25 May 2024 Volunteer Group Ground Search at the Lee Site

We marked the 47th Anniversary of Rodney and Karen’s disappearance with a volunteer search day at Soda Fork Road. Despite the bad weather, we had an amazing group of volunteers show up early in the morning, on a holiday weekend. We met at a nearby campground and convoyed to the Lee Site. Joining us was Deni Grove and her daughters, relatives of Rodney Grissom. Deni was there to provide support in the form of hot coffee, food and a pop-up canopy for shelter from the rain.

Once there, I provided a case overview, why we were searching in this location, a “how to search” demo and a safety brief. When that concluded, we walked down the hill to the two areas I identified on previous searches as good locations for the volunteers to work.

The first area was a 50’ x 100’ bench on the hillside. It was relatively level and free of debris, which should make for easy searching by the volunteers. I then took two of the group with me to help take apart a large pile of logs and other debris adjacent to the location of the bottle I found on the last search.

Both groups of volunteers were incredible. Brie and Dayne helped me make quick work of taking that pile of debris apart, while Kristina, Jody and Teresa grid searched the bench with an amazing amount of thoroughness. They located two skull fragments, which were forensically photographed and the photos sent off to the State Forensic Anthropologist’s “Bone Phone” for a rule in / rule out judgement on origin. Dr Vance asked that we package up the bones and deliver them to the State ME’s office when it opened, which we promptly did.

Dr. Vance let me know, and I relayed that to the rest of the volunteers that the fragments were of animal origin. While disappointing, the fact that the team found one fragment that was 2cm x 2cm and another that was 5cm x 2cm speaks to their attention to detail and thoroughness in their search.

I want to give a sincere thanks to Dayne, Brie, Jody, Teresa, Kristina, Deni, Kady and Nicole. Thank you so much for showing up, the absolutely amazing effort and commitment to helping out. It is very much appreciated. I want to thank Deni, Kady and Nicole for allowing me the honor of taking them to the location where Rodney’s clothing was found.