Have you seen this man? Debra Dorey and her family certainly hope so. Dorey's husband Patrick Ratto has been missing since July 25. Ratto left his job at Teradici, a tech business in Burnaby, on the afternoon of July 25 and has not been seen or heard from since.
The couple lived in Gibsons for a little over three years, moving to Burnaby in 2004 due to work commitments. The couple had plans to return to the Coast one day, which is why Dorey figures Ratto may be or may have been on the Coast.
"We know he took out $60 from the ATM on July 25. He didn't have much more money than that, and none of his credit cards have been used," she said during an interview with Coast Reporter last Friday while on the Coast. "He didn't have a lot of money so we figure if he did go somewhere it would have to be somewhere quick. You can hop on a ferry pretty quickly."
To that end, Dorey has received assistance from BC Ferries that plans to distribute missing persons posters to all their staff and on all their vessels.
"Right from the start we've searched all over Burnaby, Burnaby Lake, Vancouver - everywhere," she said. "I hired a private detective and a dog team has searched all over Burnaby Lake. We have one tip that came in to police that he may have been seen on July 26 around Burnaby Lake, but other than that, the police have no leads."
Dorey said Ratto's disappearance is puzzling, as it is totally out of character for him.
"I knew it was bad right from the start," she said. "I know Patrick. We've been married for 13 years and I've lived with him for 14. He's never done anything like this before. He left work that day at 1:30 p.m. and that's it. No one has seen him since."
Given the time that has passed, Dorey has come to the conclusion that he is probably dead, but she said family and friends need to find out what happened to provide some closure.
"It's very hard to move forward. We need to resolve this so we can move on," she said.
Ratto, age 43, is 6'2", weighs 175 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a removable black splint after he was injured while on a motorcycling excursion a short while before his disappearance. When he went missing, he was wearing jeans, a beige T-shirt, sunglasses and white running shoes and carrying a black backpack and black jacket with white markings.
If you have any information or think you may have seen Ratto, call Burnaby RCMP Cpl. Scott Baker at 1-604-294-7827 or Sunshine Coast RCMP at 604-885-2266.
