On October 20, 2024, contact with 29-year-old Gary Brandon Reno stopped. At the time, Gary was living and working in the remote Pink Mountain area of northeastern British Columbia. His family would later tell police that not hearing from him was out of character. As the days passed without word, concern grew over where he had gone and what might have happened to him.
Gary was not formally reported missing to the Fort St. John RCMP until November 1. The original police appeal described him as an Indigenous man with short black hair and brown eyes who might wear glasses. Canada’s Missing now records him as approximately 5’9″ and 209 pounds, although the initial RCMP release listed him as 5’8″ and 221 pounds. The national database confirms October 20 as his official missing-since date.
Gary has several features that could make him recognizable. He has a roughly four-inch scar near his hairline and a scar on one knee. Canada’s Missing also records a physical difference involving his left hip, described as having only half of the hip socket. His tattoos include the word “Luca” behind his left ear, flames on the inside of his left forearm, a cross on his left cheek and “RENO” on his right hand. A red hoodie with grey spots is also recorded among his clothing or identifying information.
Gary may also have been known to different people by different names. Canada’s Missing lists several aliases associated with him: Calvin Paige, Brandon Ray Reno, Gary Junior Reno, Brandon Valor and Gary Ray Reno. For a man who was living and working in an area where people may have encountered him through employment, accommodation or travel rather than through family, those names could be important to someone realizing they crossed paths with him.
When police first appealed for information, they said Gary had been living and working around Pink Mountain and might be driving a black 2014 Mitsubishi Outlander. Pink Mountain lies along the Alaska Highway north of Fort St. John, in a sparsely populated region where communities, work sites and accommodations can be separated by considerable distances.
At first, the public knew little more than that. Gary was missing, his family hadn’t heard from him, and police wanted people to watch for both him and his Mitsubishi.
Later, however, a far more concerning detail emerged. Gary’s mother, Stephanie, said that his vehicle had been found burned.
CJDC-TV reported in January 2025 that Stephanie said police had searched an area where Gary’s vehicle was discovered burned. Publicly available information does not appear to establish exactly when the Mitsubishi was found, precisely where it was located, how extensively it was damaged or how investigators believe the fire started. RCMP also did not publicly state in that report that the burned vehicle proved someone had harmed Gary.
That distinction is important. A burned vehicle immediately raises troubling possibilities, particularly when its owner has vanished, but without forensic findings or an explanation from investigators, it cannot automatically be treated as evidence of foul play.
Still, the discovery transformed the public picture of Gary’s disappearance. Police were no longer simply looking for a missing man who might be travelling in his vehicle. The vehicle itself had apparently been located, while Gary remained nowhere to be found.
The investigation also led police to the Buffalo Inn in Pink Mountain.
According to Gary’s mother, investigators contacted the inn and obtained some of Gary’s personal belongings. Those items were intended to help police obtain his DNA. RCMP confirmed to CJDC-TV that investigators had been trying to acquire personal items from Gary for precisely that purpose.
Police explained that collecting DNA is a routine investigative measure when a missing-person investigation continues for an extended period. Having Gary’s DNA profile available would allow investigators to make comparisons if unidentified remains or other relevant evidence were discovered.
RCMP Constable Chad Neustaeter stressed that investigators still hoped Gary would be located safe. At the same time, police needed to prepare for the possibility that the outcome might be different.
For Gary’s mother, that possibility was painfully real. Stephanie said that if the belongings recovered from the Buffalo Inn did not contain enough usable DNA, she was prepared to provide a blood sample so investigators could establish a familial DNA profile.
The search itself did not end with the initial efforts in the fall. Stephanie said the first search for her son had been called off in November. But investigators later returned to the area.
On January 3, 2025, RCMP members used ATVs and a police dog to search terrain that had previously been considered inaccessible. Despite reaching an area investigators had apparently been unable to adequately search before, the operation produced no new information about Gary’s whereabouts.
There is another detail in the timeline that deserves mention, although there is no evidence publicly connecting it to Gary’s disappearance.
Gary had been scheduled to appear in a Fort St. John courtroom on November 4, 2024. Energeticcity.ca reported that court records showed he was facing charges of assault and breach of undertaking. By the time that court date arrived, however, Gary had already been reported missing.
There is no established evidence that Gary deliberately disappeared because of the pending court proceedings, nor is there evidence showing that the charges had anything to do with whatever happened to him. Without additional information, the court appearance is simply part of the chronology surrounding the time he vanished.
What remains striking about Gary’s case is how much of his final known timeline is still absent from the public record.
Canada’s Missing establishes October 20 as the date from which there has been no contact with Gary, but publicly available information does not provide a detailed account of that day. It does not tell us who last physically saw him, where that sighting occurred, what time it happened or what Gary said he planned to do next.
There are similar unanswered questions surrounding the Buffalo Inn. The fact that Gary’s belongings were reportedly obtained there does not necessarily mean the inn was the last place he was seen. Public reporting does not establish when he was last there, which possessions remained behind, or whether anyone at the inn saw him immediately before his disappearance.
Then there is the Mitsubishi. The biggest unanswered question is how a vehicle police initially believed Gary might still be driving came to be found burned. When was it last known to be intact? When was it discovered? How far was it from the Buffalo Inn or Gary’s work? Was anything belonging to Gary found inside? Did investigators determine whether the fire was accidental or deliberately set? Was there evidence that someone other than Gary had been in the vehicle?
None of those questions appears to have been publicly answered.
There is also no publicly disclosed information establishing whether Gary’s cellphone records, financial activity, surveillance footage or electronic communications helped investigators reconstruct his movements after October 20.
The lack of answers leaves several possibilities open. Gary could have experienced an accident or become stranded somewhere in the enormous surrounding wilderness. He could have left voluntarily. Someone else could have been involved. The burned vehicle could be central to explaining his disappearance, or its condition could ultimately have an explanation that has never been made public.
At this point, none of those possibilities can responsibly be presented as what happened.
What is known is that Gary’s family stopped hearing from him on October 20, 2024. He was reported missing on November 1. His family said the silence was unusual. He had been living and working around Pink Mountain and had been driving a black Mitsubishi Outlander. That vehicle was later reportedly found burned. Police obtained personal belongings associated with Gary from the Buffalo Inn while attempting to establish his DNA profile, and investigators returned with ATVs and a police dog in January 2025 to search previously inaccessible terrain. They still did not locate him.
Nearly two years after Gary disappeared, there is still no publicly announced explanation for what happened after October 20. Canada’s Missing continues to list Gary Brandon Reno as missing as of August 2026. Somewhere between Gary’s last known contact, the belongings left behind in Pink Mountain and the discovery of his burned Mitsubishi lies an explanation for his disappearance.
For now, however, Gary’s family is still waiting for that explanation and for someone who knows something about what happened after October 20, 2024, to finally come forward.
If you have information on Gary’s case, please contact any of the following:
Fort St John RCMP: 250-787-8140
Reference Case#: 2024-10133
Canada’s Missing Case reference: 2024058677
Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-TIPS(8477)
Online at: https://www.canadiancrimestoppers.org/submit-a-tip/submit-a-tip
Crime Stoppers provides anonymous tipping
Send email to the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at: canadasmissing-disparuscanada@rcmp-grc.gc.ca
Sources: Canada’s Missing, Fort St. John RCMP/BC RCMP, CJDC-TV, Energeticcity.ca, CFNR Network, and Justice for Native People.
🕯️ Subscribe to Someone Saw Something. I dig through the details, ask the unanswered questions, and occasionally fall down research rabbit holes so you don’t have to. 🧡
Someone Saw Something 
Leave a comment