Author Archives: Ryan Auclair

“The only thing that beats new technology is no technology”.

Craig “Archie” Archer, Joint Exploitation Training Center, FT Bragg, 2011

These are the tools that I use for doing a search like this. To be honest, they are very basic tools, but they are dependable, low tech, and work in any weather. Different types of searches require different toolsets and general equipment. The equipment for an urban search for a lost child is much different from the packing list for going out to find a lost hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail. Below is a layout of what I typically take with me on a woodland remains search, like the one I am conducting for Karen and Rodney.

• All Weather Notebook and mechanical pencil: For sketching, making notes, etc. All weather notebooks are great for an environment like the PNW, and I greatly prefer pencils over pens for taking notes outside.
• Photogrammetric scales: These are used to provide a scale measurement for a photograph. This helps those examining the photograph determine the size, etc of the object in the photo. The inside cover of my notebook also has a scale. A dollar bill, 3×5” card, credit card, license, etc can also be used for a field expedient scale since they are all of a known size.
• Knee Pads: Self-explanatory for spending a full day working on your hands and knees. I prefer the soft foam type over the hardshell type. I find that the hardshell knee pads roll around too much on rocks or other hard surfaces. The soft, foam pads mold around rocks etc, and provide a lot more stability.
• Garden Gloves: Protect your hands from insects, thorns, plant irritants, etc. Garden gloves are far more durable than latex or nitrile gloves for a woodland search. I like the rubber dipped garden glove type. They are lightweight, dry fast since the cloth is synthetic and the rubber grip has a good “feel” to it. I find that the touch sensitivity of these allows me to differentiate between different types of material in my hands. These also prevent cross-contamination of any remains with touch DNA from my hands.
• Surveyor flags: I use these to mark search boxes, flag material for retrieval, mark trails to material, etc. Inexpensive, high vis and works in all weather.
• IPhone (not pictured): I use my iPhone for a camera, GPS, reference library and probably a few other uses I’m not thinking of at the moment. For my private searches I use the OnX GPS application. For a SAR call-out, I use SARTopo since our team has standardized on that and makes sharing tracks a breeze.

After last week’s roller coaster, we are back to the slow steady work of searching the Lee Site. It was another early Saturday morning and driving out to Soda Fork I noticed the extreme fire danger rating on the signs for every land manager with an office on US20. Luckily, there was very little to no smoke along Soda Fork.

The day began with me going over the same area where I recovered the animal bone fragment. Since that was where I finished , I wanted to overlap today’s search with that one. I also wanted to make sure in the work to document, photograph and mark the fragment, I didn’t miss anything else in the immediate area. After 45 minutes I was satisfied that the area from last week was clear, and I moved on to this week’s search box.

The area I searched was very thick alder and Devil’s Club thickets to the west, while it was slightly more open to the east, closer to the creek. This search may have been the most physically taxing for me. The ticket was tight enough that walking was impossible, at least if you’re trying to see the ground. I spent most of the day on my hands and knees, with a considerable distance spent high crawling on my stomach under the alders. My forearms are itchy from the natural mild irritant in the thorns of the Devil’s Club, my knees are aching and even my wrists feel the strain of supporting my upper body most of the day.

There were some areas that were relatively open, including one with a large alder. I pay a fair amount of attention to spots like this. Not only is the searching easier in the more open, less vegetated terrain, these also seem like likely areas to leave something. Without knowing what the landscape, lines of drift and “goat paths” looked like 46 years ago, I search these spots like they are potential crime scenes.

My plan for the next search is to go through the thicket that is outlined by the non-searched pocket between the turquoise, blue and purple tracks. That area has exceptionally thick vegetation, and it will be another search like yesterday’s- close to the ground and physically demanding.

Linn County called me this afternoon and let me know that what I found Saturday was of animal origin. I am slightly disappointed but that just means we are going back to work at the Lee Site.

Much like the 17 June ground search at the Grissom site, this entry will lack a proper ending for a bit, although both days concluded with me waiting at the junction of US 20 and Soda Fork Rd for a Linn County Deputy to arrive.

The day began much as the previous 5 searches had. I arrived at the landing early, about 9am, and walked back to my first search location of the day. I skirted the edge of the swamp, then went to work in an area that was dry, but was at the same contour level as the swamp. It had the appearance as an area where debris collected, and I spent about 2 hours there going through the debris and looking under the ferns.

After completing my search of that area, I proceeded to the north and went past the “alcoves” I had searched the week prior and began working deeper in the alder thicket. I marked out with surveying flags a 50mx50m box before searching, and used the flags as my boundaries. After that box was searched, I was planning to mark out the next one, and keep repeating the process until the alder thicket was searched.

The vegetation of the thicket is tight enough that I knew that this search technique would take a lot of time to complete. It’s quite difficult to walk through it standing up, as it is so thickly grown in, it is easier to hunch over to walk, or just crawl. There was a large fallen tree within the search box, covered in moss, and was relatively easy to walk up to. In fact, taking the path from the landing to here is almost a straight shot, easy walking, and it “fits” with the description in the February 1978 article about the location where Karen’s clothing was found. I decided to use the tree as “12 o’clock” and started searching the ground from there.

After an hour, I was packing up, with a GPS waypoint marked and technical photograph on my phone of what I found. After a few hours wait, the Deputy and I trekked back into the forest, packaged the find, shook hands and we departed. I arrived home at 6pm, almost 12 hours after I left. It had been a long day, both physically and mentally.

I apologize for the late update, I’ve had a somewhat busy week. I spent Saturday on another ground search at the Lee site, this time working areas I had identified on the 22 July ground search. I had a string of “alcoves” to search in the alder grove along the path from the berm to the creek. Also, I identified a flat, grassy bank along the stream to grid out.

I started with the alcoves and worked those for about 3 hours. Much the same as before, it is a hands and knees search of the debris and the forest floor. The good news is that no additional ground hornet nests were located. When searching the alcoves, it is tricky to assign a outer bound to the search. I tend to pick a fallen tree, or other feature as a limit, just to ensure that I have time to search the areas I’ve identified.

After completing the search of the alcoves, I moved on to the grassy bank along Soda Fork Creek. I grid searched the open grassy areas, then detail searched the debris collections, and the two intermittent stream beds there.

I use my GPS track to ensure that I don’t double search the same ground and that I know what hasn’t been searched. The GPS tracks are invaluable for planning each search, and greatly aid during the day. I have color coded the July 8th (green), July 22nd (turquoise) and July 29th (blue) tracks to make it easier to see the overall progress. I am slowly filling in the area of the Lee Site, and I am hopeful each time that I go out there that this will be the search that ends with a call to the LCSO.

I was back at Soda Fork yesterday, continuing to clear the site a small section at a time. The plan for the day was to clear the gully that ran along the base of the hill in the morning, then begin to search the alder flat between the hill and the creek during the afternoon.

The gully ran north-south along the base of the hill. I searched that until I connected with an area I had previously searched on the 30th of June. I was working around a partially tipped over stump, mainly clearing out the hollow under the stump, when I found a hornet nest the hard way. I only took a few stings and Remy got none, so we are all ok here.

After finishing with the gully, I went back to the top of the hill, on the inside of the wood line from the berm. There was a bench on the hill, closest to where one would park if arriving at the landing from the Grissom site. I followed the line of drift from that bench to the alder grove along the river.

This area fits well with the description of where Karen’s clothing and baggage were found. It’s also fairly large, is fairly level, without a lot of erosion or water courses, and so will require more of a grid type search than a targeted search of washes and depressions. Remy found himself a cool spot in the shade, I adjusted my knee pads, and I got to work while he supervised.

I searched one part of the grove during the rest of the afternoon. The temps were well past 90, so the dappled shade was appreciated, as was the breeze from the creek ruffling the leaves. It’s a rather beautiful spot on it’s own, and without the weight of knowing what happened here, it could be a nice spot for lunch and a nap. I searched until my knees were pretty much shot and I wrapped up for the day and began the drive back. The forest will give up its secrets when it is ready.

I went back to the Lee Site yesterday, with the intent of broadening the searched area. Even with the video tour, I still feel as though it is really hard to convey the size of the area and the overall rugged terrain and thick vegetation. The Lee Site is going to take a lot of time to search through, especially solo. My plan is to segment off areas, search them and then move onto the next area.

Yesterday’s segment was an intermittent stream bed that ran along the southern boundary of the Lee Site. The stream bed ran from a culvert under Soda Fork Rd east, downslope through a marshy area then finally joining Soda Fork Creek. The blue lines to the east (right) side of the GPS track are along the bank of Soda Fork Creek. This is a case where the GPS map and reality are off by about 15 meters or so.

The reasons I am segmenting the Lee Site into search boxes are driven by time and the records available. The vegetation at the landing has definitely grown in during the preceding 46 years, obscuring paths and other markers that may have been there in 1977. In the documentation, the best description of where Karen’s things were found is that they were “ about a 1/4 mile down a steep hillside from a logging landing in a heavy growth of underbrush and second-growth timber.”

That description more or less describes the entire area behind the berm. The hill behind the landing is a U shape, and I chose the southern leg of the U to search. Based on the information available, and the terrain, I believe that Karen’s remains were left with her clothing and blanket bundle. We also know from the news clipping that the LCSO Detective, LT Martinak, stated that the bundle was in a position that it had to be carried to that spot.

My challenge now is that without a more definitive location, I have to hands and knees search the entire area. I have made a conscious decision not to use the 1/4 mile measurement from the clipping as a reference. In the pre-GPS days, I’m going to guess that anything between 100’ and 1000’ was called a 1/4 mile. An actual 1/4 mile from the landing would put one on the other side of Soda Fork Creek, which is definitely out of the search area. The eastern boundary of the Lee Site is Soda Fork Creek, the western boundary is Soda Fork Rd, while a pair of intermittent streams form the southern and northern boundaries.

I walked the top of the hill, marking lines of drift downslope, and made my way to the southern intermittent stream. I followed a very faint path down the hill to it, then walked to the bottom of the stream bed, just before it broadened out into a marsh that is between the hill and creek. Based on the overall swampiness in the area, it does channel foot traffic in a certain way towards Soda Fork Creek, which will help later in determine where along the eastern boundary to start searching.

I walked the bottom of the slope, marking out lines of drift and washes visible from the base of the hill. Luckily, there is a gully running north-south that forms a nice catchment for debris coming down the hill. Once I had marked that off, I walked back to the southern intermittent stream, and began searching up hill, towards the culvert.

I searched for about 4 hours in the stream bed. I took apart all the debris piles, pulled back moss carpets and generally gave it a good going over. As you can tell from the GPS track, not a lot of ground was skipped in that area.

Despite “no joy” on the search for Karen yesterday, I left feeling positive. I now have two areas of the site thoroughly searched, and I’m learning more and more of the general layout of the area. I have a southern boundary formed by the now searched stream bed, that terminates in a marsh, which directs foot traffic towards a certain area along the creek. It is my belief that slow, methodical searching will help the mountain give up its secrets and help return Karen home.

Before I started searching yesterday, I took a few brief film clips of the Lee Site. Video works a little bit better than photos for capturing the landscape and what the terrain looks like.

This might be one of the more difficult posts to write, mainly because I’m not a huge fan of writing about myself, and to be very honest, this project is far more about bringing Karen and Rodney home than anything to do with me personally. I am asked on occasion why I am searching for them, and I figured I can summarize it here.

What started this for me was watching the documentary that Noelle Crombie and the staff at the Oregonian made for the “Ghosts of Highway 20” project. I had read the brief account about Karen and Rodney in part 5 of the series. In the documentary however, they interviewed Karen’s mother, Violet Gillmore, about her daughter’s disappearance. Her grief, even after the decades had passed by, was so strong that it quite frankly pulled at me. I help out with an organization that serves kids a lot like Rodney and Karen. I could see the kids I work with in the two photos of them that I had. I started to become curious about Karen and Rodney, and I wanted to know more about them and what may have happened.

Another interview that struck me, for different reasons, was the interview with now retired LCSO Detective Mike Harmon. He recounted how not recovering Karen, Rodney and later Rachandas’ remains have affected him. I remember him saying something to the effect that when he drives through the Santiam Pass, he wonders where Rachanda is, and if Karen and Rodney are with her. As a former soldier, I know a bit what it is like to have something gnaw at you; maybe you could have done something different and there might have been a different outcome. There’s a part of me that wants to resolve this for him as well.

Thankfully, the team at the Oregonian had provided a major assist. As part of the project, they published a footnoted PDF of the complete series. The footnotes were linked to source documentation from police, prosecutors, archived news articles, and interrogation transcripts. Included in that document haul was a summary of the LCSO case file about Karen Jean Lee and Rodney L. Grissom. That case file summary has been the single most important document to inform this search. Since this is still an open homicide investigation, LCSO did not release the full case file, but the gaps in the summary informed other research, and the summary became the standard to evaluate other information against.

That summary also personalized it for me, in a way I was not expecting. It listed the location where their clothing was found as “Upper Soda, Section 19”, and that was a brick of information hitting me. I’ve been going to the Middle Santiam Wilderness almost since I arrived here and Soda Fork Rd is the main way to access the trail head. It is one of my most favorite places in Oregon, where I go to fish, camp, hunt, hike and generally find some peace when I need it. When I came out for the 15 May 2023 Site Survey, I realized that I had changed a blown tire at the Grissom Site two years earlier. On my first visit, in 2017, I ended up fishing about 200’ from where I am now searching for Karen.

The final “why” so to speak, is that I have a professional background that is adjacent to this type of work. I was a Sensitive Site Exploitation SME a lifetime ago. What’s that? We used a mix of biometrics, forensics and other techniques as a tool during the Global War on Terror. I also volunteer for my County’s Search and Rescue team. Not only did I know the area, and feel a moral compunction to act, I also had the ability to do so.

That’s why I’m out there, searching.

After the 17 June 2023 ground search at the Grissom Site, I have shifted to searching the Lee Site only. I had some use or lose time, and decided to spend another day at Soda Fork. I got out there by a little after 8am and started with a more detailed site survey than I had completed on 15 May 2023.

I followed the same procedure I had employed previously at the Grissom Site. I sketch mapped the site, and located the trails and lines of drift leading from it. I noted that this time, the blackberry growth along the top of the berm had filled in about 80% of the back-top of the berm, effectively obscuring any trails that may have once been there. Thankfully the thicket is not mature, and is still passable in boots and heavy pants.

To me, this indicates that the vegetation has now obscured the topography that would have been visible in 1977. I still consider the bench noted on the 15 May site survey as a likely crime scene but not the only potential scene. I decided to section off the area I had previously identified and flagged as my search box for the day. I made my way to the bottom of the hill, surveying flags in hand and I began to mark debris piles, depressions and washes.

I spent from roughly 9am to 3pm bear crawling up the hill to the top of the berm and back. I would start at the outflow of a wash, go through the debris pile in its delta, then work my way up on my hands and knees, clearing leaves, lifting fern mats, going through woody debris. I can move relatively quickly, despite the terrain and vegetation. The types of remains I am looking for, especially after 46 years of weather exposure are the long bones and the heavy bones: radius, ulna, humerus, femur, tibia, fibia, lower mandible, skull, and to a lesser degree, vertebrae and ribs. Even in partial form, these bones are large and distinctive, and likely to survive.

I finished the search of the day’s area by about 230. It was about 89, sunny and I was physically spent by the exertion of crawling up the hill repeatedly. Before leaving for the day, I walked the top of the hill, behind the blackberry thicket. This was a preliminary survey of the remaining 80% of the site that I hadn’t walked previously. It’s a steep, wooded and rocky hillside, with a 60 foot drop over 0.05 miles to the Soda Fork creek bed.

My tentative plan to search the remaining terrain is to section the hill into lanes that can be searched in 8 hour increments. The search plan would remain the same- identify washes, depressions and lines of drift, and focus the search there for the long and heavy bones. In all honesty, I was feeling slightly down until I walked the top of the hill on this survey. After striking a dry well on the day’s search in the sun and the heat, I was feeling it. Then on the survey, I realized that I had barely scratched the total area at the Lee Site.

Stay optimistic. This is a long process with no set end. The work will be done when it is done.