Three years after longtime Pontiac cottager Michael Scandiffio disappeared without leaving a trace, his family still has no answers as to what happened to him, and is now offering a $10,000 reward for locating him.
Scandiffio was last seen the evening of Oct. 1, 2022, at Ladysmith Oktoberfest. He left the festivities to take some food to his son, who was at the family cottage on Clarke Lake, but he never made it back to the cottage, and was never seen or heard from again.
Since then, several extensive ground searches have been carried out by police, teams of volunteers, and search and rescue (SAR) experts, as well as helicopter surveys and lake searches, but not a clue has been found that might indicate what happened to him.
The bulk of this searching has taken place within the area contained by routes 303, 366, and 301 – the area within which Scandiffio would have traveled on his way back to his cottage.
In 2024, Scandiffio’s brother-in-law, Robert Ellis, reached out to Exploring with A Mission, a non-profit organization led by American Bill McIntosh that specializes in locating missing persons cases involving vehicles believed to be underwater, to see if the team might be able to assist with Scandiffio’s case.
The organization documents its work on its YouTube channel, and has been successful at locating missing vehicles. In July of this year, they discovered the truck of a Quebec man who had been missing since 1988.
But over the two trips that McIntosh made to the Ladysmith area to survey all nearby lakes using his sonar technology, he found nothing.
“He double-checked a bunch of stuff others had already reviewed, and he hasn’t come up with any clues,” Ellis said.
“The only thing I had heard from Bill is that he had spoken to someone who believed that they had seen Mike speaking to a couple of people in the parking lot at Oktoberfest outside. I don’t know the name of who that was, or any validation of that. [ . . . ] I certainly hope that if anybody thought they saw Mike speaking to anybody or had any indication of anything strange that they’d observed they’d contact the authorities for that to be investigated.”
While Ellis had previously been quite certain that Scandiffio’s car would be found in one of the lakes, likely Sparling or McCuaig, that Scandiffio might have passed on his way back to the cottage, the lack of any evidence in the immediate 10-kilometre radius around Ladysmith is forcing him to reconsider this.
“Our searches to date have always focused on the immediate area, as recommended by the professional search and rescue teams. In light of that search being done without results, the next natural step is to expand the search grid outward on likely routes Michael would have taken if he was lost or confused,” Ellis said.
“Mike was 57 when he went missing, and he did have one known incident of becoming lost while away from his group while out for a walk one night during a vacation earlier in the year he disappeared. That incident seemed different because it was in very unfamiliar surroundings. But in light of that event, we have to recognize the possibility that Mike also became lost, confused or disoriented after leaving Oktoberfest, and drove further away than his normal route home.”
Ellis said Mike had enough gas in the car that he could have travelled 40 or 50 kilometers from Ladysmith, meaning the possible search area could be much larger than the area searched to date.
He said he is confident Scandiffio was not driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, as he was the designated driver for the evening, that there has been no evidence of foul play, and that Scandiffio did not intentionally try to disappear, or end his own life.
“If you’re trying to take off on your family, or to engage in self-harm, this would not have been the night to do it. He had his wife waiting for him at Oktoberfest, and his kid waiting for him back at the cottage,” he said.
“So the only two rational conclusions I can come to is that Mike for whatever reason was in a confused mental state, got lost, and drove further than we think, and then somehow had an accident.”
It’s for this reason Ellis has begun working with developers to see whether artificial intelligence can be used to scan satellite images to detect whether there are any cars in places where they shouldn’t be, that appear in many images over a long period of time.
“The capability is there, the technology is there, it’s just a question of how high resolution the images are that you can get your hands on,” Ellis said.
“So I’m hoping the technology can at least give us some better clues, and also keep people safe,” he said, noting there are risks with doing search and rescue work in the bush and along logging roads.
“It’s shocking in a small community when you lose somebody and there’s mystery around it [ . . . ] Everybody’s taken it very much to heart. It’s something the family is just so grateful for because the outpouring of concern is tremendous and all the effort people have put in looking for Mike over the years has just been amazing.”
Súreté du Québec spokesperson Sgt. Marc Tessier said Scandiffio’s case is still open.
“There is nothing new at this time. We still need the public’s help, as he could be anywhere in Quebec or Ontario,” he said.
“We are specifically appealing to people who practice forest activities, hunting, and forestry workers who might see Mr. Scandiffio’s abandoned vehicle. Any new information will be validated by investigators.”
