Cole Hosack vanished from Dawson Creek, B.C. in 2023. Does this man know what happened to him? | CBC News

New evidence, including a potential confession, has been uncovered in an investigation by the CBC’s the fifth estate into the suspicious disappearance of a man in northern British Columbia.

Cole Hosack vanished on New Year’s Eve in 2023 after leaving a bar in the town of Dawson Creek, 1,200 kilometres north of Vancouver.

The investigation is part of a CBC podcast. The Mile Zero Murders, released as part of the CBC’s Uncover series, is the result of a two-year investigation into a cluster of disappearances and killings in the community with a population of 13,000. 

Fifteen people have been killed or gone missing over the last five years, nine of them in 2023 alone, including Hosack. The RCMP have said they believe Hosack is no longer alive.

Episode 5 of the podcast, which is available Monday, includes an interview with a confidential source who describes overhearing a conversation with a man admitting to a role in Hosack’s disappearance on the night he went missing. 

“He openly admitted in front of a bunch of people that he had a big part in Cole Hosack’s disappearance and that it was an accident,” the source told the fifth estate. We are protecting the identity of the source over fears for his safety.

The man the source overheard confessing is 29-year-old local resident Matt Lawton, who other sources say is connected to the drug trade in Dawson Creek.

“[Lawton] openly kind of admitted that they had picked [Hosack] up and the fact that he owed them for drugs,” the source said.

When approached by the fifth estate, Lawton denied any involvement in Hosack’s disappearance, saying he wasn’t familiar with the name Cole Hosack.

“I don’t know who that is,” he told podcast host and fifth estate producer Timothy Sawa, who explained Hosack went missing while visiting Dawson Creek in 2023.

“I have no clue,” Lawton said.

WATCH | Questions for Matt Lawton:

Fifth estate host Mark Kelley asks Matt Lawton what he knows about Cole Hosack’s disappearance.

Hosack’s story made national headlines in 2024. 

At the time, he was the fourth person to disappear from the small town in the same year. All four cases are being treated as homicides by the RCMP. There were also five other killings that year.

A grieving dad

Hosack was a grieving dad who was passing through Dawson Creek in December 2023, on his way to a new job.

He and his fiancée had recently lost an infant son after the baby was diagnosed with a rare heart condition.

The baby was “pure frickin’ magic, that boy,” said Morgan Crawford, Hosack’s partner.

“He looked just like his dad.… Just trauma. Absolute trauma. Cole and I were both in really bad places.”

Hosack was living in Prince George at the time. He was offered a job operating heavy equipment in Alberta, which was meant to be a fresh start for the couple, Crawford said. Hosack got a ride from a friend, who needed to stop in Dawson Creek along the way. 

Their plan was to celebrate the new year in the northern B.C. community.

On the evening of Dec. 31, according to two people who were with Hosack, he and three others were moving from bar to bar as the night progressed.

A series of Snapchat videos obtained by the fifth estate show Hosack appearing to have a good time.

“Happy New Year’s, goofs,” he said in one, with cheers and music in the background. “Y’all need to come out here bro and flip this town upside down.

“I’m sure we won’t remember tonight, not even a little bit.”

Hosack and his friends ended the night at a local bar called The LoneStar. According to several witnesses, the only thing that stood out was a short altercation between Hosack and two other men over whose turn it was to use the pool table.

“We’re just sitting there having drinks and stuff, and those people that were there came by the pool table and started saying stuff to him,” said Dawson Creek resident Laura Lambert, one of the people partying with Hosack that evening.

“I couldn’t hear what they’re saying, but nit-picking at him and stuff when he’s shooting pool.”

Lambert said eventually they left him alone and the festivities continued.

Down a dark alley

Throughout the evening, Hosack was in touch with his fiancée, who was back in Prince George, four hundred kilometres south of Dawson Creek.

“He would call me and he’d be outside smoking or he’d be drinking,” Crawford said. 

“He was drunk, but he was not wasted.… He was happy-drunk that whole night. He kept it to a very chill medium.”

The final call from Hosack came shortly before midnight.

“The phone call ended, ‘I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow or the next day,'” Crawford said.

Shortly after that, the fifth estate learned, Hosack was captured on the security camera of a local business, hurrying down a dark back alley, followed by a truck.

That was the last time anybody has seen Hosack alive.

Hosack’s mother, Julie, declined to comment for this story.

On Facebook, she has been adamant that she believes her son’s disappearance is not connected to the drug trade in Dawson Creek.

3 local suspects

More than two years later, following an investigation by the fifth estate, a clearer picture is emerging about what happened that evening.

The fifth estate spoke to six sources who confirmed different aspects of this story. Two of those sources indicated Lawton is heavily involved in the drug trade in Dawson Creek.

Lawton didn’t respond to attempts from the fifth estate seeking comment on this fact.

Lawton has never been charged or convicted of a drug-related offence, but the fifth estate has confirmed he was arrested, questioned and released by the RCMP early in 2024 in connection with Hosack’s disappearance.

Cellphone records obtained by the fifth estate show the last person Hosack phoned the night he disappeared was Lawton. Lawton never answered the call.

According to multiple sources, three local men were considered suspects in Hosack’s disappearance, including Lawton.

WATCH | The full documentary ‘Dawson Creek: Behind the fear’ from the fifth estate:

Dawson Creek: Behind the Fear

We return to small-town Dawson Creek, B.C., where residents feel besieged by violence and murder. The RCMP failed to meet the deadline it set for answers, so we return to investigate yet more killings and reveal what is behind this crime wave. Correction: An earlier version of this story said Kelly Schmidt died of a drug overdose. In fact, newly acquired information has revealed Schmidt died of bronchial asthma. This video has been edited to remove those references.

According to the source who overheard the potential confession, Hosack owed someone money for drugs and that’s why he was being followed down that alley.

“Matt … apparently chased him from LoneStar is what I had heard,” he said.

“I overheard Matt kind of like crying and shit, being like: ‘Oh, it wasn’t our fault. It was an accident. We didn’t mean to [kill him]. We were just trying to threaten him for money.'”

According to the source, Lawton said he didn’t cause the death, but he was there when it happened.

The RCMP won’t comment on the new information, but say they are still working on the case.

“I can tell you it’s an active investigation,” said B.C. RCMP Supt. Sanjaya Wijayakoon.

Wijayakoon said investigators are still open to all possibilities, but they believe Hosack is no longer alive.

“I believe foul play is at work here.” 

Lawton needs to come forward: Hosack’s fiancée

The new information about the potential confession came as a surprise to Crawford, Hosack’s fiancée, but she says it lines up at least partly with something she heard.

She was told by someone in town that Hosack was just supposed to be scared and possibly beaten that night. He wasn’t supposed to be killed.

The fact that he might have owed someone money for drugs was new to her.

“My brain is going a million miles a minute right now. What I make of it is that he was struggling with a lot of things and trying to numb all the pain that he had.… We lost a child,” she said. 

“He struggled, we both did.”

• All episodes of The Mile Zero Murders podcast are available on the fifth estate‘s YouTube channel.

Crawford said Lawton needs to come forward and tell the police what he knows. She said Hosack’s other young son deserves answers about what happened to his father.

“It’s frustrating that Matt [Lawton] is still just doing what he wants to do. He’s still just living his life,” she said.

“[Cole’s son] is getting older. And it would just be nice to be able to tell him [what happened to his dad]. To have his dad home with him in a way. That would bring him some sort of comfort.”