Someone else commented on his swastika tattoo, calling him a Nazi and racist. They spotted a tree on fire, but no Sam. On August 23, Deputy Teske was sitting with Kevin when word came that the county was officially suspending its search. But since moving to Seattle in 2012, and spending months of his life living on Vesper Peak, hes accustomed himself to the Pacific Northwest lifestyle. That number 1,600 comes from the journalist Jon Billmans research. And its unfair. Squirrels are going to be stuffed, one poster wrote. Steve Monchak, an area drone photographer, reported that hed been at the Big Four ice caves the day Sam went missing, just a few miles away; he told deputies he spotted two suspicious men there. Hed recently graduated. An area is scoured by hundreds of trained searchers, dogs and helicopters, and then weeks, months or years later, a random hiker stumbles onto something everyone missed. After Collegiate, Sayers attended the State University of New York at Fredonia, where she graduated in 2013 with a bachelors degree in technical theatre and theatre design and technology, according to herLinkedInaccount. Theyve found no trace of Sayers. Roccos is basically his Cheers; everybody knows his name. Could his media approach be worlds different? The vegetation is so thick and the terrain so rugged its entirely possible to walk by a clue, or an entire body, and not see it. Raised in Pennsylvania, Sam took to theater in high school, passionate about vocals on stage and set construction behind it, then earned a BFA in western New York. Well come up to you, the rogue search and rescue employee says. Online criticism reached a fever pitch. Get breaking news delivered to your inbox as it happens. She had two hiking poles, a blue backpack, a beige sun hat and a dark gray wool beanie. So forgive Kevin for being a bit anti-social. My diets bad. The wrong side of the mountain, he later told a sheriffs office sergeant. The note warned the woman, whom Carr passed while searching for Rachel Lakoduk, about hiking alone. She loved animals, snakes, frogs, horses it didnt matter and hated dolls, her father said. Im a militant, he says, his voice softer than his camo wardrobe suggests. Being proficient in anything is militant.. Dares insisted on paying Carr $500 a week during the heat of the Sayers search. Trained dogs sought scents and human trackers scoured for footprints; others examined the creek. Those moats haunt Kevin too; he knows theyll never really be able to search the bands between ice and rock that fill up with snow every winter. Three years, and thousands of hours and dollars later, she remains missing. Except in the case of Sam Sayers. The docs reply: Someone with mental fortitude and true survivor skills can find food to live on. Everyone agreed that the public would take it all more seriously if people understood their solid commitment. According to Strange Outdoors, she had expected to check in on her boyfriend by 6, since he had work and could not join her. Approvals quickly followed. She asked about conditions ahead. One count estimates 1,600 people are currently missing on public lands. Aug. 23-- Aug. 23--Samantha Sayers was last seen Aug. 1, 2018, while on a solo day-hike up Vesper Peak in the North Cascades. People made YouTube videos. He also once owned an exotic snake breeding company. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. Yall come up here.. A man with a dog showed up in the early days of the Idaho search in 2006 and offered his services. Someone told Kevin 3 percent. Yet, when after 10 days, the Skagit County Sheriffs Office suspended the search for Rachel Lakoduk, the only person who kept searching, and never stopped, was Carr. Beside him sits a county search and rescue volunteer who goes rogue occasionally, spending time outside the bounds of the county system, trying to bring closure to a family left wondering what happened to their daughter. Found her car, the last one in the lot and searched part of the trail using a flashlight hed bought on the way. Super driven. That can lead to profiteering and exploitation, with some bad operators capitalizing on grief to make a buck. Lean as a whip. Three weeks later, Kevin stood in the Sunrise Mine Trail parking lot, shoving food into an army-style tan backpack. https://www.facebook.com/groups/262800701091712/, Thank you! Dares drops his pack. That was nine months ago. However, tens of thousands remain missing for more than one year according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). A man that dresses in military camo but, being a felon, cant legally own a gun. Samantha Sayers is healthy but is bald because she has alopecia, an autoimmune disease that leads to hair loss, her mother said on Facebook. Law enforcement, particularly the county sheriffs of the West who hold responsibility for wilderness operations, are by Davids accounting inadequately trained, funded, staffed, or committed to long-term searches.. Tips came pouring in, from the usefulYMCA campers at Lake Elan just below the peak saw Sam ascend but never come downto the questionable, like psychic visions of her near rocks, trees, and water. Instead, families looking for closure often turn to individuals or foundations to keep the search for their loved ones going. What happened next is educated speculation. Carr is uncharacteristically quiet. Another saw her descending the south side of summit. Why? And please don't get me started on the multiple GFM accounts. With his tattoos, felony conviction, self-promotion and a penchant for paramilitary theatrics, hes a lightning rod for criticism and a frequent topic of discussion in online hiking and climbing groups. Snohomish County Sheriffs Office searchers at Spada Lake, and a SAR unit briefing during the search. There are giant Reddit threads. In a crowded restaurant you must lean in to hear him speak. Its Dennys. In videos posted to his own YouTube channel, he is combative and confident about his mountain experience. Kevin, who used to wear jeans day hiking with Sam, learned how to use an ice ax. They are the most dedicated West Coast county sheriffs Ive ever seen.. Alopecia, an autoimmune disease, caused Sam to lose much of her hair; she shaved the rest daily. A Seattle hotelier and real estate developer. But Dares and Carr kept going. Unfortunately it seems fairly straight forward that she either fell or took the wrong route down - I am not familar with the area but the above article mentions someone thought they saw her descending down the south side which actually just leads into more wilderness, although this was a hike/scramble she had done before. I had my flashlight going, banging, screamingno word, Kevin says to the 911 operator. It went viral. The longest search in state history turned up nothing. Someone texts Tripp. They covered a tremendous amount of ground. The conversation covers more ground than the searchers have. It is frozen.. So thats cool. Its more than three miles from the trailhead to the shores of Lake Elan and Kevins base camp, where snow had mostly melted. The drama continued. But in August, they separated. But at that moment, on the steep side of a North Cascades mountain, Dares is shaking. About a third were for outdoorspeople: hikers, campers, hunters, fishermen, spelunkers, or prospectors. The trail gains elevation through switchbacks cut in a brushy hillside. Kevin recognized Sam from across the room before they even metthis was the girl hed matched with on Tinder; theyd chatted through the app. No way, he said in a comment, because women need more protection than men do. NBC News this past week pointed out that in the seven years its Dateline NBC "Missing in America" online series has been in existence, around 57% of the series'subjects have been found. Of course shed go straight to Belltown.Seattle PD was dispatched to the coordinates. Missing: Samantha SayersPlease hurry. Back in Pennsylvania, that was how Sams mother heard the news. Sometime in the morning of a bluebird August day, a Seattle woman picked up a pencil and wrote her name on the register at a trailhead off the Mountain Loop Highway. The last few hundred feet of Vesper is more of a scramble route than it is a defined path. Nine months later, the mystery has consumed the lives of thousands. 70-year-old, Karen Sykes, headed for the wilderness around Owyhigh Lakes in Mount Rainier National Park in June 2014. WA hiker Samantha Sayers went missing on 8/1 a solo day hike to Vesper's Peak. Follow the creek to the river. Everybody is like, Buds crazy. Yeah, he is, Dares says. Ellinor hike in the Olympics about a month before she went missing. If you have information about Sayers, call the Snohomish County Sheriffs Office at (425) 388-3393. If you're not cool with that thats fine too. It isnt easy to utterly vanish. Seattle Met An estimated 1,600 people are missing in the wildlands of the United States. Samantha Sayers, Girard Native, went missing August 1st after climbing a mountain in Washington state. The duo hatched a plot to steal guns from a Bass Pro shop. Thats a squishy number, though, because the two largest land managers the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service dont keep track. Create an account to follow your favorite communities and start taking part in conversations. It lasted 22 days. The aircrafts FLIR, an infrared camera, scanned for heat signatures, but the pilots also stuck their heads out windows. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. Where did she go? Imagining Sam bushwhacking her way through the forest around Vesper, family members filled Ziploc bags with snacks and instructions for Sam. So forgive Kevin for being a bit antisocial sometimes. He called 911 early in the morning of Aug. 2. Everyones gonna say, a boyfriend, whatever, fly-by-night, who cares, he says. Her goal was to spend the night at the Hidden Lake Lookout for her 28th birthday. I consider that theft. You owe me 99.999 percent of those royalties, hed tell her. PM me and I'll add y'all. Dares was grateful that Carr was searching. Om mani padme hum, a Tibetan prayer for compassion. In response, he launched an Instagram campaign, posting photo after photo of swastikas, oriented in the traditional Buddhist way. Hes going to have a cigarette, a bad habit that accelerated after Sayers disappeared, and take a nap while the four searchers below him make their way up. His girlfriend, Samantha Sayers, also disappeared while hiking. This week I've caught up on the NW Hikers page dedicated to her, the forum was unfortunately closed back in September, but many of those people brought up valid points. And everything tilted at an absurd angle 35 to 40 degrees making progress a thing measured in hundreds of feet, not miles. :-) grinchmas34 4 yr. ago I would love to be added to that group! Sam was my health dictator. She spoke her mind. He believes the county search and rescue crews should talk more about what they do, to be held accountable for their successes and failures. The color of her lipstick debated, what does it mean? He lost weight, smoked and drank too much. Sam left on the trail at around 8 am and was expected to head home and check in with her boyfriend, Kevin Dares, that evening by 6 pm. Hes a staunch defender of Washingtons system calling it the best in the country by a mile. Hes also a frequent online critic of Carr and hes an administrator for the The Truth of the Sam Sayers Case UNCENSORED Facebook page. Carr, by then a teenager, followed them to help his dad start a barbecue joint. Amid conifers and half-frozen lakes, we can feel free from our modern tangle of surveillance, even as tenuous threads still leash us to the world below: ever-pinging cell phones, footsteps on an established trail. Originally from New Orleans, his leisurely drawl belying a sharp wit and quick tongue. It was a bucket-list objective, her husband Jamie Lakoduk said. Soon after meeting Kevin, she left a gig at Seattle Repertory Theatre to work entrepreneurial hustles, pursuing a real estate license and marketing intriguing products shed found online, like an inflatable lounger. People def took advantage of the search, like the main guy who turned the SAR effort into a camping trip. On a perfect summer day, a solo hiker went missing from a Cascade trail. He says, Oh, I think the fiance did it, says Kevin, his drawl emphasizing his wry amusement. He continued up despite the plan to meet. It looked like the moon.. They remembered her distinctive bald head, crowned with a star tattoo like a Roman laurel wreath. Hey I would love to be added to the truth group please! According to the sheriff's office, a group of hikers reported seeing her on her way up Vesper Peak around midmorning. While his dad worked at the mine, Carr played and explored in the mountains. A crew of spacey garnet hunters who called themselves the Galactic Goats set up camp nearby, sometimes wandering into the search enclave in a haze of pot smoke to show off the rust-red gemstones theyd unearthed. Allison Williams Sayers received court permission to change her last name from Steinbaugh to Sayers in May 2009, after her stepfather adopted her and her brother in February 2009, according to a name-change petition on file at the Erie County Courthouse. Seriously they are on a power trip now. We can get statistics on auto accidents but theyre not collected for people missing in the wilderness., The search for Jon lasted only two days before the county sheriff pulled out and, as David remembers, told him he should give his son up to the mountain. It was a total shit show from what I've read from people who live out there or have experience with this type of hiking. Seattle friends, the 27-year-old wrote in 2018, Im going hiking this Wednesday and tackling Vesper Peak Message me if you want to tag along.. I guess the most pressing thing for me now tho is what everyone is saying since LYS has changed her tone and wtf happened to KD. Dares looks closer, careful not to disturb anything. There is a woman from Spokane who met Lakoduks husband in community college and felt compelled to help. By life. Life had narrowed to a singular purpose, to comb a few square miles of earth for a trace. By 4 p.m. Oct. 17, Lakoduk had made it about 2.5 miles up the trail and was at 5,500 feet. Volunteers brought up snacks, so many grocery store fried chickens that the team joked about the tidal wave of drumsticks. Her family is exploring all avenues of inquiry to find and bring her home. Independent consultancy providing strategic and operational expertise to both large and small-scale commercial FMCG clients, and pro bono consultancy focused on strategy and operations optimisation for not-for-profit clients. The official search started. There was nothing down there, he says. It was moving at first, but now I just see it as a sociological experiment. Samantha Sayers is a 5-foot-8-inch white woman weighing 125 pounds. Thanks if anyone can do that! It felt true; he and Sam had lived together for more than a year, had talked about marriage. Kevin was still at the Verlot station when Sergeant John Q. Adams arrived around 1:30am. Follow mountain man Bud Carr. But he knows that any scenario where Sams alive is a dark one. Samantha "Sam" Sayers, a former Girard resident, remains among the 43% still missing. The sergeant fielded endless rumors and accusations, about whether FLIR was really operationalit wasor why he wasnt using bloodhounds (wrong terrain, he says). for someone to post these public records on Reddit - or provide access for others who aren't on FB - and so we can read them? The official search was suspended on Aug. 23 after a Herculean effort. Samantha "Sam" Claire Sayers. They found boot prints but that's it. Friends created a group page called Find Sam Sayers#findsamsayers, to be specificthat would grow to more than 30,000 followers. We are just clearing ground, he said. Finally, the last push to Vesper: a short traverse from Headlee to tiny Lake Elan, still partially frozen, and the triangular peak half-covered in snow. All rights reserved. Hes a journeyman carpenter, although hes worked a grab bag of blue-collar jobs. They were surprised at how she was dressed, thermal tights under shorts and a long-sleeved shirt under a NASA tank top, but Lakoduk seemed confident, had other clothes in her pack and was moving very well they told police. At some point, she realized things were bad and turned around. Eventually, Kriegers son asked him to stop. Sayers' family has started a GoFundMe campaignto purchase food and survival gear that rescuers have been dropping in 20 one-pound bags in various locations so Sayers might stumble across them. When I dream shes always getting kidnapped. The unknown, he says time and time again, is the hard part.Sometimes he can joke about the idea that Sam had orchestrated her own disappearance, a kind of Gone Girl stunt that would melt the internet: Youve been chilling in the woods for five months? Aug. 29, 2021 Ive always been of a warrior mindset. Carr stepped into this mess several days after Sayers went missing. Nothing panned out. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. In a snowstorm, this would be easy to miss. He added fuel to the fire when one person asked if hed have left the note if it was a man. To my understanding, both the Truth group is no longer accepting new members. Every year, in the United States, roughly 600,000 people go missing. Dont touch anything, he says. Need help ASAP, he wrote. That sunny August Wednesday, a hiker stopped a few hundred feet below the top, right above the meadow where Kevin would one day erect his camp. But is he a racist? A bass boat. Flyers wrapped trees and signposts on the Mountain Loop and telephone poles in Seattle. In this wide swath of mountains unpenetrated by cell phone coverage, the Verlot pay phone is literally a lifesaver; more than 25 calls to 911 were made between 2015 and 2017 alone. So we go to the woods, the mountains, the thin air of the alpine. Now that I've heard more theories on that front, his story sounds weirder and weirder. They both cried. Usually the ties that bind us to everyone else can be grasped and slowly reeled in.When Kevin talks about August 4 now, his voice catches with emotion, remembering the most excruciating day of the worst summer of his life.At the SAR base at Spada Lake, he heard about the ping. And women are targeted by predators (2 and 4 legged) way more than men are.. Do you know how its going to look if you die out here with an ice ax to your head and its just me and you? Kevin asked him, grasping at dark humor. Three years, and thousands of hours and dollars later, she remains missing. I think shes hurt.. All issues Carr talked about, sometimes without prompting. Sam is up on that mountain somewhere. Learning to, if not love, at least tolerate the mountains. Interactive Map in Progress as of August 31, 2018. And for how long? This is known. He tackled the elevation gain like it was a stroll down Second Avenue; his weeks of searching Vesper had whittled his already slim frame down whippet-thin. Despite her healthy pallor, strangers assumed shed just undergone chemotherapy, and the sympathetic clucks wore on her. Date of Birth: August 13, 1990 Erie, Pennsylvania. One day in Wirtz Basin, Kevin fell in step with a man who didnt recognize this stranger with the Cajun accent and decided to share some theories. Another hiker told police he saw her the same day at the 6,220-foot summit and . Everyone had a theory. Several GoFundMe campaigns popped up. Someone found his criminal history. I dont understand why I cant find Sam, he says, stifling a sob. You know. Sayers, a 2008 graduate of Northwest Pennsylvania Collegiate Academy, left on the morning of Aug. 1, 2018, for a day hike at Vesper Peak in the North Cascade range, northeast of Seattle, where she lived. PM me and Ill add yall. See Photos. A search ensued unlike anything the state of Washington has ever seen. Two years later as Kevin Dares hikes uphill searching for Lakoduk, snow is a distant memory. Off the mountain, Kevin had become the tragic fiance who refused to give upor maybe the subject of wild speculation. Youve got to be a little crazy to do that.. Everett Mountain Rescue, a specialized group of volunteers equipped to explore Vespers alpine environment, joined the operation. Spunky and creative, her room at her dads home is still covered in her photos and paintings. Even though in the decade hes done this work, hes never found a single person. There are the obvious theories including wild animal attacks, getting lost or falling. As we near closer to the end (I hope, for everyone's sake), her followers expect (and are owed IMO) an explanation, but will she really be prepared to do that once the time comes? A brand-new BMX bike for Bud. It really is. See how those goats move? Reflecting on that time, Dares said lots of people offered to help and some followed through. The Find Sam Sayers Facebook group had grown to five figures, with posters trading conflicting theories and rumors. Police are continuing to search for a woman who went missing after going out on a solo hike in Washington State on Aug. 1. Apparently the hat matched the description of the hat Sam had, but no one knows for sure and no one knows what happened to them after. Better late than never, amiright?? And it was in Seattle. The title change was born out of a family discussion, he says. And when hes searching for someone, he never expects to find them. No one exactly knows. I never once even peeped at it before because I was under LYS's cult spell and I thought if I deflected there I'd get blocked from her page. Sayers' family and friends vow to keep searching for her until she is found. He lowered himself into an abandoned mine shaft and tromped through thick underbrush.