FILE PHOTO - The beach at Kelowna's City Park is seen in this July 2020 photo.

(CARLI BERRY / iNFOnews.ca)

The skeletal remains of a young man found decades ago just offshore from Kelowna's City Park likely won't ever be identified, partly because authorities lost his remains.

Not only have the remains been lost, but there's a "slim chance" the young man, estimated to be 11 and 20 years old when he died, may have been identified at some point, according to Kelowna RCMP records.

If so, the "communication was lost along the way, which has happened before," the record read.

The records were obtained through an Access to Information Request and include notes on the investigation and emails between RCMP in Kelowna and BC headquarters.

The body was found in March 1973, 67 feet underwater and 70 feet from the Athens diving tower, which was once just offshore of City Park. He was somewhere between 5'3" and 5'5" tall, and while investigators say he was probably a male, how old he was isn't so clear.

He was believed to be in his mid-20s, according to the BC Coroners Service, but a hospital pathologist judged the remains closer to 12 years old.

The autopsy, summarized in police files, said it's likely he drowned a year before the bones were found.

Not only were the remains lost, but so was the original 1973 RCMP file, according to records. Kelowna RCMP started a new file on the investigation in 2014.

In 2019, police checked with the BC Coroners Service for any updates or more information on what police described as a "sparse" file. The coroners service responded to say it had nothing more to offer and the location of the bones was still not known.

Kelowna's cemeteries had no record of any related unnamed burials in 1973, according to police information.

Without the bones and without any leads for years, a Kelowna police officer suggested the case is likely "unsolvable."

The detachment and the BC Coroners Service did not immediately respond to questions on the unidentified remains from iNFOnews.ca.

The remains were one of two discovered in Kelowna that remain unidentified.

The second is a woman whose remains were found in 1974 in what is now the Kettle Valley neighbourhood. 

She had light brown hair, stood 5'7" tall and was between 18 and 25 years old. That investigation was headed by the Penticton RCMP.

More information can be found on the provincial unidentified remains map.

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