‘I need to find him’: Sister of New Brunswick man asks for information in homicide investigation – New Brunswick

The sister of a New Brunswick man suspected of homicide speaks out. She hopes the RCMP’s search will uncover what happened to her brother.

Richard (Ricky) Matchett, 58, was last seen around 2 p.m. in Sillikers, New Brunswick on August 9, 2022. Matchett, of Sunny Corner, was reported missing to police on April 30, 2023.

RCMP have now declared his disappearance to be a homicide.

“He’s my little brother,” Starlene Matchett said. “I have to find it. I have to take him home and bury him with mom and dad…I can’t stand another winter with him there.

She said her brother suffered from addiction and the family believed Ricky was using crystal meth at the time of his disappearance.

“It’s such a dangerous drug. It takes over your life as soon as you start using it. But for me, I thought he would go to rehab. Well, there is a way, right? There’s always a way,” she said.

But before he had a chance to make a difference, Matchett said, his brother disappeared. For a while, his family didn’t even know he was missing. They had a*sumed he was staying at the old family home, but he was disconnected.

“On April 28, an RCMP officer came to my door and said, ‘We can’t find Rick.’ And it appears there has been no activity since July 2022 on his bank account and there appears to be no record of him in any hospital or prison in Canada,” she recalled.

She said at that point “rumors had broken out” in the community and accusations were leveled at the RCMP for its delayed response, but she stressed that was simply not the case.

An official missing persons file has been opened, leading to an update from the RCMP yesterday that Ricky’s disappearance is now being ruled a homicide.

“Right now we’re kind of in the best and worst of places because we’re praying that they find it. But that means it’s all true and my brother is no more,” Matchett said.

RCMP said that “throughout the investigation, police determined that the disappearance of Richard Matchett was suspicious” and that a search warrant was executed at a residence on Highway 420 in Sillikers in connection with of the current investigation.

Matchett said Friday that police were still on scene and in constant contact with them.

All the family wants, she added, is to bring their “little brother” home.

“I have no judgment on the other people who were there that night…it didn’t hurt my brother, they were there because of an addiction.” An addiction is a terrible thing. It’s a terrible struggle for everyone,” she said.

“But if they feel comfortable enough or good enough about themselves to talk to the RCMP, call Crime Stoppers. This can be anonymous. Tell us what you know.

Ricky deserves to be remembered for more than just his pa*sing, she said. He was a father of two and a man who worked out west but always felt drawn to return to Miramichi.

“My brother should have died old in his bed,” she said. “He shouldn’t have died at someone else’s hands.” This must lead to a legitimate conclusion.