Desert Sun, Volume 45, Number 23, 31 August 1971 — Seachers Can't Find Two Lost Youngsters [ARTICLE]

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Seachers Can't Find Two Lost Youngsters

PORT ANGELES, Wash, j (DPI) —One of the largest 1 searches ever conducted in | Washington state has ended I with no trace found of two ; youngsters missing since last ' Thursday along the strait of Juan De Fuca Coastline. Authorities told parents of the missing boys, Mark Peal, 10. and Kevin Lee Conner. 13, that everything possible had been done to find them. The two Bellevue, Wash., youngsters were last seen when they left a private campground, telling their parents they were going to explore some abandoned army bunkers. About 50 searchers stayed late Monday checking some test holes that were drilled in the area for World War II defense installations, but Clallam County Sheriff Harley Bishop described the effort as “grasping for straws.” At the height of the search during the weekend, almost 500 soldis s from Ft. Lewis, Wash., and about 200 civilian volunteers participated. They were' aided by Army, Coast Guard

and civilian helicopters. The civilian volunteers included skin divers, mountaineer rescue units, law enforcement search and rescue groups and search dogs and their handlers. Bishop said the boys’ trail ended suddenly in the middle of' dirt road. He said the dogs were unable to track their scentfrom that point. The sheriff said the boys! might have been picked up in a car and met with foul play. The terrain where the boys

disappeared is broken by steep cliffs along the strait and heavy underbrush covers almost all the land in the area.