Whereabouts Unknown

Five-year-old Nathan O'Brien and his grandparents, Alvin and Kathryn Liknes are still missing, their whereabouts unknown, but hopes that they have survived the initial ordeal of abduction after someone of their number had sustained injuries following a violent upheaval in the home of the grandparents, are low. Given the circumstances and that nothing has as yet been discovered, indications seem that they have perished.

Coincidentally, in Ontario, a burned-out car was discovered with the bodies of three people burned beyond recognition, and there was some thought it might have been the three missing Calgarians. It appears that a father with his two pre-teens are likely the victims of a gruesome event, and that is another story whose details will be revealed in the press over the next little while, but of the presence of the three missing from Calgary; nothing.

Someone identified as a person of interest was taken into custody. The suspicious green truck that had been seen in the neighbourhood prior to the abduction had led to a tip to police, drawing them to a rural Alberta property. Since that time police have been scouring the fields on the 16-hectare farm in Airdrie, north of Calgary, hoping to find something that could lead to the presence of the young boy and his grandparents.

Their disappearance from the grandparents' Calgary home last Monday after a weekend estate sale that had brought hundreds of interested browsers into the home was puzzling and frustrating in its lack of clues respecting motive. Unless the possibility of finding a hoard of cash resulting from the sale of the home's furnishings have been completely discounted.

The person of interest is a son of the Airdrie property owners, a man with the name of Douglas Garland, questioned for a day, then released from custody. In his early 50s, the man has a chequered past to say the least. What's more his sister has a common-law relationship with a member of the Liknes family. The intensive search of the property in question is ongoing.

The Garland farm was searched by police on a previous occasion. In 1992 police had discovered a drug lab in a shed on the property. A large quantity of chemicals used to make illegal synthetic drugs like methanphetamine had been found there and police charged Douglas Garland at that time. He disappeared soon after, though, and for seven years evaded authorities until he was found in 1999, identified through a "most wanted" online list held by the RCMP.

Douglas Garland, it would appear, was considered a "genius" studying science at University of Alberta, planning to obtain a medical degree, but leaving before he had earned his degree. He worked as a chemical specialist at a Vancouver laboratory where he supervised 30 employees. It was discovered that he was living under the identity of a 14-year-old who had died in a car crash in 1980. At the time of his arrest in 1990, Mr. Garland was working as a chemical mixer at the B.C. Institute of Technology.

His connection with the abduction seems strange, yet perhaps tenuous. Obviously evidence is elusive, otherwise he would not have been discharged from custody, given his disturbed state of mind (Justice Campbell J. Miller in 2005 described him at trial as a "troubled man" with attention deficit disorder and who had suffered a mental breakdown) and propensity to flee the consequences of his actions.