The family members of a 29-year-old who went missing in Jasper two summers ago are putting out a desperate plea for any information about their son and brother.
Mark Bullock Jr. was last seen in Jasper in the early hours of June 17, 2024. His father, Mark Sr., who lives in Hinton, last heard from him that day.
He has been agonizing over the lack of details ever since.
“I shouldn’t have to suffer because something happened to my boy,” he said.
Mark Sr. believes foul play was involved in his son’s disappearance. On many occasions Mark Sr. bore witness to the crime-adjacent lifestyle his son couldn’t seem to point himself away from. He knows in his broken heart that his son’s sudden vanishing wasn’t an accident.
“I believe something happened to him,” he said.
But Mr. Bullock isn’t here to litigate anyone. He just wants to find his son.
“We all got demons,” said Mr. Bullock, who is originally from New Brunswick. “I don’t judge.”
Mr. Bullock has offered a refuge for people struggling with addictions. His son’s friends have often come to him—for a warm place to sleep, or a safe house.
“I’ve helped them out,” he said. “They know me. One of them must know something.”
Jasper RCMP also believe that key information about Mark Jr. is just one anonymous tip away. Despite their efforts—police have conducted extensive searches, including by air, and with the aid of police dogs—authorities still have no answers about Mark Jr.’s disappearance.
They say they have investigated all leads that have come in, including the most speculative ones that have cropped up online, on sites dedicated to missing persons cases. They are hoping that a friend of Mark Jr.’s will have compassion for his distraught family.
“Someone has to know something,” said Cst. Miles McCartney, the lead investigator on the case.
On June 16, 2024, 29-year-old Mark Bullock Jr., was in Jasper with friends. At the end of the night, Bullock was supposed to meet those friends for a ride home. He never showed up. Jasper RCMP say that the last known sighting of Mark Jr. was in the 800 block of Patricia Street. He was riding a bike. Mark Jr. is described as 5’9” (175 cm), about 145 lbs (66 kg), with a light complexion, light brown hair, and prescription glasses. He was last seen wearing a grey plaid jacket, blue jeans, and a tan Toronto Blue Jays hat, according to police.
“If something did happen to him, it takes more than one person to get rid of a body,” Mark Sr. said, his voice wavering. “All they gotta do is phone it in.”
“All I want is his remains.”
June 16, 2024 was Father’s Day. Earlier in the day, Mark Jr. texted his dad. It was a short message; they made plans for coffee—at Tim Horton’s, Mr. Bullock said. As he regularly did, Mark Jr. was checking in. He was just “seeing what was going on,” according to his dad.
“He was considerate that way,” said his half-sister, Kristy Tommy.
Mark Jr.—Markie, as his family calls him—was the youngest of six half-siblings who grew up in rural New Brunswick. He was a hyper child, Ms. Tommy said, whose unbridled energy was hard for his mother to manage on her own. But he was a genuinely sweet boy, Ms. Tommy said; a kind-hearted kid who would stop what he was doing to help others—especially younger children or older folks.
“He had a huge heart, and he never grew out of that,” said Ms. Tommy, who is 19 years older than her half brother.
When he was 14, Markie and his father moved out west, to Rocky Mountain House, where Mark Sr. found work in the forestry industry. Markie’s mother, Margaret, followed her husband west shortly thereafter. At first the change was good for the family, Ms. Tommy said. But Markie didn’t make friends easily, she said, and he was vulnerable to being negatively influenced by others.
“He was a follower,” she said. “He didn’t take the lead.”
When Mark Sr. moved the family to Edson for work a couple of years later, Markie fell into “some of the wrong crowd,” Ms. Tommy said.
“He got into drugs. His friends would tell him to do whatever. He thought these people were his friends.”
When he was 17, Markie moved back east to live with his siblings—and to get away from the scene he found himself in while in Alberta.
“We figured if he got away from that crowd it would be better,” Ms. Tommy said.
And for a while, it was. He learned to cook, create a budget and in general, be more independent.
“He was doing really well. He was really proud of himself,” Ms. Tommy said.
But the west was calling. Once again Markie packed up, once again to Edson. And once again, he either found trouble, or it found him. He’d hang out in circles who had ready access to hard drugs, like crystal meth and heroin. He got into fights and into crime—theft and drug deals, said Ms. Tommy, who learned about her half-brother’s troubles from their mother.
“It was hard on her,” Ms. Tommy said.
One night, Markie came home in agony. His hand had been crushed.
“Somebody beat him up and took a hammer to his hand,” Ms. Tommy said. “We didn’t understand why he stayed with that crowd. We never understood it.”
The high-risk lifestyle continued. Eventually, Markie was booked for vehicular theft.
“We couldn’t figure out how to help him,” Ms. Tommy said. “We couldn’t figure out what to do for him, how to get him out of that scene.”
At court, Markie’s mother Margaret pleaded for leniency. She told the judge that Markie had a learning disability, and was sick from drug addiction. She asked her son to be sent to a hospital, instead of to jail. Although the crime involved a high-speed chase and left an RCMP member injured, the judge did in fact go easy on Mark Jr., Mr. Bullock said. His son’s prison sentence was for two years, rather than the 12 the Crown prosecutor was asking for.
It was a relief to the family. But then only six months after Mark Jr. was released from prison, Margaret got sick—from a COVID-related illness, Mr. Bullock said. A week later she suddenly passed away. His mother’s death sent Markie into a tailspin.
“He had got himself clean, but after mom died he went back on it,” Ms. Tommy said. “He didn’t want to deal with it.”
“Addiction is an illness,” says Jasper RCMP Staff Sgt. Rick Bidaisee.
Sgt. Bidaisee, who has been in contact with Mr. Bullock since the missing person’s case was first opened 19 months ago, has seen first hand how mental illness and drug addiction can be at the nexus of a dangerous lifestyle. But having an illness doesn’t mean an individual’s well-being matters any less, the veteran officer said. And it doesn’t mean they deserve to be forgotten about. He assured Mark Jr.’s family that the RCMP are actively interested in the case.
“The investigation is open and active,” Sgt. Bidaisee said. “Who are we to say that care for those addicted should go out the window?”
Crystal meth is usually made by combining ephedrine or pseudoephedrine—over-the-counter cold medications and weight loss products—with other chemicals that are often poisonous or highly flammable. The mixture is then added to a solvent such as gasoline and heated to crystallize. At the “street” level, users smoke it, inject it, or snort it.
According to the Alberta government’s literature, people who use meth may become anxious, confused, and violent. It can affect a person’s brain so that they can’t tell what is real. Meth users may fear that others want to harm them, they may see or hear things that seem real but aren’t; and they may believe things that aren’t true, the GoA reports.
Psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations and delusion—all of that tracks with Ms. Tommy’s experience seeing people around her use the drug.
“They can act crazy, they think people are watching them, they lose all sense of time, all else of everything they’re doing,” she said.
And the health risks are well documented. Ms. Tommy said Markie was once dropped off at home unconscious—overdosing, they would come to find out.
“Mom had to perform CPR because he was OD-ing,” she said. “It is a true, true addiction.”
For many years, Mark Sr., wasn’t privy to the full details of his son’s risky lifestyle.
“Mom kind of kept a lot of that from him,” Ms. Tommy said. “He was working a lot.”
Mark Sr. still works a lot. His occupation—operating a logging processor—keeps him away from home for weeks at a time. On a rare day off—because his machine was down—he drove into Jasper to talk to RCMP about his son’s case. His eyes were tired. He has been through what no father should have to. And the only thing that serves to distract him from the terrible losses he’s been dealt in recent years, he said, is the constant grind of work.
“It takes my mind off of it,” he said.
But all the timber in the forest can’t keep one, unrelenting question at bay: Where is his son?
“Somebody knows,” he said. “I believe something happened to him.”
He’s heard the horrifying rumours and read the online speculation—that Markie was thrown from a high cliff in Jasper; that he got in a deadly fight and his body was disposed of in a cavernous lake. The RCMP say they’ve followed those leads, within reason. Now they’re once again appealing to the individual or individuals who might know something about Mark’s disappearance.
“We want to find Mark, we just want to know what happened,” said Jasper RCMP Detachment Staff Sergeant Rick Bidaisee. “We want the public to know there are people out there who care about him.”
Mr. Bullock is past the point of looking to blame anyone. He’s past the point of wanting to know what happened. He just wants his boy back—even if it’s just his son’s remains.
“I don’t really care what happened to him,” he said. “I just need him back.”
“All they have to do is phone in anonymously, just saying where he is.”
Ms. Tommy echoed Mark Sr.’s plea.
“If anybody knows any information, the family just wants him home, or at least some closure,” she said.
“I don’t think he’s alive,” she said. “I just hope we’re going to find his bones.”
To submit an anonymous report to the RCMP in Jasper, dial Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or use the online crime reporting portal.
Bob Covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
