A group of volunteers have found the remains of a missing Thornbury man.
OPP say they have received confirmation that human remains found in Georgian Bay Township belong to Eric Spencer, a 60-year-old man who was reported missing in 2018.
Back on October 17th, 2018, Spencer was reported last seen in the area of South Bay Road and Honey Harbour Road in Georgian Bay Township in the Muskoka area, after a Honey Harbour Road resident noted he left his vehicle on their property and failed to return for it.
In the following days, police conducted a ground search with the OPP K-9 Unit, OPP Emergency Response Team, OPP Helicopter Unit, drones and the OPP Mobile Support Unit.
This past Sunday, April 21st, 2024, an Owen Sound based volunteer search organization, Please Bring Me Home conducted a search and found Spencer’s remains in a wooded area near the intersection of South Bay Road and Honey Harbour Road, not far from where his vehicle had been left.
Police say an investigation was conducted by the OPP Southern Georgian Bay Detachment Crime Unit and the Office of the Chief Coroner, with the assistance from the OPP Forensic Identification Unit and the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto.
OPP say no foul play is suspected in this investigation.
Please Bring Me Home co-founder Nick Oldrieve says, “I’m extremely grateful that they were able to confirm.”
He says his group of six volunteers conducted the search Sunday, explaining, “We wanted to search an area where he was last seen going into the woods. We found no evidence to suggest that he had exited those woods.”
He says it helped them to receive all of the maps of previous OPP searches, noting, “We knew we wanted to go at it from a different angle so we started to frame in a river and a swamp and as soon as we were at the northernmost end of that swampy area is where we located the remains.”
Oldrieve believes Spencer’s remains must have been underwater at the time of the 2018 OPP search.
He says they contacted Spencer’s family after locating the remains, though the forensic identification hadn’t been confirmed at that point.
“I’m just very thankful that we were able to assist Eric Spencer’s family. This is not closure because I don’t think, unless you know why it happened, it’s difficult to get that, but we just hope that this is a step in the journey of healing through this process and we’re still here for the family for whatever they need,” says Oldrieve.
Eric Spencer. Image from Please Bring Me Home
The group Please Bring Me Home searches for missing people. It started with a focus on the Owen Sound area, and then in 2020, expanded nationwide.
They have been successful in a number of searches locally, helping to find the remains of 33-year-old Keith Campbell and 37-year-old Justin Yeo in Hepworth in April of 2023 after they were reported missing January 1st of that year.
Their organization also helped find both the remains of 20-year-old Nolan Panchyshyn of Southampton and 55-year-old Terry Schope of Owen Sound in 2018.
They also located Michael Samdass who was reported missing from Toronto in September 2019 and was found in the United States in a prison under a different name.
On April 24th, another search was conducted for Lisa Maas in the Annan area near where her vehicle was found with more searches planned this year.
They are also taking on their first case in the United States looking for Brandon Fitch of Montana.
Please Bring Me Home is a charitable organization. It is looking to continue to build its search teams in Ontario including in Grey Bruce.
You can find more about them at pleasebringmehome.com of on Facebook.