Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from the nonprofit organization Images & Voices of Hope. LeMaitre's 41-year-old daughter, MaryAnne, flew north from her home in Utah to continue the search for another month with the help of others. Why hadnt the police told them about the bones? And still there are those who go lost never to be found by searchers. He couldnt just drop everything and go off to the Kenai. The next day, a small group hiked up a grassy hillside overlooking Lower Summit Lake, one of Richards favorite places to hunt. More than 53,000 people have been reported missing in the state since the clearinghouse was established in 1988. Now we have to go down there and take it away from them. Although it's not as famous as the Bermuda Triangle, the Alaska Triangle has more unsolved missing-person cases than any other location on Earth -- more than 20,000 people have vanished in the area in the last 50 years. It is home to a footrace the Seward Mount Marathon that rivals the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race as the best known sporting event in the 49th state. There were, to borrow one troopers phrase, a great number of equally plausible alternative inferences.. Dolly seemed to rely on Heidi for steadiness, Heidi on Dolly for uplift. That may never happen. They wondered the same thing that Lieutenant Shuey wondered aloud at headquarters, a question Dolly wasnt prepared to entertain quite yet. Most who disappear in the 49th state are eventually found. It was raining and chilly that day, but thousands of spectators gathered anyway on the streets of the waterfront city about 125 miles south of Anchorage at the end of a heavily traveled highway. Are you fucking kidding me?, Heidi said. Much of the park -- like much of wild Alaska -- is seldom, if ever, visited. Good Samaritan Gerald DeBerry disappeared in the foothills of the White Mountains while helping for a search for a missing woman in the fall of 2011. Then there are the people who are not really lost. it is dedicated to the idea that if everyone is thinking alike, someone is not thinking. He had let Bette continue thinking that Richard had been laid to rest. Seventy-one-year-old Jerry Warner from Missouri, told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner at the time, https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/article/human-remains-found-remote-island-sept-belong-missing-french-adventurer-francois/2014/11/06/. Rick Hills went to high school with James Beaver, and Heidi knows his brother Roy. Troopers say Chocknok, 84 at the time, had talked about visiting Dillingham 43 air miles to the south, but he never made it on any flights. Consider that it has been 30 years since Japanese national hero Naomi Uemera went missing after the first successful winter ascent of Mount McKinley. Heidi and Dolly also couldnt accept that he might have gotten lost and succumbed to the elements. Jane felt relief too, but something nagged at her. They told us there was no one else missing in the area, Leon said. With the bones now identified, a new thought has taken root in the back of Leons mind: What if Richard is alive? When he wasn't found in the immediate area of the lodge, searchers speculated that he might have tried to ride west 35 miles to Chisana, a deserted cluster of old mining cabins around an airstrip in the park, or Beaver Creek in Canada's Yukon, about an equal distance to the east. The medical examiners office ordered a round of expedited DNA tests. Jenna Miller (@jmillwrites) / Twitter It appeared, they said, that he sat down on a rock, possibly to rest, and died from a heart attack or some other natural cause. "But at the Donjek Glacier, they discovered they'd have to cross the glacier, and the river -- more than 50 braided channels -- to the opposite shore. There werent many people with whom he could share the burden: Jane and Leroy and, it turned out, Dolly, Tom, and Heidi. . One man didnt want to be found, Hughes said. The keys were in the ignition and his drivers license was on the front seat. View all posts by craigmedred. She called Tom and Heidi and told them to come to the house. They were there to watch runners trudge 3,022 feet from near sea level on Resurrection Bay to Race Point visible high above the city, before turning and charging back downhill to race past the crowds along Fourth Avenue. But, she said, sometimes I think they forget how big Alaska is. Between the westernmost tip of the Aleutian Islands and the eastern edge of the Alaska Panhandlea span roughly equal to the distance from California to Floridaa total of 1,332 law-enforcement officers keep the peace. Fire crews in Alaska are used to seeing the bones of moose, caribou, bears, and other large creatures that live and die in these woods. Hikers in Denali National Park and Preserve earlier this year found the remains of 22-year-old Etienne Terrell from Atlanta who disappeared in July 2015. They told him to make the turn and follow them down. Alaska State Troopers were notified. Others, like Griffis, just vanished. She became confused easily. 548 had been out overnight in cold, rainy weather. He was clean-shaven with light-brown hair and glasses. The list now contains the names of 89 missing since the 1970s, but it is far from complete. Two years after he disappeared, hikers stumbled on human remains about 12 miles from Schoch's old campsite. People named Jenna Miller. Mount Marathon towers over the community of Seward at the head of Resurrection Bay about 125 miles south of Anchorage. Harper was in an area so remote that it is believed no one will ever stumble on his remains. The Hillses and Bennetts hadnt known of each others existence, but now their lives were inextricably linked, the peace of one family coming at the expense of the others. The Alaska State Troopers announced that they were able to positively identify a body that had been classified as 'missing' for 32 years with the use of DNA evidence. But then the not-knowing returns, and it keeps him awake at night. It was thought he might join the missing forever. The lower jaw was missing. Jane and her husband, Leroy, are snowbirds, Alaskan residents who winter in the Southwest. They were startled to find the trailer completely cleaned out. Alaska authorities also are sending saliva samples from relatives of three missing fishermen involved in a boating accident a few years ago. It brings every thing forward. A ground team put on the mountain to try and track Harper also came up empty. She listened and mostly kept silent. Griffis grew up there, dreaming of the far north. He disappeared during a May 2013 snowmachine trip in remote Northwest Alaska and was not found until September. Almost exactly a year later, the four-wheeler the 53-year-old DeBerry was riding when he went missing was discovered, but there were no remains or trace of the rider. See Photos. His 41-year-old daughter, MaryAnne, came north from Utah to search some more. The Mystery of Why People Go Missing in Alaska - The Atlantic Both knew they were about to deliver upheaval to an unsuspecting family. But still.no sign of a bear attack no blood, shredded clothes, shoe(s), race bib. In Alaska, the majority of cases involve young runaways who eventually turn up alive, said investigator Bill Hughes, who manages the state police Missing Persons Clearinghouse. Included are black flags, which mark locations where unidentified human remains were found. Wipert appeared to have taken a couple of horses with him when he left. One, a British woman who lived in Anchorage, told Dolly that two men had been nearby as Rick was dying, that they had rifled through his coat for drugs and then left, and that Rick had frozen to death. They tried to block those thoughts, but they never went away completely.. Both the medical examiner and the State Troopers were reluctant to declare the remains Richard Bennetts without DNA confirmation. Thirty-six-year-old Joseph Balderas from Nome faded away into the hills along the Nome-Council Highway while hiking in July. Like McCandless, Griffis, too, wrestled with some personal demons. The discovery of his body was pure luck. Off to one side, next to a rotting log, something caught her eye. He had quietly hoped the man would turn out to be his son, even though troopers had ruled out that possibility the previous summer. Consider LeMaitre and Griffis the bookends of disappearance in Alaska. Or call home, at least, Dolly added. Kelley is one of the many to have gone looking for Michael's body. And Gerald Deberry, 53, was a Fairbanks man who joined a search for a woman missing in the White Mounains 70 miles north of that community in 2011 only to disappear forever himself. Not a hint German adventurer Thomas Seibold has been discovered since he disappeared in November 2012. no one at this point expects to find Broach alive. He never showed up there, and there was never much more than a cursory search for him. Schoch's body did, however, eventually make it home. The letter was dated November 5, 2007, some 16 months after the Bennett family had buried the remains of a man theyd believed was their son. At the time, Luciana was the highest unclimbed summit in North America. A woman named Lucy Ann Johnson made headlines a few years ago. The headline read, Troopers Identify Human Remains Found During Last Years Funny River Wildfire. The bones belonged to a Soldotna resident, James Allen Beaver, whod been missing since 2011. The family lost track of him after an illness. It was the right thing to do, he said. No sign of the well-known mountaineers has ever been found. After the police stopped searching, Dolly and Heidi kept the case alive. Brad Broach in a selfi taken above the Alyeska Resort shortly before he disappeared. See Photos. "People are swept away in the river and their bodies are never found, so it can't be ruled out," said trooper Mike Brandenburger. They interviewed friends and acquaintances police had overlooked. Youre not going to believe it, Dolly told me. They never found any sign of Wipert or the animals. They didn't worry about him for months. Lucy Ann Johnson was 77 when her daughter found her. "Water conditions are colder here and body gases don't develop at the same speed as in the Lower 48, so bodies tend to sink.". Ben Sewell of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Searches that found people and saved them. See Photos. We have one, Dolly said. There is speculation now that he went past Race Point, climbing toward the true summit of Mount Marathon far back in the Kenai Mountains and fell off a cliff somewhere. Human remains found near Seward likely not those of missing Mount They even wore the same kind of clothes, and both had old fractures in their right legRichard from his motorcycle accident, and Rick from playing hockey. By then, LeMaitre, who had disappeared wearing only black shorts, a black T-shirt, a black headband, white shoes, black-and-red gloves, and bib No. @RedBalloonBooks. Vast as the peninsula is, it can still seem like a small world. They found his truck someplace at a pull off on Tunragain did they ever find him? But probably the best known missing person case in wild Alaska involves 66-year-old Michael LeMaitre of Anchorage who went up Mount Marathon on July 4, 2012 and never came down. Tags: california; Page 2 of 3 < Prev 1 2 3 Next > Nov 7, 2016 #31. havelock Well-Known Member. Race officials saw him an estimated 200 feet below Race Point. All rights reserved. After Captain Greenstreet delivered the news, Dolly said, it took another month to find the exact location of the urn. He believes the tired, likely hypothermic grandfather went at least a mile beyond Race Point and then, realizing something was wrong, tried to descend the mountain to the north to find a trail that wasn't there. There is only hope of closure for the family, hope that a loved one can be brought home for the last time. There was closure in the sense that the family said goodbye and maybe he was laid to rest, she told me. When he did interact with people, he was soft-spoken and kind, especially to his young nieces and nephews; at family get-togethers they would listen in rapt silence as he read childrens books aloudthe only time many of them heard him speak at length. By 6:30 that evening, more than four hours after the start of a race that takes most people less than two hours to complete, LeMaitre's wife, Peggy, was worried. He was like a few others who have over the years turned to ghosts in the scabrous vastness of Alaska. White and orange indicate a good trail. Three weeks ago, the 46-year-married father of three walked away from the Alyeska Resort for a hike along the popular Winner Creek Trail. No sign of Wipert, or the horses, were ever found. Under a blazing sun, Leon said a short prayer and bid farewell to his son. i have a friend from long ago still missing. McCandless was a confused young man searching for himself. Soon after, he was cleared as a suspect. "Left behind were his tent, sleeping bag, cook stove, food -- and medicine he had been taking daily for diabetes, high blood pressure and a thyroid conditionHis wife, Carol, said she doesn't expect to see her husband of 44 years again.". We never found his firearms, she reminded me on several occasions. It was like he was planning on coming back.. Dolly told Leon, Jane, and Leroy that they had chosen a beautiful spot at Lower Summit Lake. As Novakovich crossed the finish line, LeMaitre, a fitness buff and grandfather of two, was still making his way up the mountain. Richard Bennetts family described him as a boy of few words who grew into a man of even fewer words. She was found safe. The three of them went to Richards place and looked around in silence. You dont want to dwell on it. I, along with many others, would like to see this mystery solved one day.". How about the guy from Anchorage married man with 2kids I believe? It is hard the family and friends of all of the missing who live with never knowing. Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), View craigmedred.newss profile on Facebook, the 46-year-married father of three walked away. Miller is among 3,988 people reported missing in Alaska in 2002 and one of the 217 who remain missing, according to Alaska State Troopers. In 2005, Richard was 39 and living alone in a trailer on the outskirts of Sterling, a short walk from the Kenai River and half a mile from the spot where Rick Hillss red Dodge truck had been found the previous year. His name was Richard too. Jenna Miller. SO bizarre. They found no sign of LeMaitre. Sincerely, Colonel James Cockrell, Director, Alaska State Troopers.. Griffis's disappearance never made the news. In June, he left a note at the lodge saying he planned to go check on a nearby cabin. It would be almost a year before he was reported missing and even then it was unclear where hed gone. Missing in Alaska: With Ken Gerhard, Jax Menez Atwell, Tommy Joseph, Matthew Evan Paine. It has been tough for the LeMaitre family. He and Rick Hills must have crossed paths many timesat the Safeway and the hardware store, at gas stations and stoplightsgiven that they lived only a few miles apart along the same highway. Troopers say Chocknok, 84 at the time, had talked about visiting Dillingham 43 air miles to the south, but didn't take a flight. People on foot scoured all likely routes down the east side of Mount Marathon. There are places out there with enough space for a man to remake himself without anyone bothering him. Only Dolly was home. Could ancient stories of the Thunderbird be true? The State Troopers urge anyone with a missing family member to contact the Missing Persons Clearinghouse at 907-269-5038 or email Malia Miller at malia.miller@alaska.gov. Low around 30F. im sorry about your dad, but glad he was eventually found. One of his neighbors in Alaska told me that Richard would occasionally come over for a beer, but wouldnt come in the house. In August of that year, Jane and Leroy stopped by Richards trailer. They thought he looked fine. Last year the Justice Department awarded a two-year, $1.75 million grant to the Nation's Missing Children Organization and Center for Missing Adults, a clearinghouse that works with authorities. The medical examiners office released the remains, and the Bennetts had them cremated. Im sure shes up there with him sitting on that ledgein that beautiful state! Troopers privately hoped so. Nobody knows for sure how many people have gone into the wild here and never come out. See Photos . The granddaughter was upset. Either he died in the Alaska wilderness or he ran away -- or both. Jim Miller vanished as trees lost their leaves, creating ground cover thick enough to hide valuable clues from even the keenest eyes. Before taking off, he told friends in the southern U.S. that he "might winter over'' in Alaska, Sewell said. He has not been seen since. that was weird. Theres a possibility, Leon told me, speaking in a faint voice, as if not wanting to hear himself say it. In the center console was $292. The missing woman was found. "Missing in Alaska" Alaska's Birds of Slay (TV Episode 2015) - IMDb "As I searched the gullies on the north side of this ridge,'' Kelley wrote, "I hoped that my logic would lead me to solve the LeMaitre disappearance mystery. We decided that with the information discovered during the investigation that it is reasonable to believe the human remains are that of Richard Bennett, he wrote in an official report on March 28. Leon Bennett believes his son may have wanted to leave his life. What finally tipped the scales for the investigators seems to have been the skeletons right leg, which showed the markings of an old injury. Then, in 2013, the couples only daughter, Linda Evans, went searching for answers and, to her shock and amazement, found her mother living with a different family in the Yukon Territory. Investigators finally tracked him to a lodge along the White River in the Yukon Territory, Canada, where hed left some gear and told the proprietor he planned to travel upriver through the Wrangells to the Alaska community of McCarthy on the south side of the park. Bette had been so distraught when the skeleton was discovered in 2005, and so relievedmore than anyone else in the familywhen theyd laid the remains to rest on the mountainside. That means one of every 161 people goes missing in the state, which has a population of nearly 644,000. Please use the button below to manage your account. Some of Alaskas unsolved missing persons cases are detailed on the trooper clearinghouse Web site. Of those, 1,027 are still listed as missing. Park officials later confirmed they were those of the missing man. The body of 51-year-old Bartlett Barnes of Wasilla, who disappeared in the fall of 2012 while trying to cross Butte Creek in the Talkeetna Mountains on a four-wheeler, was found a year later along the banks of the Susitna River. In going through police reports, Dolly and Heidi counted 17 different troopers whod had a hand in their sons case over the years. Soldotna, a fishing town of about 4,000 people, sits along the Kenai River in the western lowlands. The case documents I read show that the State Troopers indeed did not consider that the bones found near Richard Bennetts trailer could have been anyone elses. And searches that just sort of faded away with searchers unable to find anything. Sixty-year-old John Wipert was the caretaker for the Ptarmigan Lake Lodge on the northern edge of the park when he disappeared in June of 2009. And not even a hint has been found to indicate where 31-year-old Thomas Seibold may have gone. Nearly 80 years ago, a young Washburn was trying to climb 17,150-foot Mount Luciana along with Harvard Mountaineering Club classmate Bob Bates. They found what was left of him in the spring of 2014. I hope youre sitting.. Jenna Miller. Its less a hope than a torment, the reflex of a parent who has no evidence to the contrary, even if 10 years have passed and all signs point the other way. Richards belongings had been moved into a shed. View phone numbers, addresses, public records, background check reports and possible arrest records for Jenna Dawn Miller in Anchorage . Miller is among 3,780 people reported missing in Alaska this year and one of the 219 who remain missing, according to the Missing Persons Clearinghouse maintained by Alaska state. thanks, Michele. He lives today on the edge of the park in eastern Alaska. He left the ADN in 2015. His remains were found near Edna bay almost 12 years to the day of his disappearance. In 2018, Oquilluks sister Alice Topkok took a DNA test at the urging of the Alaska State Troopers Missing Persons Clearinghouse. After her father's death, she received $800,000 as an inheritance Zoe Kravitz Alyssa Miller (2013-2014) - Gyllenhaal dated American model, Alyssa Miller from . Jenna Miller Profiles | Facebook You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. From the air, it was easy to see why Alaska attracts certain kinds of peoplenot just loners and misfits but explorers and adventurers as well, anyone drawn to wild, wide-open spaces. Troopers guessed that the bones were those of an adult male, based on the size and style of the boot and the fact that in these circumstances, the deceased is usually a man. By then, winter was coming fast and the search had to be abandoned after a futile week. He told people there he was going upriver to McCarthy, an outpost town in the Wrangell-St. Elias Park in Alaska, to test his orange cocoon. The letter had been hand-delivered by Captain Andy Greenstreet, the commander of the detachment that covers the Kenai. How could this happen?. The search was expanded. Searches in this area are always difficult because of the huge glaciers, the jagged mountains, the sheer remoteness, and the limited search-and- rescue assets. Jenna miller missing in alaska - vnkn.rehagramm.de Its easy to fall prey to the states unforgiving terrain and severe weather, according to those in the business of searching. She had been missing for 52 years. But the search for Griffis was especially difficult. My gut tells me that he fell into possibly a concealed crevasse in bushes up there that has yet to be discovered. Seventy-one-year-old Jerry Warner from Missouri was missing for more than a year before his body was found along Willow Creek just upstream from the busy George Parks Highway. I felt for them, he told me later. She had a high, lilting voice that sounded cheerful even when she wasnt. I suspect he didnt realize that the pile of rocks just ahead of time was the turn-around point and instead saw the goat trail and followed THAT until.??? Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. Jenna Miller. Under the Levis, blue sweats. Seibold, like Griffis and a host of others gone missing, was an adventurer -- and a competent one. "He always had an imaginative mind, somewhat sociopathic-charismatic,'' his sister Teddi Narkowich said by email from her home in Boca Raton, Florida. The great majority of cases involve young runaways who eventually turn up alive, said investigator Bill Hughes, who manages the clearinghouse.
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