News July 6, 2014
CTV News: Search Expands
Rough draft of transcript of this news report by me. Not connected to any of the participants.
Not an official transcript.
Any errors are my own.
Anchor: Chris Epp = CE Anchor: Amanda Singroy = AS
Reporter: Bill Macfarlane = BMc
Neighbour: Leo Velasco = LV
CE The police are continuing their search for clues in the disappearance of a Calgary family.
AS For the second day in a row, they scoured fields, trees, and at least one pond near Airdrie hoping to find something that will lead them to find 5 year old Nathan O'Brien, and his grandparents, Alvin and Kathryn Liknes.
CE CTV's Bill Macfarlane joins us now from the search. Now Bill, last night we reported that police were questioning Douglas Garland who lives on that property with his parents. He was released today though, right?
BMc He was released by Calgary Police, Chris, and they say that he is still a Person of Interest. He may have information on the case, but there's no charges against him at this point. They're also not identifying him because, just because of just that reason. This isn't his first history with police though. He was charged more than twenty years ago after a raid on this very same property for attempted manufacture of chemical drugs. At that time he fled to BC to get away from those charges, presumably, where he lived under a false ID for a number of years before a tip to police had him caught and returned to Alberta to face those charges.
Now, we found several connections on FaceBook between the O'Brien and the Garland families. We spoke with the O'Brien family today, as we have a number of times, and asked them about a number of questions. One of them though, when we asked about the Garlands, they said "No comment" when we asked in they knew them. So we're not sure just what that means.
CE Bill, I know you've been at that scene all day, there's been a lot of activity. What's been happening?
BMc Well, again, police are shoulder to shoulder. When I got here this morning, there's about fourty officers going through the field just on the other side of these cruisers at the end of the driveway through the chest high grass, looking for any evidence at all they could find. We could see they were still active up by the farm house. But, the majority of the afternoon it seemed they were principally focused down by this slough you can see down by the end of this road. it's about half a kilometre away or so.
And they had police dogs going through the long grass there along the south side of that slough. They also had a number of officers going through the ditches, again with the K-9 units. At one point, it looked like they were going to put the police boat in the water to start searching out there. It looked like the dog handlers were indicating something out by the water. They had a look at it. For whatever reason they decided not to get that boat in. Or, maybe they weren't able to. They weren't really clear about that.
All we know now is that Calgary Police have pulled back from the scene and returned to the city for the night. But they have still got officers here holding this property, and they plan to resume their examination of it tomorrow, Chris.
CE Bill, I think we also touched base with a few neighbours today saying they are relieved that the search is finally over. I think we're about to hear from one of them as well.
BMc Here we go.
LV ?? Because it's a nice place here. Safety--we never lock the doors. If they have connection in that crime, we don't know. It's so sad.
CE Bill, what's the plan for the next two, three days or so?
BMc Well, they plan to keep going through this property now, Chris. And again, this appears, like it could be their first big break. And, of course, it's just a lead in the case, and, unfortunately, sometimes leads don't go anywhere. So we don't know. Police are staying very tight-lipped about what, if anything, they found on this property. They're keeping Doug Garland in mind as a Person of Interest. But, again, no charges against him.
It's hard to say if this is going to go somewhere or not. Of course, a lot of people want to see some kind of resolution to this. A lot of people on edge, and nerves pretty raw out there, so…
CE OK. Thanks Bill.
http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=393385
