Friends have not given up hope that someone knows why Derek Ritz vanished.
He was last seen at a home in Sebringville, Ont., on Dec. 31, 2016. Since then, there’s been no sign of the 51-year-old.
“It’s been nine long years and Ritzy deserves better than this,” his friend Shelly Smith told CTV News. “We’re trying not to give up. His best friend and I will not give up. We’re doing the best we can right now.”
Ritz’s disappearance has haunted not only his friends, but the small community west of Stratford which has dubbed itself “The Hamlet with Heart.”
Smith and the Stratford Police Service, who are investigating the case, both believe someone knows what happened to Ritz.
“A lot of the information that we get is pretty similar in nature,” explained Mark Taylor, the acting deputy chief for Stratford Police. “Everyone’s hearing the stories that are out there.”
While there’s been a lot of rumors, they haven’t resulted in any concrete clues in the case.
“We know we’re on the right track,” Smith insisted.
Ontario Provincial Police began the investigation into Ritz’s disappearance before it was ultimately handed over to Stratford Police.
“We’ve had four investigators dig into it,” Taylor said. “As of 2024-2025, we had two investigators who were strictly involved in investigating over 100 individuals in regard to this case, to try and close it for us.”
Those efforts have not ceased.
“We were actually going to sit down this week as a group and go over every piece of information that we’ve got and see if there’s anything that we missed,” Taylor told CTV News on Tuesday.
There have been several ground and air searches in the area over the years, as Ritz was known to walk from Sebringville to Stratford.
“They’ve all come up negative,” said Taylor. “We still get the odd tip here and there. Just not as frequently as we’d like. We just need to close the loops.”
That was what prompted police to recently issue a $10,000 reward for information on Ritz’s whereabouts, or lead police to those responsible for his disappearance.
“It’s rare for us to have an open case for this long,” Taylor admitted. “We’re not [dismissing] the fact that he may be alive because we don’t have proof that he is deceased.”
The decision to offer a reward was overdue, according to Ritz’s friend.
“It’s sad that there had to be a reward for them to want to come forward, or some incentive, but this is where we’re at,” Smith told CTV News.
She has been one of the consistent factors in case, pushing to keep Ritz’s name in the spotlight and working alongside both police and Please Bring Me Home Canada, a non-profit organization that helps families search for their missing loved ones.
“We’re pretty sure we know what happened,” Smith said. “We just need to be able to prove it.”
She’s resigned, however, to never seeing her friend again.
“Very sad for Ritzy,” Smith said through tears. “He doesn’t deserve this.”
With additional reporting by Hannah Schmidt
