Steve Wright and Mark Kraynak, both Americans employed by San Francisco-based FCF Agency, were last heard from as they traveled in a taxi cab to meet a friend at an after-hours club.
The pair were on vacation and had been partying earlier in the night with friend Deric Manzi and FCF President and CEO Stephan Sirard. At one point during the night, Wright and Kraynak got separated from Manzi and Sirard.
Manzi told police he received a phone call from Kraynak at 3:15 a.m. saying they were on their way to Club Red Light. Manzi waited outside the club, but said his friends never arrived. Surveillance footage showed no evidence that they ever made it to the club.
Manzi told police that his friends sounded happy when they spoke. They gave no indication that they were in any danger or were upset with anyone in any way.
"We were feeling pretty good, but nobody was falling down drunk or anything," Manzi told a Montreal newspaper. “We all handle our alcohol well and don't overdo it. We don't do drugs.”
When Wright and Kraynak failed to turn up the following morning, Sirard and Manzi reported them missing. Police immediately went to their hotel room, where they found the mens’ passports, clothes and other personal items, including Wright’s cellphone.
There was hope that police could use a global-positioning feature on Kranyak’s cellphone to locate the men, but the phone was turned off. Wright’s family has asked the U.S. State Department for help in convincing Verizon Wireless to hand over the records for Kraynak’s cellphone activity on the night he and Wright went missing.
The case has since become the No. 1 news story in Canada, and Sirard told XBix that the entire Major Crimes Division of the Montreal Police Department has been called onto the case.
"There are 14 detectives working 24 hours a day on this case, but that was just in the last day," he said.
The city also has set up a tip line. Unfortunately, Sirard said that it appears a prankster led police on a wild goose chase on the night of Aug. 30, claiming he saw bodies in a park. Police dispatched 20 cars and a helicopter to the park but the search turned up nothing.
Given the amount of time that has passed, Sirard said he fears the worst. "My gut feeling is that something bad happened," Sirard said.
Kraynak served in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq and Wright was very open and vocal about his work in adult entertainment, often introducing himself as Trevor (his stage name) and adding, “I’m a porn star.”
Sirard said he fears that Kraynak’s military service and Wright’s openness about his profession could have led to trouble with one of the city’s cab drivers.
Police have put out word that they are searching for the taxi driver who picked up Wright and Kraynak. They say the city has upwards of 30,000 cab drivers.
Sirard, who said his agency represents around 1,200 models at offices in Atlanta, Los Angeles and Montreal, also has offered a $5,000 reward for any information that might help police locate the missing men.
In a bizarre twist, it was Sirard’s agency that represented adult actress Taylor Summers, who was murdered two years ago by a photographer following a bondage photo shoot. Summers' real name was Natel King.
Kraynak and Wright had both been danced during the summer at Remington’s, a strip club in Toronto, where they reportedly made between $750 and $1,000 a night.
However, Sirard stressed that they were on vacation and not working at the time they disappeared, and their disappearance had nothing to do with their adult entertainment work.
"I'm very upset that the media is focusing on the fact that they [Wright and Kraynak] work in the industry. Yes, they do, but they were on vacation when this happened and it has nothing to do with their work," he said.
