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Jerry
May 2006
On May 24, 2006, a Shingle Springs man, Jerry, went missing from his home. His wife had left him for a moment at the mailbox on Creekside Drive; he was missing when she returned. Jerry possibly had Alzheimer's. Command post was just off Mother Lode Drive east of Ponderosa Road. After dark, SAR members spread flyers in the adjoining gated community. The subject was located deceased on May 30, 2006.
Missing Clue Leads Riders to Missing Man
The "Jerry" SAR - May 25 to 30, 2006
Like Sherlock Holmes and the dog that failed to bark, a clue's absence helped lead four mounted team members to Jerry, an elderly man missing in the Shingle Springs area in May 2006. Here is Katie Thorne's story of how they persisted and ultimately succeeded.
In was well into the SAR mission on Thursday, May 25, when after serving on a Foot Team and a Canine Team I finally got to do what I do best—ride.
My teammates were Barbara Clark and Sheri Clawson. After comparing notes we took slightly different paths to our assignment, making a point of talking to neighbors. Some said they had seen Jerry wandering along the road the previous day. One man even positively described the message on his shirt—"Old Guys Rule"—and said Jerry had been heading towards French Creek Road. This was sounding promising.
Before the end of our assignment, however, this lead took a back seat after witnesses elsewhere said they had seen Jerry in a sandwich shop in town the previous day. The search's whole focus suddenly jumped to a new area.
But it turned out to be for naught. By the time we finished our own assignment it was too dark to deploy again. The sandwich shop lead had fizzled out, and that evening the mission was scaled back and downshifted into passive mode. It looked like our part was over.
Still the three of us couldn't shake a feeling that Jerry was never anywhere near town. At every intersection he had come to he had turned to the right. If had he stuck to this pattern he would have walked away from town, not toward it. But now that the active search was over we wondered what, if anything, we could do about our hunch.
Barbara had an idea. She started talking with Jerry's neighbors. After several days and several conversations she got the OK for us to search a ranch at the end of French Creek and Bonetti Ranch roads. There was one condition—it would be strictly unofficial. We would be going in as civilians, not SAR members.
On May 29, Monday afternoon, three of us (Barbara Clark, Katie Thorne, and Sheri Clawson) met at the ranch, eager to use this second chance. We intended to ride as many of the roads and trails as we could. We even had a volunteer guide, a local resident who rode there often and who would show us where the old ranch houses, open wells, and trails were.
But even with her help, riding for four hours, and covering miles of terrain, we discovered nothing by the end of the day. We were out of time and, it seemed, out of luck.
As we were heading back to the trailers, the rancher's daughter drove past on her quad and we stopped to talk and maybe commiserate for a moment. She mentioned she might have seen Jerry walking along the road towards the ranch on the first night and that he had lost his hat.
Lost his hat? This was the first we had heard. What's more, we had searched every road and trail we had come across and hadn't seen a hat anywhere. This meant that Jerry must have wandered cross county at some point. He could still be on the ranch somewhere. On the spot, we decided to come back the next day.
The following afternoon, Suzie Harrer, Barbara Clark, and myself were back. Our priorities were to finish the roads then start searching the creek beds. Sheri Clawson received permission to search an adjoining ranch and would be angling in from a different direction several miles away. She would ride alone to the last point we had reached yesterday.
We spent several more hours searching, but by late afternoon our third chance was looking disappointingly like the second. When we dropped down into a creek for a delayed lunch, we held a short strategy session with one eye on the clock and decided to continue along the creek bed.
We quickly discovered it was not easy riding. The bottom was full of tree branches, deep water, hidden holes, and even small rapids. We were happy just to let our mounts pick their way through, thankful for their experience and surefootedness.
About a half mile upstream we came to the biggest barrier yet—a huge tree branch that crossed nearly the whole creek. Even the local wildlife had cut a trail up and around the tree. We were tempted to be follow their example, but we were committed on principle (that is, mulishly stubborn) about searching the creek bottom. We blessed our horses' talents once again as they worked around this obstacle, too.
It turned out to be the right decision. A few yards farther on we spotted two bare feet under a large berry bush. It was Jerry, and it was apparent that he had not survived.
Automatically we were back in SAR mode. We confirmed he was deceased, preserved the scene, and then began what turned out to be the long official process of contacting the Sheriff's office, then waiting for a patrol unit and finally, through them, getting in touch with Deputy Todd Crawford. (Lesson learned: Official or not, had we let Todd know our plans in advance, things would have gone a lot faster.)
While waiting for patrol to show up, we had time to examine our surroundings. It wasn't long before we discovered a road about 30 feet away that we recognized—we had walked it the previous night! Now when we retraced our steps in the daylight we still could not see Jerry, even though we knew where to look. In fact, he was so well hidden that he could be spotted only from the direction we had been riding. Had we taken the animal trail a few yards earlier we would have missed him. When the responding officers showed up, they were amazed that anyone could have found him.
Jerry had wandered a little over 7 miles from home, more than anyone expected. He was past where the road ended, a full mile into private property. To find him our team had searched 25 miles in three days and had collectively expended 45 man hours.
They payoff was that we got to solve a mystery and give at least a measure of comfort to someone's family. We also learned that even in this technological age, the basics are still important —talking to people, using your head, and simply not giving up. And staying in the bottom of the creek bed.
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