Carl William Charlie Schooner Jr.
File #: 2022-9721
Missing since: December 4, 2022
Missing from: Williams Lake, BC
Date of Birth: September 14, 1992
Age at disappearance: 30 yrs
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Indigenous
Eye Color: Brown
Hair: Brown
Height: 183 cms / 6ft 1in
Weight: 73 kgs / 160 lbs
Physical Build: Medium
Carl William Charlie Schooner Jr. was 30 years old when he disappeared from Williams Lake, British Columbia, in December 2022. A member of the Nuxalk Nation with Heiltsuk ancestry, Carl was from Bella Coola, where his family remembers him as a hardworking, kind-hearted man who was always checking in on the people he loved. His father, Carl Schooner Sr., said his son enjoyed helping him on his gillnetter boats and buying pine mushrooms. Most importantly, Carl was a father himself. His young daughter, Rosa, was such an important part of his life that her name was tattooed on his right forearm.
In mid-November 2022, Carl travelled from Bella Coola to Williams Lake to visit friends and family. Although some early reports gave a different timeline for his trip, APTN reported that Carl had arrived in Williams Lake after travelling there in mid-November. His family remained in contact with him after he arrived.
According to APTN, Carl’s family last spoke with him during a video call on December 2. Carl’s father has also provided an important firsthand account of one of his final conversations with his son. Carl called him and asked him to come to Williams Lake and pick him up. He wanted to return home to Bella Coola, but apparently wanted his arrival to be a surprise.
“Don’t tell anybody I’m coming home,” Carl told his father.
Carl Sr. agreed to come and get him. But when he arrived in Williams Lake to bring his son home, Carl was nowhere to be found.
That simple request – to come and pick him up – has become one of the most haunting details of Carl’s disappearance. Whatever Carl was planning at the time, his intention appears to have been to leave Williams Lake and return to his family. Instead, he disappeared before his father could reach him.
December 4, 2022, is now regarded as the date Carl disappeared. Two days later, on December 6, his family reported him missing.
Searching for Carl was especially difficult because he reportedly had no cellphone, vehicle or identification with him. His family said he was last seen wearing a black hoodie. He stood approximately six feet one inch tall, weighed around 160 pounds, and had short black hair and brown eyes. One of his most distinctive identifying features is the tattoo of his daughter’s name, Rosa, on his right forearm.
Carl’s disappearance was immediately alarming to his family. Staying out of contact wasn’t normal for him. His father described Carl as someone who regularly made the rounds to check on relatives and friends and was always willing to help when somebody needed him.
His family didn’t sit at home waiting for answers. Carl Sr. and other relatives travelled to Williams Lake and began searching themselves. They stayed in a motel while looking for him, distributing posters, speaking with residents and following whatever information they could find. Their efforts expanded far beyond Williams Lake, with family members travelling to Prince George, Quesnel, Kamloops and Kelowna in hopes that someone had seen Carl.
The search also brought an enormous amount of support from Indigenous communities throughout the region. People donated food and supplies and helped Carl’s family continue looking. Several searches were conducted in and around Williams Lake.
By January 2023, Carl had been missing for more than a month with no publicly known trace of him.
On January 12, his family stood alongside Indigenous leaders, elders and police at a press conference in Williams Lake and made an emotional appeal for information. The Nuxalk and Heiltsuk Nations supported a $10,000 reward for information that could help locate him.
Carl’s father is convinced someone knew something.
“There are people who know something,” he said during the appeal.
Nuxalk Chief Samuel Schooner made a similarly pointed request, asking the “person or persons” with information to do the right thing and come forward. Williams Lake First Nation Chief Willie Sellars encouraged anyone who knew something not to be afraid to speak.
Those statements do not establish that Carl was harmed or that another person was responsible for his disappearance. No one has been publicly identified as a suspect, and police have not announced that Carl’s disappearance is a homicide. But from the beginning, his family and community leaders have clearly believed that someone possesses information that could help explain what happened to him.
There was another intriguing statement during that January 2023 appeal. RCMP representatives acknowledged that investigators possessed information they were not prepared to make public because releasing it could jeopardize the investigation. What that information involved has never been publicly explained.
As the weeks became months, Carl’s family continued searching.
First Nations tracker Robert “Bear” Fox eventually joined the effort and devoted an extraordinary amount of time to finding Carl. Fox reportedly spent approximately eight months in Williams Lake searching for him.
Even that extensive effort failed to reveal what happened.
More than a year after Carl disappeared, his father spoke publicly about their final conversation. Carl Jr. had asked him to come get him. He wanted to surprise everyone back home. By the time his father arrived, he was gone.
For Carl Sr., life effectively stopped there.
“The rest of the world seems like it just moves on but we’re stuck in December 2022,” he later said.
Years have passed, however Carl’s family refused to allow his disappearance to fade from public attention.
In March 2025, Carl Sr. and other family members appeared before Williams Lake City Council. Nearly two and a half years had passed since Carl disappeared, yet his family was still travelling, searching and spending their own money trying to find him. They asked the community for financial assistance to continue those efforts. City council subsequently provided some support and helped collect search supplies and resources.
Then, on January 29, 2026, Williams Lake RCMP issued another public appeal.
More than three years after Carl vanished, investigators were still asking anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact police. There was no announcement that he had been found, no arrest, and no public explanation for what happened after his father set out to bring him home.
There are still enormous gaps in Carl’s final days.
The public does not know exactly where he spent his final night in Williams Lake. No definitive final witness has been publicly identified. There has been no publicly disclosed surveillance footage showing where he went. And whatever information investigators said they were withholding in January 2023 has apparently remained confidential.
Most importantly, nothing publicly released explains how a man who was communicating with his family and making plans to return home could simply disappear before his father could arrive to collect him.
There are possibilities in any missing-person investigation. Carl could have encountered an accident or become stranded somewhere that searchers have yet to locate. He could have left Williams Lake unexpectedly. Someone could also know considerably more about his disappearance than has been publicly revealed. But without evidence establishing any of those scenarios, they remain possibilities rather than answers.
What is established is far simpler.
Carl went to Williams Lake. He remained in contact with his family. He asked his father to come and get him. He planned to go home. His father came for him, and Carl wasn’t there.
More than three years later, his family is still waiting for the homecoming that was supposed to happen in December 2022.
Carl Schooner Jr. remains missing.
If you have any information on Carl’s case, please contact any of the following:
Williams Lake RCMP: 250-392-2331
Reference Case: 2022-9721
Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-TIPS(8477)
Online at: https://www.canadiancrimestoppers.org/submit-a-tip/submit-a-tip
Crime Stoppers provides anonymous tipping
Sources: APTN News, interviews and public statements from Carl Schooner Sr. and the Schooner family, the Williams Lake Tribune and Black Press Media, Williams Lake City Council records, Global News reporting containing Carl Schooner Sr.’s firsthand account, the Nuxalk Nation and Heiltsuk-supported public appeal, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
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