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Third person added to report of missing people: RCMP

A complex RCMP investigation is underway for three missing people with links to properties near Likely, B.C.
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Williams Lake RCMP are searching for three missing people: Mihai Vornicu (from left)

A complex RCMP investigation is underway for three missing people with links to properties near Likely, B.C.

Last Friday, the Williams Lake RCMP said they were seeking the public’s assistance in locating Mihai Vornicu, 44, and his wife Marie Olarte, 58, reported missing on Aug. 8, 2016.

On Tuesday, Williams Lake RCMP General Investigations Unit’s Cpl. Jason Pole said there is now a third missing person in the case.

Robert Dragoescu, 32, was reported missing to police and last known to be with Vornicu on July 25, 2016 in Williams Lake.

“We now have a total of three missing persons who appear to be linked,” Pole told the Tribune.

“The relative that reported Dragoescu missing said she talks to him regularly on the phone and hadn’t spoken to him for quite some time.”

The report of a third missing person is another twist in an investigation that is multi jurisdictional, Pole said.

“There are detachments all the way from here to Vancouver that are assisting us in different levels of this investigation, and there’s also some involvement by some of the large investigative units within the province, just because Marie has some medical issues that need to be dealt with,” Pole said, noting Olarte cannot go on too long without medical care.

“We are concerned because there is no evidence that she is following up on that and the fact their phones have stopped being used are another bad sign that something is terribly wrong.”

After Vornicu and Olarte were reported missing to the RCMP on Aug. 8, an initial investigation determined that Vornicu’s grey 2005 Volvo C50 station wagon bearing B.C. plate CH096V was found parked on Mackenzie Avenue North in Williams Lake on July  26, 2016.

The vehicle was towed and there have been no attempts to retrieve the vehicle from the impound lot since that date.

Investigators also verified that Vornicu and Olarte were in the Mission and Maple Ridge area in the weeks before they disappeared and have links to Vancouver Island.

Olarte is described as four feet tall, weighing 99 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Vornicu is five feet seven inches tall, weighing 230 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. Dragoescu is described as Romanian with dark hair, dark eyes, five feet and ten inches tall and weighing 175 pounds.

“Anyone with information on the three missing persons from July 22, 2016 and to the present is asked to contact the General Investigation Section for the Williams Lake RCMP at 250-392-8702, or for those wishing to remain anonymous call Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477,” said RCMP media relations Cpl. Dan Moskaluk.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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