(Photo: Steve Durrant)
As I type this, the search effort for Cycle Oregon volunteer and Metro employee Mark Bosworth has increased two-fold.
Yesterday, in an effort to get more “boots on the ground,” Cycle Oregon ride director Jerry Norquist decided to charter a bus to take Portlanders south to Riddle to aid the search and rescue effort that’s now well into it’s fourth day. (Please note that Norquist is working closely with Douglas County search officials in this citizen volunteer effort.)
50 people showed up at the Portland Sheraton hotel this morning to spend two days to look for Mark. The Cycle Oregon volunteer crew of 50 will bolster the existing team of about 40 people from various agencies in Douglas County.
Unfortunately, I have no major developments to share. The search effort has widened now, with a helicopter patrolling the skies, marine patrol searching waterways and the Douglas County Major Crime Team being assigned the case.
Don’t get the wrong impression about the Major Crime Team, authorities say there’s no reason to suspect foul play. According to Dwes Hutson with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, the involvement of the Major Crime Team is simply to put more resources into the search. They are also skilled at ferreting out credible tips and in doing interviews.
Hutson tells me at this point, with few solid leads, the search is “scenario-based,” meaning their approach to the search effort is based on various scenarios of what could have happened. One strong scenario is that Mark might be having a medical issue (many people have reported that he wasn’t himself prior to Friday and that he was acting confused and “a little off”). Given that, “He could be incapacitated somewhere,” says Hutson, “Or maybe it’s caused him to lose his bearings.” Authorities also suspect he might have hitched a ride and gotten in a car. In that case, he could be well out of the area.
Hutson adds that his county has a lot of experience with missing persons cases. “It’s not uncommon for people to get lost out here,” he told me via phone today. Douglas County consists of 5,000 square miles of land, the vast majority of which is wilderness and wide open spaces. He says he’s thankful that they have favorable weather conditions, both for the safety of Mark and the comfort of search and rescue teams.
I’ll keep you posted if I hear of any developments. See my past coverage, links to the latest news around the web, and download a PDF of the missing person flyer at the Find Mark Bosworth page.