Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 14

14A Lincoln Journal Star Wednesday, March 9, 2005 NEWS EXTRA An in-depth look at one of the important issues of the day Alaska: land of the lost 'Wf. I More people go missing in the rugged state than anywhere else in the United States. BY TOMAS ALEX TIZON Los Angeles Times STERLING, Alaska She does it without even thinking, as soon as she steps out of the truck; a sweep of her eyes across the sky for a sign of bald eagles. They're as common here as ravens, as hawks, but they're bigger and easier to see from a distance. Maybe a single circling eagle will spiral down to the spot where lies her son or his body, whatever is left of it.

Dolly I lills has come to think along those lines. She is 53, one moment sprightly, the next sorrowful. Her grown son Richard, the younger of her two children, has been missing since last February. She believes he is dead, his remains somewhere in the woods or waters near this Kenai Peninsula town. Around here, scavengers are the quickest to locate a corpse, whether of a gut-shot grizzly or a mortally wounded moose, or a 37-year-olu man on a simple errand who vanished into the subzero cold.

Richard Hills was one of 3,323 people reported missing in the state last year, not a record but far higher, in ratio to population, than anywhere else in the United States. On average, about five of every 1,000 people go missing every year, roughly double the national Alaska began tracking the numbers in 1988, police have received at least 60,700 reports of missing people. As everywhere else, most cases involve runaways who eventually return home or are found. But Alaska has the highest percentage of people who stay missing. Investigators have compile a' list of about 1,100 people who remain lost This in 'a state with a population of 650,000.

"We live in a place," Dolly Hills says, "where people disappear." It's now happened twice in her life. In 1962, outside a small village in western Alaska, she said, her 13-year-old brother, William, took a skiff onto the Kvichak River and was never seen again. Presumed drowned, the boy was not reported missing, which happens not infrequently in the bush. The number of people whose bodies are never accounted for probably far exceeds official tallies of the missing. People vanish by accident and by designby fluke of nature or quirk of circumstance, by foul play, misstep and bad luck.

There are so many ways in Alaska to get lost, and so many reasons why the lost may not he found. Between the western tip of the Aleutian Chain to the eastern edge of the Alaska Panhandle lie 39 mountain ranges, 3,000 rivers, 5,000 glaciers and more than 3 mil- lion lakes, all of which offer nooks and envelopes for bodies to slip in and remain hidden forever. In charge of searching this vast terrain are the Alaska State Troopers, whose field officers number just more than 300, It works out to about one trooper for every 2,300 square miles, or about the size of Delaware. This, according to Lt Craig MacDonald, the department's search and rescue supervisor, points to what makes his job so difficult: When someone gets lost, the search areas can be as large as many states, and considerably more rugged So many of the stories of the vanished begin routinely, even innocently. MacDonald rattles off case after case, the narratives boiled down to bullet points.

Erin Marie Gilbert, 24. Girdwood. July 1995. Rode with a friend to a community fair, The car stalled in a parking lot, and the friend went for help. When the friend returned, Gilbert was gone.

She was never seen again. Michael Timothy Palmer, 15. Town of Palmer. June 1999. Rode his bicycle out of a subdivision and was not heard from again.

The bicycle was found in the Little Susitna River. The boy's muddy shoes were discovered in afield. Richard Hills, 37. Soldotna. February 2004.

Drove to Anchorage to pick up a paycheck. y-'- JEDEDIAH SMITHFof the Los Angeles Times Alaska State Trooper spokesman Greg Wilkinson points out the Kenai Peninsula, where Richard Hills vanished. Pushpin flags mark active missing-persons cases. Richard grew up on the Kenai Peninsula. He worked as a roughneck on the North Slope but always came home to Soldotna, where his longtime partner, Heidi Metteer, and their three children waited for him.

Heidi said Richard never failed to call home. She shares Dolly's feeling that Richard was a crime victim. Richard could not have simply become lost and failed to survive the elements. He was a strong man, resourceful and fit "He knew these woods!" Dolly says in frustration. But MacDonald isn't convinced.

His 23 years of conducting search and rescues are rife with stories of experienced hikers, climbers, hunters, even survivalists, who didn't think lt could happen to them. MacDonald said Richard could have lost control of his truck, slid into the snowbank and injured himself. He could have been disoriented and walked for help. He was wearing jeans, a turtlerieck and a work jacket, which would have been no match for the cold below zero even without wind chill. He could have been picked up by a snowmobiler, which might have explained why his tracks ended so abruptly.

He might have been taken somewhere and killed, although Hills had no known enemies. Animals could have found the body in the spring, devoured or moved it. A short walk from Richard's truck is the Kenai River, into which he could have fallen and drowned. Bodies that sink into Alaskan waters tend to stay sunk. In warmer climates, corpses decompose and gen- erate gases that eventually raise them to the surface.

Alaskas frigid waters tend to preserve corpses, and glacial silt fine dust created by glaciers grinding down rock over centuries gets into clothing and crevices and further weighs down the bodies. Richard felt comfortable on the Kenai River. One of his favorite spots was just downriver from his truck. "If he's in there," MacDonald said, "we're not going to find him." Paul Brusseau, a member of one of the state's most respected search teams, can talk in great detail of the many barriers to finding a body. Brusseau helps lead the Alaska Search and Rescue Dogs.

He is one of about 1,100 on-call volunteers whom police depend upon to look for the missing. Brusseau, who makes wood moldings for a living, said a searcher can be right on top of a body and not see it, obstructed by snow and ice, or thick brush or debris kicked up by a windstorm. But the most difficult searches, he said, involve people who don't want to be found. Alaska lies at the end of the continent, and many who come here are end-of-the-roaders: people fleeing or seeking one last chance, dreamers and schemers, and loners hoping to conduct a life and in some cases, a' death in private. "If someone wants to drop off the face of the Earth and not have anybody know," Brusseau said, "this is one place you can do it" A division of the Alaska State Troopers collects data from every police agency in the state.

In its office hangs a mural-sized map of Alaska. Tiny push-pin flags mark the spot of every active missing-persons case in the state. Red flags, the most numerous, indicate water-related cases; green stands for ground; blue for anything involving aircraft; yellow for suspected homicides or suicides; and black for unidentified remains. It is a crowded swath of colors. Paula Sweetwood is the senior researcher and statistician who carefully maintains the files and the map of the missing persons.

"It makes you want to cry sometimes" she said. But "you feel worse for the people looking for them." His truck was found in a snowbank outside Sterling, about 15 miles from home. The keys were in the ignition. His wallet and cash were on the front seat. His footprints led to an isolated road a half-mile away, then ended.

Dolly Hills is walking that same stretch of road, near the spot. It's only 10 minutes from where she and her husband live. "In my heart, I know he's gone," she says. Ricky is noisomeone who disappears. Something happened to him." In the days after his truck was discovered, fliers were posted along the state Highway 1 corridor that connects all the little towns in this part of the peninsula.

The photo shows a handsome man sun-bronzed skin, white teeth, boyishly mischievous eyes just below a skier's cap cradling a glimmering salmon in his hands. A i ii i in, it inir nit in i mm 1 1 it i in mi mi Dolly and Tom Hills' son vanished a year ago, one of 3,323 people reported missing in Alaska in 2004. About five of every 1 ,000 people in the state vanish each year, double the national rate. Searchers followed Richard Hills' footprints, but they simply ended. Boucle Jacket Tussah Fringe Boucle Jacket With Flower Detail From Notches Petites S-L.

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