After six days of intensive searching, 72-year-old Faye Hanson has been found dead, according to Ladysmith RCMP.
“The RCMP investigation has determined that there is no criminality or foul play suspected,” the department said in a press release. The B.C. Coroners Service is now leading the investigation.
Almost 100 search-and-rescue volunteers, RCMP officers and canine teams had been searching a wooded area west of the Nanaimo Airport after Hanson’s car was found near Timberlands Road and Ninatti Road on Monday. Her body was found Saturday morning in an area that had already been searched by a canine team, a search volunteer told CHEK News.
Hanson had gone out mushroom picking on Oct. 22. A friend called RCMP the next day when she failed to return home.
Hanson leaves behind a husband and three daughters. She loved the outdoors and was a moderator on the Facebook group Hiking and Foraging Finds, where people share their outdoor discoveries.
On Saturday, members of the group shared their condolences and memories of Hanson.
One person shared a post written when Hanson became a moderator of the group.
She wrote: “I am a mother, a nana, a wife, an artist (sculptor and past potter), a gardener and someone who loves to be in the forest or on the sea shore [to] find and restore my soul.”
One woman wrote: “I will never happen upon a wild mushroom and not share a thought of you, Faye.”
