Michael Gregory Widner, a Sooke man who has been missing since Wednesday, has been found dead, his family says.
“They’re waiting for an autopsy, that’s all I know,” said his brother Shawn Widner, who lives in Calgary. “He’s a wonderful father and a great brother and I’m devastated.”
Sooke RCMP confirmed a body was found by a hiker Sunday near Port Renfrew, but would not confirm if it was Widner’s remains. The identity of the body has not yet been established, said Sooke RCMP detachment commander Sgt. Jeff McArthur.
The Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit and B.C. Coroners Service are investigating. Police have not said if they’re treating the death as a homicide.
“An autopsy is scheduled for later this week, after which further information will be released,” McArthur said.
Shawn Widner said the family has not been told if Michael was the victim of a homicide.
“Until we get an autopsy [result] back, we don’t know anything,” he said.
The Vancouver Sun reported Monday that Michael Widner was a prospect for the Nanaimo chapter of the Hells Angels biker gang.
It said Hells Angels spokesman Rick Ciarniello told Postmedia News that Widner was a prospect.
The Sun reported that Widner has no criminal record in B.C., according to the online court database, but he was the subject of a suit by the B.C. Civil Forfeiture director in 2012 after being stopped by Sooke RCMP a year earlier with $4,980 cash, 25 grams of marijuana, a hunting knife and four cellphones in his vehicle.
“Mr. Widner either directly participated in the selling of illegal drugs or obtained the money directly or indirectly from the sellers of illegal drugs,” the suit alleged, according to the Sun, which said Widner later agreed to forfeit the money, though most was sent to his lawyer to cover his bill.
Police said on the weekend that Widner’s 2003 black Volkswagen Golf was found abandoned at William Simmons Park near Poirier Lake in Otter Point.
Widner, who lived on Tugwell Road, was reported missing on Thursday. He was last seen Wednesday in Sooke.
Widner is married to Sabrina, who is an artist, and they have two young children. Widner grew up in Courtenay and has four brothers, one of whom died suddenly in 2007.
A memorial page has been created on Facebook and friends have posted messages of condolence to his family.
Sooke RCMP ask anyone with information to call them at 250-642-5241 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
The Island's major crime unit is investigating two other recent suspicious deaths.
On March 3, Richard Blair Young, 72, was found dead on a forested slope near the Malahat summit, in what police are investigating as a homicide.
On Dec. 27, the burned body of Bruce Edward Carlson, 49, was found inside a vehicle on the Pacheedaht First Nation in Port Renfrew. No arrests have been made in either case.
