Julian Sands’ brother has revealed that he “knows in his heart” that his missing sibling is no longer alive.
Nick Sands, from Gargrave, Yorkshire, told the Craven Herald that he had accepted that the prospects of finding the Leaving Las Vegas actor 11 days after he went missing in treacherous conditions in a Californian mountain range alive had all but gone.
“He has not yet been declared missing, presumed dead, but I know in my heart that he has gone,” Nick Sands told the local news site. “However, sibling rivalry being what it is, it would be just like him to walk out of there and prove me wrong.”
Julian Sands was reported missing on 13 January while hiking on Mt Baldy, about 40 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
Search and rescue teams from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Office launched a rescue operation in an area around the San Gabriel Mountains.
Sands’ cellphone pinged on two days later on 15 January, suggesting that his phone died a short time later.
Weather conditions in the area, which has been struck by a fierce winter storm and high winds, had complicated the search effort, and the risk of avalanche forced the ground search to be suspended on 20 January, authorities said.
On Monday, the Leaving Las Vegas star’s family thanked authorities for their “heroic” efforts in a statement released through the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office.
Julian, who is the middle of five brothers, returned to England three times a year and had been due to visit his hometown of Craven, on 30 January, brother Nick told the Craven Herald.
Instead, his brothers will gather at their favourite local pub in Skipton without him.
“He will be missed, and I guess we will raise a glass to him,” Nick told the news site.
Nick said the Mt Baldy mountain range was his brother’s favourite place to be when in Los Angeles, his home for the past several decades: “Julian liked to say ‘I have never had a holiday but I do rest occasionally’ – well he’s resting now in a place he would truly approve of.”
