Volunteers who have spent the last two weeks searching for a missing senior in the forest near Kelowna are asking the public to check the footage from their game cameras.
Alan Francescutti, a 79-year-old man from Kelowna was last seen leaving his home in the Lower Mission in his truck on April 16.
The Kelowna RCMP issued a press release on April 22, asking the public for more information on Francescutti’s whereabouts as his disappearance was concerning. The RCMP said that Francescutti is considered a “high-risk” man.
The day after the press release was issued, Francescutti’s truck was found in the backcountry between Kelowna and Lake Country just off Postill Road, near the Beaver Lake and Dee Lake Road, by the Okanagan Forest Task Force and an off-roading group.
The Central Okanagan Search and Rescue (COSAR) team from Kelowna has been working alongside the RCMP in the search for Francescutti.
A spokesperson for COSAR said that volunteers from the Kelowna team have likely logged more than 1,000 hours in the search for Francescutti.
COSAR’s diverse team of skilled volunteers has encountered rain, sleet, and snow while searching the difficult-to-navigate terrain near Dee Lake.
Over the weekend crews, more than 50 volunteers from search and rescue teams from across the province came to Kelowna to aid in the search.
Scent detection and tracking dogs, ground crews and utility terrain vehicle teams from Grand Forks, Kamloops, Kaslo and the Fraser Valley helped Kelowna’s COSAR team search for Francescutti. The area was closed to the public during the search to not add more scents than necessary to hinder the dogs’ progress.
The Dee Lake area has now been reopened to the public and COSAR is asking people to check footage from their game cameras for clues regarding Francescutti’s whereabouts.
While volunteers from COSAR were out in the backcountry on Monday, April 29, the team will take the rest of the week off of fieldwork to prepare for what is expected to be another big weekend of searching on May 4 and 5. Mutual aid teams from across the province are expected to come and help the Kelowna crews.
Anyone with information is urged to contact Kelowna RCMP at 250-762-3300 and reference file number 2024-19989.
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