'Please help us bring my dad home': Family appeals for help finding missing Maple Ridge senior

Otto Csaszar is seen in a surveillance video screengrab handed out by Ridge Meadows RCMP.

Update: Otto Csaszar was tragically found deceased on Monday near the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows border. The original story follows below.

Police in Maple Ridge are renewing calls for public assistance to locate a missing senior after search and rescue efforts over the weekend were unsuccessful.

Otto Csaszar, 76, was last seen on Friday around 10 a.m., when he left his home in the 12000 block of 207A Street in Maple Ridge to buy a newspaper, according to Ridge Meadows RCMP. He did not return.

Surveillance video from a nearby gas station shows that Csaszar was there around 11 a.m. that day, but he left when there were no newspapers available, police said.

Local Search and Rescue and RCMP helicopters searched the area until midnight on Friday night, and continued the effort on Saturday, but could not find Csaszar.

CP Rail, Metro Vancouver Transit and Fraser Health have all been notified about the case, RCMP said.

Police said the search effort is now being expanded across Metro Vancouver.

Csaszar does not have a cell phone and did not have “much money” with him when he left his home.

“We are extremely concerned about his safety and wellbeing,” Bence Csaszar, Otto’s son said in a news release Sunday.

“If anyone has any information about his whereabouts please come forward and help him come home. He has underlying health conditions, including asthma. He will likely be confused and disoriented but he is a stubborn dad and won’t ask for help,” he continued.

“Please help us bring my dad home.”

If you see Csaszar, police say to stay with him as he may appear confused, and to call 911.

Mounties are asking residents of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows to check their backyards and surrounding green spaces at their homes.

And if you have seen Csaszar or have any information that could help find him, such as surveillance or dash cam video, Ridge Meadows RCMP say to contact the detachment directly at 604-463-6251.

Csaszar is described as a 76-year-old white male with a “slim build.” He is 5”2 with balding grey hair. Csaszar was last seen wearing a light green shirt with the Puma logo, a Nike windbreaker with two white stripes on the sleeves, jeans and red and blue running shoes.