Father's Day for Terry Daley was not only spent without a card or even a call from his son this year, it also passed without any indication his boy's killer will face justice.
Last June, the remains of two men were discovered just outside the western Vancouver Island town of Ucluelet.
Police identified one man as Daniel Archbald and the other as Ryan Daley, and immediately said the discovery was being treated as a double homicide.
Ryan was Terry Daley’s son. One year since the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crimes Unit began their investigation, Daley says he has received no update on the case.
“It is disappointing, it’s frustrating, it’s anger, its everything,” Daley told CTV News.
The case of the two men began long before the discovery of their bodies.
Police reached out to the public and their families for information after they disappeared following a voyage at sea.
Archbald, who lived in Squamish, and Daley, who called Jordan River home, were returning from a sailing trip to Panama when they were caught on surveillance footage at Ucluelet’s Small Craft Harbour.
The images of the two bearded men laden with large duffle bags would be the last snapshots investigators or family would see. Roughly a month later on June 16, 2018, police announced the bodies of the men had been found.
One year later, at least one family remains in a gut-churning limbo of the unknown.
Terry Daley, who lives in southern Ontario, says he has heard nothing from B.C. investigators.
Daley says he isn’t completely surprised.
“I think we presumed or knew at the time that it would never get solved, or would take a really long time,” he said.
When asked why he thought his child’s killer might never come to justice, he said he has little faith there is enough being done to unearth the true story behind the double homicide.
“There is not enough police, RCMP, money or resources to solve problems like this.”
At the time of the disappearance there was a fervent rumour mill swirling around what happened to the men.
The officer in charge of Vancouver Island’s Major Crimes Unit went so far as to ask the public to refrain from posting false information on social media platforms.
“The widespread use of social media and the internet as sources of information risks drawing linkages that do not exist,” said Inspector Dave Hall in late June 2018.
As RCMP investigators offered little information surrounding the initial steps of their investigation, word did trickle out that U.S. agencies were poking around the case.
It was eventually confirmed that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was aiding the RCMP. Officials would not give any details as to what the DEA was interested in, but according to the organization's mandate, it works on cases involving the suspected trafficking of controlled substances in the United States.
Fast forward one year and the lockdown on information remains in place.
When asked for an update on the double homicide, RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said that “the investigation remains active and ongoing with nothing new to provide by way of an update.”
When the inquiry began 12 months ago, the Mounties said it should not be conducted in the public arena. But for Terry Daley, those months, weeks and days of silence have taken a toll.
CTV News reached out to the family of Daniel Archbald for a comment, but did not receive a reply before deadline.
