on.”
Mehay’s case is just one of 18 unsolved missing-persons cases Surrey Mounties will be profiling each month in the hopes of reigniting public interest and generating new leads that can help provide answers for family and loved ones.
The cases involve people who vanish under different circumstances. Some may have had medical or substance-abuse issues, some are involved in parental-abduction files.
Some may also have been struggling with depression or other mental-health issues when they disappeared, said Turton, acknowledging suicide is a possibility, while some, puzzlingly, left behind a happy life.
The initiative kicked off Thursday with the case of 36-year-old Stephen Begg, who was last seen Feb. 6, 2011, in his home in the 16800-block Fraser Highway. He told family he was going away for a couple of weeks, but was never seen again.
Police discovered Begg struggled with alcoholism and depression. He also accessed information on suicide and on starting a new life, said Turton.
“Without any answers, it’s very difficult [for family members,]” she said. “Without answers, they maintain hope, as we do, that the person can be found and returned to their families.” Surrey RCMP have 40 open, missing-persons’ files dated before 2008. Another nine to 10 are open cases after 2008.