Story of missing hiker in Joshua Tree NP

[Perry]

Is it reasonable to assume that Ranger Grayson's vehicle had a dashcam and that it showed a white car in the parking lot? I can't imagine a law enforcement car not having a dashcam, or investigators not reviewing the footage, and if the footage showed no car I would think they would not have done all that searching around Smith Water and there would have been media reports that they were looking for Ewasko outside the park.

If someone obtains the dashcam footage through FOIA, perhaps we can stop talking about the U-Haul theory and Sherlock Holmes? I would gladly abandon my silly theories if it shows even a blurry white blob made of a few pixels, unless of course that white blob is really a ghost.

[RichardK]

Did park service vehicles have dashcams back in 2010? They are something of a more recent development. If so, would not Tom Mahood have gotten the footage with his FOIA request? It would answer a big question if their were any footage, but I don't think it ever existed.

[OtherHand]

I'm highly confident JTNP didn't have any sort of dashcams running on their vehicles when Ewasko went missing. I doubt they do to this day, as their budget really doesn't let them be early adopters. Remember that they didn't even have cameras running at their entrance stations to record after-hours access until well after Ewasko. I suspect the circumstances of the Ewasko case may have spurred the park to install them.

[Perry]

I can't imagine a law enforcement car not having a dashcam...

Apparently I need to improve my imagination a bit.

[Alchad]

Interesting comment posted on Adam's webpage a couple of days ago.

"I worked under Bill many yrs ago. Knowing what he was like and the financial problems he got himself into. It would not surprise me that he faked his disappearance"


https://ijustdisappear.com/wp/2018/05/2 ... omment-651

[Ed]

Yes, certainly interesting. Some years ago I was browsing in Barnes & Noble, and saw some books on both how to disappear and how to find people. Sorry I did not buy one on how to disappear, I'm sure it would have been interesting.

[Feanor]

This is somewhat old news, but the half-buried remains found on June 2nd were identified as Henry Stange, who was believed to have been murdered: http://www.hidesertstar.com/the_desert_trail/news/article_4249e66a-b07e-11e8-be21-03ee9d7b7013.html

A couple were arrested earlier this month for the murder, but the Riverside DA declined to file charges and they were quickly released. I haven't seen any other updates. In any case, it seems that we can be sure that this was not Bill.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this leaves the Stubbe Springs body found in May of this year as the only outstanding unidentified remains in the park, and that has been unofficially confirmed as Michael Rodriguez.

[Perry]

Very interesting, but now I'm less interested in searching. It would be nice if somebody can verify who this person is and whether they did indeed work for Bill.

[Perry]

Feanor, there's a parallel discussion here:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5896&start=26

I think the discussion of the earlier set of remains (believed to be Rodriguez because of Facebook comments) is in this Ewasko thread somewhere. The original Rodriguez thread was very short.

[OtherHand]

I happen to have quite a bit more background on Ewasko from sources other than my FOIA but I haven't posted it because it's either not relevant to his disappearance or I'd consider it a breach of privacy. Yeah, I respect the privacy even of a dead guy.

But since this financial issue has arisen, I'll mention that Ewasko had two bankruptcies, both Chapter 7. The first was filed in March, 1994 and discharged in Sept 1994. The second was filed Dec 2008 and discharged in April, 2009. Considering the financial crash of 2008, the latter isn't surprising. So having successfully exited bankruptcy over a year prior, I find it very far fetched he'd now disappear for financial reasons. At most, I'd concede that any financial irresponsibility could potentially carry over to other irresponsible behavior. We already know doing a Quail Mountain hike at the end of June, starting later in the morning with little water is demonstratively imprudent. And keep in mind that most catastrophes are the result of a series of unwise decisions, not just one.

Having seen the rugged Smith Water terrain, to me it's much more likely he just crawled into a hole somewhere and we managed to walk right by him.