Hi Hazel,
Yes, to miss a car ride and then two buses is a lot, so either as you say he was having too much fun in Nelson or struggling so much with dissociation that he was losing track of time.
I had heard about the 10 text messages, but am unsure over what period of time they were sent. I think I read somewhere, that Owen and Dawn had split up on August 1st, so that was not too long before Owen went missing. My online reading also has led me to believe that Dawn kept company with some very unsavoury and dangerous characters.
From what the article says he wrote about in his sms's to Dawn, it sounds like he was confused and unsure where he was and the fact that he was asking Dawn if she knew where he was seems to indicate he was not able to logically reason things out correctly, which fits with her saying that Owen didn't sound like himself and didn't make a lot of sense to her.
Now is it true the RCMP cannot obtain the content of sms's sent in Canada? In Australia the police can, so I don't really understand why the RCMP wouldn't be able to find that out. Also, Owen's iphone stopped working, but my understanding is that sms's that come through to a phone can be accessed, even if they are deleted from the phone or seemingly from the sim card, through forensic software. The devices that do this are readily available via ebay from Hong Kong for only a few dollars. Even I was able to work out how to forensically read a sim card last year without any prior knowledge of how to do it (thanks to a paedophile targeting a friend's kid via the kid's mobile phone). So if I can do it, why can't the RCMP?
SMS messages are typically saved to the mobile phone, the sim card, or both. My understanding is that Owen's mobile phone is in one piece, turns on, but is not working. Presumably apple could also fix the phone, or determine exactly why it's not working, so has this been done? or if not, why has it not been done.
Maybe I'm being judgmental here and I know the family are very happy with all the input from the RCMP, but I can't help but think that the RCMP are fairly incompetent. One person who reported that they thought Owen came to their house, reported their sighting to the RCMP within 5 minutes, but 2 weeks later were still waiting on a reply from them.
And then even if none of these were possible, presumably the RCMP could get Dawn's phone. So something doesn't add up here.
Whether Owen's magic mushroom experience was a one off or not I'm not sure. I read one article about the Shambhala sanctuary from a volunteer's perspective and he was saying that some of the people that came to the first-aid tent, would end up back there again, over and over, during the entire Shambhala event. Hopefully it was a one off, but I know from what clients have told me about some drugs, that sometimes with some drugs the first time they take it they're addicted and can't stop. Also, as others have pointed out, it depends whether the magic mushrooms were laced with something else or not.
However, my feeling is that the paranoia had long worn off before Owen disappeared. People were saying that he was fine in Nelson, so then to be fine and then revert would be unexpected, unless what he took was laced with LSD and he kept on having flashbacks etc.. But I think once he went to the hospital, he would have been honest and owned up to exactly what he took and he owned up to taking the magic mushrooms (however, unbeknown to him it could have been laced with anything).
I tend to think that what people interpreted as paranoid ramblings of Owen's were based in reality. My fear is that what others classified as "paranoid ramblings" were written off, whereas if we could discover exactly what the fear's Owen was talking about, maybe we can in fact work out more about what he was actually afraid of.
All I know is that Owen was scared of two people, who Owen believed were at Shambhala (whether they were there or not is another thing, but I believe that he'd been led to believe that those 2 people were at Shambhala). Now, paranoia is about fear not based in reality; but given the fact that Owen has disappeared, maybe his fears were in fact reality based and very real, so real in fact, that they were eventually actualized, ending up in his subsequent disappearance. When I think of this I think it doesn't look good for Owen. I'd like to know a lot more about exactly what the content of these so called paranoid ramblings were.
A lot of things don't make sense and I've been told the RCMP typically work with secrecy, however I don't know whether secrecy would help in the search for Owen, unless of course the RCMP think that Owen is dead. I'm wondering if they do think this as they recently searched some mountain for Owen, so presumably that meant that they were searching for Owen's body - it was good news they found nothing.
It's a pity that no actual sighting of Owen has been able to be verified. So in reality nobody has seen any sight of Owen since he went missing. I'm just hoping that maybe some of the sightings haven't been able to be verified one way or another, although I've been assured that all have been thoroughly checked and excluded to date.
I've spent the last couple of weeks talking with someone who said they were a friend of Owen's, had definitely met him, knew him well, and that Owen didn't want to come home. I guess I wanted to believe the person, and still wonder about it, but the extent of the gameplaying and secrecy about actually putting myself or Owen's family in touch with me undermined the credibility of the person (who was doing a lot of angling for financial gain to come up with mere video footage of Owen, rather than getting Owen to ring his family or organize to meet them). The last I heard from this person he gave me a ridiculous message to pass on to the Rooney family and expected me to actually believe that it had come from Owen (when frankly even I who have never met Owen thought the message sounded like nothing Owen would ever say, but interestingly sounded exactly like what the person chatting to me would say). I personally think that people who make false reports should be jailed as they just derail the investigation, but then again, maybe that's their purpose.
Hopefully we can find Owen alive and well soon.
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