A Bowen Island man who found a decomposing body on his property Friday is convinced it belongs to the same woman he spotted on a ferry a month earlier.
Mike Braraton discovered the human remains hidden behind bushes next to his driveway after noticing a pungent smell.
"The odour was getting unbearable here when we got out of our vehicle to open the gate to leave," Braraton said. "I had looked around for several days."
When Braraton located the corpse he saw a bag covering its head and a cord around its neck. He said the bag looked like a euthanasia device known as an exit mask.
"I don't know if it was tied or not, but it had a breather, or an exit breather for breath or air in the middle. It's a round circular object in the mask," he said.
Braraton said a black vest, heavy knit dark pants and black Nike shoes were found at the scene. He believes he saw a young woman wearing the same clothing on the Bowen Island ferry a month before.
"It was exactly the same clothing. It didn't register, I had to go back in my memory, back to the 11th, and that's the same girl I saw on the ferry," he said
Braraton thinks the body had been there for about a month.
Police have called the death suspicious, but have not confirmed it as a homicide. They said the body was so badly decomposed they could not determine the sex.
Sgt. Jennifer Pound of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team told CTV News Saturday she hopes an autopsy will reveal the person's identity and the cause of death.
The human remains were found three years after 17-year-old Jodi Henrickson went missing after leaving a party on Bowen Island. Investigators said there is no reason to believe the two cases are linked.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Lisa Rossington
