It's been one month since a Penticton resident was last seen by his family, having suddenly stopped all communication with his relatives and his two closest friends: His young nieces.
Doug Barker was last seen by Brittany Harris and her daughters on the evening of Sept. 11.
"He came over to see his nieces and he was happy, he was just really good. He was supposed to come back the next day to grab a bed from us...and he never showed up. No one heard anything," Harris said.
From there, Harris said rumours started to circulate about his disappearance over the next few days and she grew concerned.
After multiple unsuccessful attempts to get in contact with him, Harris started reaching out to friends and family to see if they had heard from him.
"It doesn't make sense because he's always in contact with somebody by now," she said.
On Sept. 17, Harris reached out to Barker's aunt, Kim Apps, for help and asked her to file a missing person report.
"I haven't heard a lot from the RCMP from the first time I put the missing person in and unfortunately as I said, they don't do a lot of updates," Apps said.
"The last time I spoke with him [Barker] was online on the 25th of August, and he was telling me about how he was doing good."
Both Apps and Harris said they were confused by his sudden silence and took to social media to put the word out they were looking for him.
"To us, it's just he's missing. He could be hiding. He could be camping. We don't know. It's just not like him not to reach out to my kids," Harris said.
"I just want to get his name out there because not a lot of people even knew he was missing."
Apps said that Barker's brother provided DNA for the RCMP last week, after a request from the police service.
"We really just want answers. We want to find out what's going on," she added.
Mostly, Harris wants answers for her nieces.
"My oldest daughter used to go to her uncle for advice and if she needed a shoulder to cry. He was there for her and he was able to talk to her. But now she doesn't have that," she said, her voice thick with emotion.
"We’re trying to find out the answers and nothing is being told to us."
Barker was last seen wearing jeans, a blue shirt and a grey sweater. He has tattoos on his forearms and knuckles.
He is 30 years of age, around 120 pounds, standing five foot six in height with shaved dark brown hair and blue-green eyes.
RCMP did not respond to a request for an update on Barker's file.
Anyone who spots Barker or may know where he is asked to report it to the RCMP and cite file #2022-15273.
