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81-year-old Kenneth Thomas Myatt left his southside condo near 78th Avenue and 108th Street at about 6:30 a.m. on April 1st, 2007.

It was his usual habit to take walks at that time of day but when he hadn't checked back with his family by 8:10 a.m., they contacted police.

A police spokesperson said the man was in good physical health but suffers from Alzheimer's. They said they were concerned for his safety due to the return of cooler temperatures some 15 degree Celsius below normal.

Myatt was described as 5-feet 11-inches, 135 lbs, with grey balding hair. It was believed he was wearing a blue 3/4 length winter coat, blue jeans and blue running shoes.

He was not wearing his glasses and his family was concerned he was missing meals and required medication.

Over a dozen officers from various Edmonton police divisions along with other agencies such as Edmonton Regional Search and Rescue were called out. They combed the Strathcona and Parkallen area without success.

Acting Insp. Terry Rocchio spoke to the media.

"We're asking for the public to keep an eye out for this gentleman and give us a call."

"Even if you see somebody you may not be sure of, please give us a call."

"I'd rather have our guys come and check and make sure it's not this fellow."

As the second day of the search wore on, local media gave Myatt's disappearance prominent coverage after it was learned he was the uncle of Kevin Lowe, general manager of the Edmonton Oilers NHL hockey team.

Edmonton police deal with 7,000 missing persons cases a year.

The service came under criticism in August 2006 after Robert Barrington Leigh disappeared while attending the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.

It was suggested by some that police didn't respond with much enthusiasm after the 20-year-old math whiz was reported missing. For whatever reason, Myatt's disappearance brought swift action from authorities.

Mary Myatt, Kenneth's wife of 51 years, noticed her husband's bed was made but he was gone when she went to wake him to go to church.

Mary last saw Kenneth the night before when she went to bed at 10:00 p.m.

"I went to his bedroom and he wasn't there and his bed was made as if he'd never slept in it," she said.

"When you've been married as long as we have, a part of you seems not to be there," Mary told the Edmonton Sun.

When she called police, they arrived within minutes and quickly brought in dogs and officers to search for Kenneth.

"The police have been wonderful," Mary said.

Three Edmonton police search managers, police patrol and traffic divisions as well as the Edmonton Regional Search and Rescue and the City of Edmonton park rangers were involved in the search.

A search manager is an officer responsible for managing the assets (people and equipment) for the purpose of conducting a search by air, water or land.

The officer has received specialised training in search and rescue and works in a defined unit in the Disaster and Emergency Operations Planning (DEOPS) Section.

Other agencies, such as Edmonton Transit, the RCMP, and U of A security were also notified.

Soon over two dozen personnel were involved in the search for Myatt, eventually covering a 320-block area. The Edmonton Fire Department hovercraft was taken out on the river to look for the man.

Daryl Black, a manager for Edmonton Search & Rescue, said Alzheimer's patients are difficult to find in that they leave very few physical clues.

"They don't have a lot of items on their person – things like cigarettes and candywrappers."

"We certainly would suspect that his navigation skills are greatly impaired and his ability to formulate a logical sequence of events and terrain – certainly impaired."

"He would go for walks two to three times a day along fairly specific routes," Black said.

"This is completely out of character. Given his age and the elements we've encountered, there is certainly cause for concern."

"Our best hope is that he has found somebody who has taken him in," Black said.

Police received numerous tips, the most promising coming from a person who called the Strathcona Place Seniors Place where Myatt works as a volunteer.

She said she saw Kenneth up the street about 2:00 p.m. on April 2nd.

Black received the news as "a positive sign that he's still moving around, still out there."

Area businesses put up posters in their windows, some official, some handmade.

Neal Myatt, the couple's son, stayed by his mother's side as television news crews gathered their interviews.

"We're always making sure someone is here with my mother," he said.

Mary described Kenneth as a quiet but friendly man with three siblings in Montreal – where he came in 1980 – and in Fredericton and Halifax.

Myatt worked at Hanson Material Engineering until he retired, and then volunteered at the Edmonton Food Bank.

Mary said her husband was not the type of person who would ask for help on his own.

“He wouldn’t go up to someone and say, 'Look I don't feel well, can you take me home.' ”

Mary said Kenneth started to lose his memory three or four years ago. He’d forget names, and write small notes for himself all over the house, she said.

“He’d forget little things, but nothing like this.”

Mary recently noticed a change in her husband.

"Until the past few days different things were not right – he's been more angry."

"Obviously the Alzheimer's has stepped up to a different level and he's not thinking like himself," said Neal, adding he's even driven to the food bank where his father used to volunteer.

"This is the first time he's ever gone anywhere without anybody knowing where he was."

"He would be in the background – you would probably never even notice him."

"He's got to be out there somewhere. Somebody's got to see him walking around."

"If people would just take a look at the picture on the TV and just take an extra second to look around in the crowd, the sidewalk – wherever."

"Anything will help," Neal pleaded. "Being aware that he's got Alzheimer's ... I'm afraid."

By early on the morning of April 3rd, 48 hours after Kenneth Myatt was first reported missing, authorities called off their ground search.

“He could be anywhere in the city by now," a police spokesman explained.

As officers continue to follow up on tips, they're hoping the public would keep an eye out for the man.

"People in their everyday travels just take an extra look around," Neal Myatt asked when hearing of the decision to scale back the search.

With the official search over, Neal said he would press on with his own efforts and hoped others would do the same.

"Pedestrian traffic, people standing at bus stops, walking in the mall."

"Usually at nighttime I got the time I can get out and start looking around. But like I said that's feeling more and more ... futile."

As the search was scaled back with just search-and-rescue volunteers continuing to comb the area, media shifted attention to how Alzheimer's may have played a role in Kenneth Myatt's disappearance.

"We've tried to identify places from his memory and keep going back over those places on the chance it clicks," son Neal told the Edmonton Journal, saying he's revisited the food bank, a baseball diamond his father frequented, and his parents' old apartment.

"That's the hard part. If he was thinking rationally, he'd be home."

According to Jodie Cuff, education manager for the Alzheimer Society's Edmonton chapter, most Alzheimer's patients wander to relieve pent-up energy or search for some place they knew in the past.

"He might be looking for something 60 years ago, in a different environment. There's no rhyme or reason as to where they're going," Cuff said.

She said when patients do wander off, they often set out in a straight line, right through fields, forests or other barriers. They're most often found in creeks, drainage areas or bushes, usually within two kilometres of the place they left.

"Because of short-term memory loss, they don't necessarily realize how long they've been walking for," she added.

Neal said his father often walked on his own, and knowing he'd get lost he never left his neighbourhood.

Myatt would be very reluctant to approach anybody, Neal added.

"But on the other hand, if anybody were to approach him and say 'Hey, Ken, how's it going?' he'd look at them and go, 'Oh, it's going good.' "

Cuff said that's the best way to aid an Alzheimer's patient who appears lost. Call the police, then approach him from the front or the side, say 'hi' and see if he'll let you walk alongside, she said. If not, trail him until police arrive.

The Edmonton Sun contacted University of Alberta dementia expert Dr. Bonnie Dobbs, who works at the medical faculty's Care of the Elderly division.

She said Kenneth sounded like the 60% of Alzheimer's patients who wander, indicating their need for stimulation.

"Unpredictable behaviour is one of the biggest challenges in Alzheimer's disease," Dobbs said.

"It's not always the case, but people do wander off for no reason, and their cognitive impairment makes it necessary for others to find them. I really hope this family can find their loved one."

Wandering accounts for the institutionalisation of around 33% of Alzheimer's patients, Dobbs said. The behaviour causes anxiety among caregivers who can no longer trust afflicted individuals to stay indoors.

For the Myatt family, it is the anxiety of the unknown that weighs heaviest on them.

"It's day to day, right now we're going about as well as can be expected. It gets more difficult as time goes on. We're up against the clock, and the clock is against us," Neal said.

As the Easter weekend began, family and friends of Kenneth Myatt were praying for a miracle.

“Everybody’s praying for him,” Mary said. “His name is on a prayer line from Halifax to here.”

In a story update, the Sun quoted Mary saying her husband recently started talking about losing a million dollars.

“He was saying ‘I had a million dollars and now it’s gone.’ I don’t know where he got that idea but he couldn’t remember anything and he was often very depressed,” she said.

With police officially calling off their ground search, Neal tried to rally more searchers.

“I’m trying to get in touch with some kind of organization that has some kind of experience in this sort of thing so that we can do it properly,” he said.

“I don’t really know where to start. We’re basically looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Neal said he doesn’t believe his dad could have wandered far.

“It’s my feeling that, if we do find him, it’s going to be because of the help of more searchers than just myself and a few others,” he said.

Those with information about Myatt's whereabouts are asked to contact Edmonton police at 423-4567, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or online at www.tipsubmit.com - a secure tip submission web site.

deadmonton 2007 - other police matters - kenneth thomas myatt