Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett.

And the story I have for you today is about a young man just 20 years old, who left home

to live a dream in a small safe resort town, but never came home. This is the story of Ryan

Stuka.

It's mid-February 2018 in Beaumont, Alberta, a town about 40 minutes outside Edmonton.

And Heather Stuka is enjoying her Saturday night at home with her husband Scott and their

two teenage daughters. They have one more kid Ryan, I mean I say kid, but actually Ryan

is 20 and he doesn't live with them anymore. He is out chasing adventure with a friend

working at a ski resort called Sun Peaks for the Winter.

Now it's about 10pm and Heather is in the midst of a text conversation when a notification

pops upon her screen from one of Ryan's friends, this guy James, actually the friend that

he went out to Sun Peaks with for the winter.

And Heather kind of registers that the message is from James and things, you know, I wonder

what he wants, but before she gets to that she wants to finish what she's doing. So she

just kind of like swipes up to clear the notification, finishes her thought or her

little text chain or whatever, and then clicks back.

And as she's reading this message from his friend, it's almost not registering what James

is saying, which is basically like heads up. Ryan didn't show up for work today. He's

not answering his phone and we're worried. So we just went ahead and reported him missing

to police. So you're probably going to be getting a call just like FYI. So Heather immediately

gets James on the phone and is like, okay, what the heck is going on? Start from the top.

Tell me what happened. Thinking that maybe she can just help take the temperature down a

...