Looking for Owen

BY SARA KEDDY

Kings County Register

Getting the word out about the missing Owen Stillman is what may find him.

Family of the Canaan man and RCMP are counting more on a public appeal for help than any official search, even though Stillman has been gone since signing himself out of Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital in Middleton August 23 and apparently taking the Kings Transit bus as far as Kentville.

“We just love him and we want to hear from him and want him home,” sister Gloria Stillman says.

“His normal routine was taking the bus, calling family on a daily basis, working around home - this is not in his pattern.”

Family is worried RCMP aren’t more involved, even though Gloria reported Owen missing to Middleton RCMP August 24 and talked to them several times over the next few days, before then filing a statement with New Minas RCMP the next week. New Minas RCMP did discover a man matching Owen’s description asked to use the telephone and call a sister at the Kings Transit terminal in Kentville August 23, but acted confused, couldn’t remember the telephone number and then left a shirt behind on a bench. He was last seen by bus staff walking east.

“He’s walked home from Kentville before, so he could be along the tracks, or had headed up Leverett toward the Canaan Road and home.”

Gloria says he left the hospital after being given medication and a prescription. Family are trying to respect his privacy, but are sure his hospital visit isn’t related to his disappearance.

“I’m exhausted, and devastated, too,” Gloria says. The family has contacted friends around the province, media, bus lines and put up posters everywhere. There has been no activity in his bank account and his roommate hasn’t heard from him.

Kings RCMP spokesman Les Kakonyi says Owen’s disappearance is “bizarre - definitely, but he left hospital of his own accord and there is no indication he had been in any state, there’s no history of him wandering off or expressing intent to harm himself.

“Sometimes people don’t want to be found.”

Kakonyi says RCMP have had a few leads but nothing has panned out.

“Where do you start?” Kakonyi says of the family’s request for an official ground search; Valley Search and Rescue has conducted exercises in the railway area of Kentville for the Stillmans.

Kakonyi says RCMP in Nova Scotia and beyond have Owen’s picture and details of his disappearance, and he encourages the family and others to keep looking.

“We need support from the public.”

Gloria Stillman urges anyone with information to contact her, 680-1228, or the RCMP.