As she marked the fourth anniversary of her son, Tyler Walton’s, disappearance, Chantal Desruisseaux said the family has no new information.
“There have been some leads, but they haven’t led anywhere,” Desruisseaux said from her home in Williams Lake.
“There have been a couple of unidentified bodies. One was even in Australia.”
Walton’s family reported his disappearance from his home in Williams Lake on Nov. 18, 2009.
They had last seen him on Nov. 10, when he stopped by to visit his father, Ken Walton, at his home in Williams Lake.
Tyler was 24 years old at the time of his disappearance.
Desruisseaux said it’s amazing how time can go by so fast and slow at the same time.
“Another year has passed, but yet it’s been four long years of missing my son.”
Fighting back the tears, she admitted she often feels guilty that she isn’t looking harder to find him.
“All I can do is reach out to the media and ask people to keep looking for Tyler,” she said. “We don’t know what happened to him.”
In January 2013, the RCMP launched a website with information about Tyler, asking for the public’s assistance.
They confirmed he was involved in the drug trade at a “very low” level.
“Given the inherent risks associated to that lifestyle, police cannot discount the possibility that involvement in the drug trade played a role in Tyler’s disappearance,” the website noted.
Police also said a number of witnesses saw Tyler in the presence of two males on more than one occasion in the days leading up to his disappearance.
“One male is reported to have gone by the first name of “Mike” but that is all that is known about these two individuals at this time,” the RCMP said.
“Obviously, these two individuals may have information that would assist in the investigation and police would like to speak to them.”
Tyler was Desruisseaux’s only child and they had a great relationship, she said.
“Some people have suggested he left on his own accord, which at one point I would have believed, too, but I still believe he’s alive. I cannot think of any other alternative until I know any different.”
He was somebody who said he wanted to go and live off the grid, yet he wouldn’t have disappeared without letting someone know where he was going, she said.
“On the other side of the coin is the nagging question that I may not want to look at the fact that he is gone, gone. That’s the hardest part, I keep going back and forth.”
Closure is a weird word, she added.
“No matter what we learn, it’s not going to close the situation. I think closure is over-rated.”
In December 2012, Desruisseaux’s sister passed away and left two granddaughters in her care.
They are aged six and eight, and Desruisseaux said even though it’s been grief heaped upon grief, with the disappearance of her son, raising them is her saving grace.
“They are the good thing in my life,” she said of her grand nieces.