Into Thin Air – Dean Morrison, Luke Neville, and Ben Tyner | missing men around BC’s Interior

BC’s Interior region has been the location of interest for a handful of missing persons investigations, all within a few years of each other, though none have ever been officially linked.

In this episode of Into Thin Air, we explore three incidents where middle-aged men have gone missing in the Nicola Valley and Gold Country areas over a six-year span.

DEAN MORRISON

Highway 5A, the old Merritt Highway, runs right by where Dean Morrison was last seen, on Oct. 22, 2013, at the Stump Lake Ranch. The 44-year-old, who had been working as a contract painter at the ranch, left the ranch the day he went missing but he never returned.

In previous interviews, his mother Elizabeth described some of the difficulties Morrison had been dealing with at the time of his disappearance. The father of three had recently separated from his wife and he had just been let go from his job at the ranch. The morning of the day he was last seen, Morrison wasn’t able to start his vehicle, which was still at the ranch property. A tow truck had been called, but Dean was already gone by the time it arrived a few hours later.

Once he’d been reported missing to RCMP, police and search and rescue teams combed the area. They covered the Stump Lake Ranch property and the area surrounding it along with the land lining the Old Merritt Highway. The official searches were followed by searches conducted by friends, family and community members who wanted to put their own eyes on the area as well.

In 2016, three years after Dean went missing, his mother hired a private investigator to look into the case. Despite this addition and follow-up searches from Kamloops Search and Rescue and Hummingbird Drone teams, nothing has ever been found to advance the investigation.

 

LUKE NEVILLE

Further up the Interior, the Spences Bridge area was the focus on search efforts following the disappearance of Luke Neville. The 48-year-old was last seen Oct. 9, 2017 in the Spences Bridge area where he had been living and working as a renovation contractor.

Adding to the oddity of his disappearance was how his vehicle had been found. Luke Neville drove a white FordE20 van, and the day after he was last seen, the van was located burned along a forest service road about 20 kilometres out of Spences Bridge.

The case was quickly deemed suspicious and the RCMP’s Southeast District Major Crimes Unit got involved.

About a year after Luke was reported missing, police issued another call for information, stating that circumstances can change over time, which may make it easier for someone to come forward with information about what may have happened.

Luke Neville was originally from eastern Canada, and worked as a firefighter for several years alongside his brothers. Eventually he moved to B.C., and landed in Spences Bridge, where he’d been living for more than a decade before his disappearance.

Fifteen months after he was reported missing, Luke’s brother, Mark, made the trip from Ottawa to put up billboards around Spences Bridge and to speak at a media event with the RCMP. Mark Neville explained that police told the family Luke may have been the victim of foul play, and he urged anyone who knew what happened to do the right thing and share that information with investigators.

However, since then, no further investigational updates have been publicly shared by the RCMP, though Neville’s case remains active as is the public call for tips and information.

 

BEN TYNER

A little more than an hour’s drive southeast of Spences Bridge lies the Nicola Valley, where a widespread search was launched in the winter of 2019 for Ben Tyner.

The 32-year-old cowboy had been working as the manager at the Nicola Ranch for three months before he disappeared. Tyner was last seen in the afternoon of Jan. 26, 2019.

Two days later, a Merritt area tracker came upon his riderless horse, which was wandering alone on a logging road in full tack with a broken rein.

The first few days of search efforts saw more than 50 search and rescue members from around B.C. come in to help as well as two dozen cowboys and volunteers from some nearby First Nations in the Nicola Valley. Tyner’s family also flew up from Wyoming to help.

But without any sign of where Ben went – and plummeting temperatures – the search was stood down after seven days.

Later that spring, Tyner’s case was officially considered suspicious. While RCMP Major Crimes did not publicly share more details, they said there was reason to believe that criminality was involved, and that Ben Tyner could have been the victim of homicide.

However, more than six years later, Tyner still has not been found.

Shortly after Ben Tyner went missing, RCMP were directly asked whether any of the disappearances in Spences Bridge and Merritt areas were related. At the time, police stated officers had looked into whether there was a connection though they said there was no evidence to suggest any of the disappearances were linked.

And as of the summer of 2025, none of these three missing men have been located.

To anonymously report a crime or submit a tip, Kamloops, Crime Stoppers can be reached at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Tips can also be submitted anonymously through the BC Crime Stoppers website.