Missing Couple

Written by Pete Carlson

We were asked to help San Diego County Sheriff search just off the roads in Riverside Country near where a couple had gone missing on Mother’s day. The two Anaheim residents vanished after leaving the Valley View Casino Center, where they were last seen on surveillance video. They had been expected to go to their son’s home in La Quinta for a Mother’s Day dinner, but never arrived. The San Diego Sheriff’s Department had searched in there county and now wanted help searching part of Riverside County.

We met with the Riverside Sheriff’s personal and the San Diego Sheriff’s representative at 8am at a Cal-Fire Station in the Sage Area of Riverside County. We broke into two teams and started walking along the road looking down over the edge into thick brush hoping to find their white Honda. We did find where two other cars had gone over the side and been pulled out already. This gave us a good clue as to what we would see if a car went over the side. After several hours we found nothing. So we moved base camp over to Pinon Flats Cal-Fire Station and then search up and down Highway 74 the Palms to Pines Highway looking down into Deep Canyon. Again we found nothing.

It was now 1pm the Sheriff decided we had done all we could. We want to thank the San Diego Sheriff for a nice lunch at the Paradise Valley Café at 74 and 371 highways. As a final note 4 days later the Couple was found near the Schoepe Scout Reservation at Lost Valley, San Diego, CA. The man was deceased and the woman was alive but in critical condition due to severe dehydration.

RMRU Members Involved: Steve Bryant, Pete Carlson, Glenn Henderson, Eric Holden, Lew Kingman, and Patrick McCurdy.