While mystery continued to shroud Tuesday's bold daylight abduction of Graham McMynn, there was no doubt what flooded the thoughts of the city's best-known and wealthiest entrepreneur as he read about the dramatic incident.
More than 15 years ago, Jimmy Pattison's 30-year-old daughter was snatched by kidnappers brandishing a .357 magnum handgun.
She spent a harrowing 13 hours stuffed into a sleeping bag and bound almost to the point of suffocation by duct tape, before the payment of a $200,000 ransom brought her release.
In a brief interview yesterday, Mr. Pattison said neither he nor his family will ever forget the terrifying incident.
Asked whether it was his first thought when he heard about Mr. McMynn's abduction, the 76-year-old billionaire paused a moment, and then said, simply: "Yes."
But the normally outgoing businessman did not want to say more.
"In this case, I think the best thing is to keep quiet," he said, declining to offer advice to the McMynn family based on his own experience.
"Right now, I believe it's wise to mind my own business."
In the past, Mr. Pattison has talked openly about the fallout from the kidnapping, carried out by a motley gang of teenagers who were nabbed when they went on a spending spree with the ransom money.
"When you're faced with your daughter gone, a kidnapping, it really brings home how fragile life is," he told one reporter.
On the advice of police, Mr. Pattison has altered his pattern driving to and from work, using different routes and arriving at different times.
Kidnappings for ransom are rare in Vancouver, and are often botched.
One of the most tragic cases involved the 1982 kidnapping of Sharon Bolivar, wife of a local supermarket executive. She was shot to death while her husband waited anxiously for ransom instructions that never came.
Another brutal incident occurred three years later, when Jimmy and Lily Ming, a young restaurant manager and his wife, were kidnapped from their Chinatown home, then strangled and dismembered as protracted ransom negotiations went awry.
More recently, stock promoter Mark Godsy was abducted by an angry investor in 2003, held in a vehicle, blindfolded and threatened with having his testicles fried, until he won his release by agreeing to pay the man $30,000.
"Most crimes are committed by people who are not particularly skilled at what they do," criminologist Neil Boyd said yesterday, wondering at the audaciousness of the McMynn abduction.
It took place at a public intersection just before noon, with a witness nearby and the victim's girlfriend in the front seat.
"You would think you would want to reduce your visibility," Professor Boyd said. "The kidnappers' high-risk behaviour seems incongruous."
Ozzie Kaban, a Vancouver-based veteran of providing security advice and arrangements to clients around the world, agreed that such kidnappings are rare in the city.
He added that the kidnappers may have been sending a message beyond any request for ransom.
"They targeted that guy really well, but what they did was so open, they could be saying: 'Listen, we are not afraid. We can do what we want, when we want. We've got [guts]' "
But Jack Cloonan, a former FBI security analyst and an expert on kidnapping response, said the local abduction conformed to many others around the world.
"It may seem so audacious and stupid, but our experience has been that most kidnappings take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and usually one or two miles from their home," said Mr. Cloonan, an employee of the U.S.-based security firm Clayton Consultants.
"They usually take place on a road, with cars blocking the way. The kidnappers are heavily armed, and they are quick."