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2007 Schreck,Michael 5-17-2007
Topic Started: May 21 2007, 07:20 AM (102 Views)
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Park search fails to find Issaquah man missing since Friday
By Melissa Allison

Seattle Times staff reporter

When darkness fell on Sunday, search teams had covered every trail on Cougar Mountain and most of nearby Squak Mountain looking for Michael Schreck, an Issaquah man who left home to go running Friday morning and never returned.

Not knowing where he planned to run, Schreck's wife, Emily, looked for his car for hours at various trailheads before contacting authorities on Friday evening.

They found his beige Ford Explorer at a Cougar Mountain trailhead and started looking for Schreck in the middle of the night, Emily Schreck said.

"He was intimately familiar with this hill," she said on Sunday, adding that he runs there often. "He would not get lost."

Michael Schreck, 47, also would not wander, Emily added. "He's strictly a trail runner. He's out for a run, not to poke around in the bushes."

Over the weekend, search-and-rescue teams, including horses, dogs and helicopters, scoured the 3,000 acres of Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park and nearby areas. Trained searchers from Walla Walla, Oregon, Canada and elsewhere pitched in, many because they had been attending the Washington State Search and Rescue conference at Crystal Mountain near Mount Rainier.

It would be almost impossible to search every square inch of Cougar Mountain, said King County sheriff's Deputy Peter Linde.

"We've had areas where the dogs have shown a lot of interest, and we're hitting those places really hard," Linde said, "with people rappelling off cliffs and things like that."

They've also searched under thick brush and checked old mines that are still accessible.

Dogs can pick up scents for days and sometimes weeks, meaning they might be tracking Schreck's scent from earlier runs.




Investigators have no reason to believe Schreck was the victim of a crime, but they won't rule it out until a missing person is found, Linde said.

The park was open to visitors all weekend, which in some ways helped with the search, he said.

"There have been so many people here the last couple days that if he was on a trail, he would have been found," Linde said.

Schreck is 6 feet tall and weighs 180 pounds. He has brown hair and blue eyes. On Friday morning, he was probably wearing running pants and a hat, but investigators have no further details about his clothing.

Call 206-296-3311(the King County Sheriff's Office) or 911 if you have information to share with authorities.

Schreck's car remained at the trailhead on Sunday afternoon, along with dozens of cars, trailers and buses used by searchers.

Inside one of the vehicles, his tired and teary-eyed wife said she had searched the mountain for awhile on Saturday.

"I did one loop with our dog, a loop I thought was a likely route," Emily Schreck said.

She doubts her husband was the victim of a crime and does not believe he took another car away from the site. "He has no other running buddies," she said. "It's a complete mystery."

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca...schreck21m.html
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Rescuers call off search for runner missing on Cougar Mountain
By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
P-I REPORTER

ISSAQUAH -- King County sheriff's Deputy Peter Linde stood in the rain near a Cougar Mountain trailhead Sunday afternoon and shook his head.


Michael Schreck was likely wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. After so much time in the wet woods, hypothermia is a concern.
For the third straight day, King County search and rescue teams combed an 11-square-mile area, desperately searching for Michael Schreck -- the Issaquah man and father of two teenagers who left for a Friday morning run and never returned.

Searchers brought dogs, horses and twice scanned the area with heat sensors by helicopter. But early Sunday evening, they seemed to have no more solid leads than they did two days earlier, and Linde looked at a Cougar Mountain map as though it were a Rubik's Cube.

"This guy just disappeared," he said.

Schreck, 47, left home about 7:15 a.m. Friday to go to his favorite wooded running trails, police said. His wife called police about 11 p.m. when she hadn't heard from him. His Ford Explorer was found locked at the Red Town trailhead.

"We know there's nothing sinister going on; we just know he's not with us," the man's younger brother, Joe Schreck, said, echoing police statements. "This has been very hard for the family because there has been no closure."


Rescue teams continued throughout the weekend, with more than 100 people searching Saturday and about half that many on Sunday. Search dogs had covered most of the trails before dawn Saturday, and by Sunday afternoon they had given up on the obvious routes because they'd been over them so many times.

As of 9 p.m. Sunday, the search operation was suspended, Linde said. Detectives will now take over the effort as a missing persons case, he said.


Karen Ducey / P-I
Joe Schreck, brother of the missing man, is comforted by friends and family members as they wait at a Cougar Mountain park trailhead.
Cougar Mountain is peppered with mines -- a remnant from the century before 1963, when the Eastside had a bustling coal industry -- and searchers initially thought Schreck might have fallen into one.

But a former Cougar Mountain park employee who mapped the mines searched them over the weekend and found no trace of Schreck, police said.

Most areas along the 52 maintained trails in Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park are not lined with steep inclines.

Searchers who examined the areas that are said they did not find signs someone had slipped off the trails.

Police said Schreck, a Spokane native who moved from Texas in 2003, did not tell his wife exactly where he was going before making the roughly five-mile drive from his Issaquah home.

His family believes he was wearing running shorts and a sweatshirt.

"He didn't have any health issues abnormal for a 47-year-old," Linde said. "Schreck's family said he had asthma and some arthritis but that was it."

Schreck's family didn't say much Sunday, except that he is an avid runner who goes to the trails a few times a week for runs of up to a couple hours.

Earlier this year, Schreck became a manager at a local pharmaceutical company, his brother said.

As the family waited, they shifted between an area near Schreck's SUV and an off-duty Metro bus, where a King County chaplain consoled them near the back of the bus.

"I went up there and walked around for four or five hours this morning and it's just a jungle," Joe Schreck said, fighting back tears.

"There's lots and lots of underbrush."

King County search dogs picked up a few scents Sunday morning but those led to other hikers, searcher Kevin London said.

"We've done everything we can and we're coming up empty-handed," Linde said.

The searchers' main concern Sunday was that Schreck may have hypothermia after being wet in the woods for more than two days.

"But I've been on other searches where people with hypothermia have been found several days later," London said, "so there's always hope."


IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION
If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Michael Schreck, contact the King County Sheriff's Office at (206) 296-3311. The line is open 24 hours a day.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/316478_search21.html
P-I reporter Casey McNerthney can be reached at 206-448-8220 or caseymcnerthney@seattlepi.com.
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Michael Schreck went missing Friday morning in a popular wooded park. Hundreds of people and search dogs tried to find him. His story is that he fell while jogging, fell into a ravine, hit his head and was knocked out for several days. Then, miraculously, he woke up and was able to walk about 5 miles back to see if his car was there and then another 5 miles home. He was "fine" when he got home. Not dehydrated. Not scratched. Not bruised. As a side note - they talked about this on a radio talk show yesterday and a doctor called in and said you could not be knocked out that long and then wake up and be able to find your way back. You'd be completly disoriented.

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/moore/317597_moore29.html

Go 2 Guy: Seeking truth on mystery jogger
By JIM MOORE
P-I COLUMNIST

Which camp are you in -- the one that buys Michael Schreck's story, or the one that doesn't?



· Missing jogger turns up, and says he fell into a ravine
You know what happened -- Schreck, 47, goes for a run at Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park, wife calls police when he doesn't return, search party looks for him all weekend but can't find him, search party is called off and Schreck suddenly shows up at home with no injuries.

Then the family releases a two-paragraph statement before shutting the door on reporters, saying that Schreck fell into a ravine on Squak Mountain, was knocked unconscious for three days, stayed under a log and covered himself with leaves for warmth, came to and worked his way back to the Renton-Issaquah Road, tried unsuccessfully to hitchhike home, then opted to walk through the heavily wooded Cougar Mountain park in the dark and arrived home around 11 p.m. last Monday.


Schreck
King County Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said he believed Schreck's account, and there would not be an investigation by the Sheriff's Office.

But another investigation began on Memorial Day. This one seeks answers and plans to get them. The Go 2 Pup and his fellow newshound file this report:

Plan for the day: Call Schreck; call Schreck's neighbor; call a Michael Schreck in Bellevue and see if he's sick of being confused for the under-the-log Schreck. (Maybe so; his number's been disconnected.)

Then interview Cougar Mountain hikers and check out Squak Mountain trails for possible Schreck slippage spots.

I leave a message for Schreck and am still waiting for a callback. The Schrecks were media-friendly when their brother/husband was missing and tight-lipped once he appeared.

That seems odd. When these kinds of happy-ending rescue stories happen elsewhere, there's always a news conference with happy people looking happy on CNN, thanking everyone and answering questions. No such luck here, which only heightens the skepticism. But then it's lowered again after talking with John Warnick, Schreck's neighbor, casual friend and golf partner.

Here's one checkmark in the "I believe his story" column: The guy's a golfer, and a decent one, a 12-handicapper who plays with Warnick at Willows Run, Echo Falls and Newcastle.

Another check in the same column, and a big bold one, at that: Schreck owns a golden retriever, an older one with a white face. Golden retriever owners will not, would not, do not stretch the truth.

Then again, Schreck also owns a Corgi, and Corgi owners just might.

Warnick has no reason not to believe his neighbor, saying: "Why would you put yourself up to public ridicule? Why would you want to scare your wife and kids to death? What would be the benefit of doing something like that?"

It seems more probable to Warnick that Schreck spent three nights in the woods than three nights somewhere else. He said Schreck is an avid outdoorsman who's in phenomenal shape.

Warnick said he might think differently if he could come up with a motive for Schreck to concoct a story like this. But he can't think of one, dismissing rampant Internet speculation about another woman.

"If you're going to leave your spouse, why would you do it that way?" Warnick said. "Why wouldn't you say you don't love her anymore and you want a divorce?

"I don't think his relationship is in that situation. Things seem to be pretty positive. They're a happily married couple with two great kids."

Warnick's neighbor doesn't want the spotlight. Warnick and Schreck once won a two-man tournament at Newcastle, and Schreck didn't hang around for the awards ceremony.

"Let's say he wanted a TV movie, that he was trying to be famous," Warnick said. "The last thing he likes is notoriety. That's probably why he's not talking to anybody. He doesn't want to be Michael Schreck, the guy who got lost; he wants to be Michael Schreck, the guy who's a dad and goes running and sea kayaking.

"If everyone left it alone, it would be just fine. Everyone wants to find an angle to it, to make the guy look crazy, and he's not a crazy guy."

But Warnick knows that people are still talking about it a week later. His Sunday dinner guests were, too. They wondered why Schreck didn't have any bug bites or bruises.

"He looked like he lost a few pounds and definitely looked worn out, like he had been through a small ordeal," Warnick said.

Warnick briefly talked with Schreck last week but didn't ask about the incident.

"Would I want to be in his shoes?" Warnick asked. "Hell no."

At Cougar Mountain, the parking lot is packed with cars filled with skeptical holiday hikers.

"I wondered where he went and how nobody could have spotted him," said Brad Reardon, there for the first time with his wife and beagle.

"It is a little weird," said Allysha Eyler of North Seattle.

"It does seem unbelievable," said Vanessa Ruedebusch of Seattle. "How can you get lost in a park? How can that be?"

Kurt and Cathy Springman of Newport Shores have a $5 bet on Schreck's story; the husband believes him, and the wife rolls her eyes.

"I think for whatever reason, he walked away and got second thoughts and came back," said Cathy Springman, theorizing a midlife crisis. "If that weekend hadn't been so cold and rainy, I might have believed it."

But Kurt Springman has read "Touching the Void," about a climber who survived a fall in the Andes and crawled to safety with a broken leg. So he wants to believe.

How will the bet be settled?

"We're waiting for a clever investigative reporter to bring out the truth," Kurt Springman said.

Say no more.

At the end of the Seattle P-I's "Runner Found" story last week, readers posted their thoughts in a Soundoff. Most thought that many things did not add up.

No scrapes, no hypothermia, no bump on the noggin, no need for medical attention, no way he could walk nine miles home.

"Yeah, right," said one.

"Musta taken some kind of smacking to the ol' brain-housing group to knock him unconscious for three days," said another.

"How could he have covered himself with leaves if he was unconscious?" asked another.

There were more questions. Why was his Ford Explorer towed from the parking lot? Wouldn't he need it if he emerged from the forest?

"Where in the world did she think he was jogging to -- Spokane?" asked one blogger.

The one-liners were flying. Schreck was in Hollywood promoting his latest animated movie.

"Maybe searchers overlooked a man unconscious in a ravine because they were looking for a green ogre traveling with a donkey," wrote one.

Another thought he was abducted by aliens. And someone else asked: "Was he really under a log or in a large plant-like pod?"

The non-believers have their reasons. The newshounds also went to Squak Mountain to look at the trails, to see if there was a ravine to fall into. I talked with one couple at the trailhead that had seen the ravine. They said it was in the Central Peaks area of the trail system.

The man said he thought of Schreck when he looked at the ravine but doubted he could have fallen into it. And if he did, he would not have been seriously hurt.

He said it would take us an hour to get there, so off we went in pursuit of the truth. Fifteen minutes later, truth took a back seat to reality -- no story was worth an hour of vertical climbing, and we reversed course, taking the man's word for it, there's a ravine up there somewhere.

But this brings up another point. When Schreck said he came to, it was 2 p.m. Then when he started hitchhiking on the Renton-Issaquah Road at dusk, say 8 or 9 p.m., how could it have taken him six hours to go from the ravine to the road?

Then why didn't he walk into Issaquah, only two miles away, and ask for help at the Burger King or somewhere else instead of traversing Cougar Mountain again?

And when he emerged from Cougar Mountain Park, he had to have gone by the Lakemont Fire Station on his way home. Why didn't he stop and ask for help there?

In his defense, the trails are muddy and covered in spots with tree roots that could trip anyone. Walking his dog, Warnick severely sprained his ankle in Cougar Mountain Park and couldn't golf for four months.

Warnick asked if I could write "an article that supports the story instead of trying to break it apart."

But the details, as presented by the Schrecks, prevented that from happening.

P-I columnist Jim Moore can be reached at 206-448-8013 or jimmoore@seattlepi.com. His columns appear Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
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http://www.kirotv.com/news/13353515/detail.html

ISSAQUAH, Wash. -- The King County sheriff's office said it plans no further investigation of a man who said he was unconscious for four days in a ravine while searchers were looking for him.

Michael Schreck, 47, disappeared last Friday morning while running trails on Cougar Mountain. Schreck returned home late Monday night in good condition.

King County sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said there's no evidence of any crime.

He said Schreck was in good shape, despite having taken what he called a "bad fall" on the trails.

Schreck said he's just happy to be home after his four-day adventure.

Urquhart said Schreck told deputies he decided to run from the Cougar Mountain Trailhead, where authorities found his vehicle on Saturday, to Squak Mountain.

A statement from the Schreck family explained what happened.

"Somewhere on Squak, he slipped off the trail, fell and was knocked unconscious. He remained so for days but at some time had managed to roll under a log and cover himself with leaves for warmth."

"When he came to on Monday, he figured he had to get himself out. Scrambling up the ravine, he filled his water bottle with muddy water and began retracing his steps. He tried hitching a ride on Hwy. 900 with no luck. He was so cold and wet he worked his way back over Cougar Mountain and down the roads to his home."

He arrived at home about 11 p.m., and his wife called King County authorities.

Wearing just shorts and a light jacket, many were worried about Schreck's chances.

The search -- by about 200 volunteers with the King County Search & Rescue team -- was called off Sunday night.

"Typically we would expect to see injuries, bug bites, dehydration, weight loss -- those types of things when someone is out in the weather that long," Urquhart said.

Authorities said when they interviewed Schreck at his home early Tuesday morning, he was tired, but had taken a shower and was cleaned up.

"(There were) no bumps, no bruises, no scratches. Everything was fine. He was in very good health," Urquhart said.

King County officials said they are happy that Schreck is home with his family. They said it's always the outcome they're hoping for when a search is launched.

Schreck's family thanked volunteers for their help.

Copyright 2007 by KIROTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



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