Montana private investigator continues search for missing Airdrie man

Montana private investigator Mike Toth has been hired by the Collin family to help with the search for Airdrie resident Cameron Collin, who went missing Oct.4 at a bachelor party held on a ranch outside Billings.

Toth spoke to the Calgary Eyeopeneron Thursday. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What is the family hoping you can accomplish that the sheriff's office can't?

A:The sheriff's office is focused mainly on a certain area of the land where Collin went missing. There's a couple reasons why the familyhired me. One is to help interpret the sheriff's office anddeal with law enforcement and kind of be the go-between for them.

Also to follow up on leadsthe family gets that the sheriff's office is maybe not that interested in.

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In the beginning, the sheriff's office obviously did a pretty good search, but now that it's a month out, they're starting to wind down their search for him. The familyobviously wants to keep the search going, so that's my job now to keep the volunteers going and assist with searching.

Q: What do we know about what happened that night?

A: He flew into Billings about noon on October 4andmet up with the wedding party. He was friends with the bride from college. They went to a couple places in town, then went back to this property that's about 11, 12 miles outside of town.

It's their ranch and they have a barn that theydecorated for the wedding. The bridal party drove into town, so that left just the men hanging out on the property.

At one point late in the night, Cam was pretty intoxicated, so the rest of the bachelor party left him alone in the barn and said they were going to go into town.

The last they saw him, he was sleeping in a chair.

When they came back, about an hour and a half later, he was gone. His suitcase and jacket were still laying there, but Cam was nowhere to be found.

They thought maybe he called for a ride and went into town, so they didn't really raise any suspicion until Sunday. That was Thursday night. The family or sheriff's office definitely didn't get notified until Sunday night, the 7th, that he was missing.

Q: What are the theories about what happened?

A:We've had a wide range. We've had psychics reach out to us. We've had family members tell us stuff andfriends tell us stuff.

It's anywhere from foul play to the possibility thathe's got amnesia or he's had a breakdown and is wandering.

The sheriff's office are searching a creek, that's pretty long and deep they've been searching that pretty hard, because his cellphone and credit cards and money nothing's been used since that night. There's been no activity whatsoever.

The theories are that maybe he was kidnapped. Maybe a mental breakdown.

The family obviously are holding on to any hope. They don't want to give up on him. Nobody would. It's worth chasing down any little lead.

Also, I just had a meeting the other day with the sheriff's office and got a debrief, and they're still focused on that creek.

Q: The reward has been doubled, to $10,000 US. Does that help or hurt?

A:It helps. Even when we met with the sheriff about doing it we figured if there was some foul play, that that would generate some tips, that somebody would say something for that type of money.

So far, nobody has come forward with anything super substantial that we can sink our teeth into.

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With files from theCalgary Eyeopener.