Ten years later, a Death Valley mystery still unsolved (Daily Bulletin 072206) 4 German Tourists Vanish in Majave's 125-degree heat

It has been the ten years later, and Inyo County Search and Rescue was the Investigating agency, back then they did everything that they could think of, even enlisting the Translation of a German Woman in Bishop to do the hard work of speaking to their family, and trying to see when they had last spoken with their family and when they were going to call again. They were all in good spirits having a good time on their trip, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, just that it was 124 degree' s in the shade where they were, but other then that, everything was fine for them.

Now if you were to take the thought process that they have today regarding Renee Fox, they could have gotten a ride from another person and made a another name for themselves, then they could have started up and down the picking circuit with no Social Security number and the like they could retired here in the USA, like Some of the other theory's were at the time. Someone beat them over the head and took their money was one thought, and it is just a puzzle as to what happened to them. There also is a possibility that a person that had a family van with some plates and they could have buried the van all of it, now I am really digging deep. No, those people are dead out there somewhere, unfortunately, and they will not ever be found.

As for Renee Fox, I pray that she gets found, she seems like a very nice woman, and there are some very nice people that could loved to have seen her. It is just to hard of a thing to have not been able to have not seen all these people. The German family if there was one that killed the rest that would make sense, but for all four to survive, and return that is unlikely. One kills the three and goes out and makes their way is one thing.

There are so many variables that could have happened here to each one of them. God is the only one that knows right now. and of coarse the people involved.

BSRanch

Ten years later, a Death Valley mystery still unsolved
Four German tourists vanished in the Mojave's 125-degree heat
By Chuck Mueller, Daily Bulletin Staff Writer

DEATH VALLEY -- For a record 40 straight days in the summer of 1996, the temperature soared above 120 degrees in this scorching natural cauldron in the Mojave Desert.

As inhospitable as it was, four German tourists drove their rented minivan into it in late July of that year -- and vanished.

It's one of the many mysteries of the Mojave.

The disappearance of German architect Egbert Rimkus, 34, his girlfriend Cornelia Meyer, 28, his 10-year-old son Georg Weber, and Meyer's son Max, 4, has baffled officials for a decade.

"After 10 years, they're still listed as missing," said Inyo County Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Jones, who participated in the original search. "The investigation is still open."

Clues are few. According to an independent investigator, author Emmett Harder of Devore, the travelers had bought an informational booklet at the Furnace Creek Visitors Center. "A cash register receipt from the center's store indicates it was purchased on July 22, 1996," Harder said.

A day later, as temperatures climbed to 124 degrees, the tourists drove south and then west in their 1996 Plymouth Voyager van, heading toward the stark Panamint Mountains, Harder said.

"The dirt trail they were on used to be a fairly good desert road," the author said. "Big ore trucks traveled up and down this lonely track ... but now the road was being reclaimed by the desert. It was covered by loose rocks, large and small, as well as sand bars."

For the van, the trail through rugged Warm Spring Canyon into Butte Valley "was definitely not a safe road," Harder said. Climbing from below sea level, the canyon road ascends to an abandoned mining camp at an elevation of about 2,500 feet.

Known for his adventurous spirit, Rimkus must have found the drive to the camp an exciting adventure, according to people who knew him.

"The camp was once bustling with men and machinery ... now it is a small ghost town," Harder said. "Egbert stopped here and left an entry in the log book that is kept in a steel box atop a short metal post."

In German, it read, "7-23-96. Conny Egbert Georg Max. We are going through the pass."

Rimkus probably was referring to Mengle Pass, located near 7,196-foot-high Manly Peak on the southwest border of Death Valley National Park.

In the middle of the plateau rises a butte of mixed lavender, blue and brown, Harder said. And just beyond that stands a stone cabin at the edge of a spring that waters a cottonwood tree. This is Anvil Spring, named by early prospectors who found an anvil lying there.

After stopping at the cabin, the green minivan turned about a mile short of the pass and headed east along a sandy wash into remote Anvil Spring Canyon.

Investigators familiar with the disappearance of the foursome are puzzled why they would have chosen to travel into such an isolated area.

Among them is Dick Hasselman, a recently retired professor of engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Va.

Intrigued by a news report about the missing German tourists, he wondered about their rationale for traveling into Anvil Spring Canyon, far off the usual route for visitors.

"They didn't go to the usual (tourist) sites, such as Badwater ... or Scotty's Castle where first-time visitors are wont to go," said Hasselman, who has made Death Valley a vacation destination for three decades.

"Anvil Canyon is a designated wilderness area closed to vehicular traffic," he wrote in a report last February that capped a dozen personal trips and searches into the area since 1996. "It is definitely not on the general route of first-time visitors to Death Valley."

In late July 1996, records maintained by the National Weather Service show that temperatures in Death Valley reached 124 and 125 degrees. For the unwary or overconfident visitor, the scorched valley can be a dangerous and even deadly place.

"It has been claimed there is no other spot so forbidding, so desolate, so deadly," writes Richard Lingenfelter in his classic "Death Valley and the Amargosa -- A Land of Illusion (University of California Press, 1986).

"On an average summer day in Death Valley, you can lose over two gallons of water just sitting in the shade; hiking in the sun, you can lose twice as much! Without enough to drink to replace it, the loss of four gallons of water is almost certainly fatal, and even the loss of two gallons could have fatal results."

According to an official report by the National Park Service, with temperatures setting a record of 40 days of 120 degrees or more that summer, chances of anyone surviving in Death Valley without adequate water and shade were "about zero after three days."

In Dresden, Germany, the families and friends of the four tourists had expected them to return home by July 29. But their reserved seats aboard a Transworld Airways flight were empty.

When they did not arrive, Heike Weber -- Rimkus' former wife and Georg Weber's mother -- went to the travel agency that arranged the foursome's trip to find out what had happened to the German tourists. The agency then inquired if the minivan rented by Rimkus and Meyer in Los Angeles had been returned.

It had not. Dollar Rent-a-Car in Los Angeles said the van was overdue, informing the tourists' relatives, "The family has not returned the car."

The rental agent said the minivan would be reported as stolen if it wasn't returned within 30 days. On Sept. 10, a stolen vehicle report was filed by Dollar Rent-a-Car with Los Angeles police.

"At this point, no one knew where (the four tourists) had gone," Harder said. "The last anyone in Germany had heard from them was a fax that Rimkus had sent from the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas. In it he had asked Heike Weber to send money.

"That was the last contact. The money was not sent."

On Aug. 14, Interpol listed the four Germans as missing persons.

"No one had any idea what had happened to them until Oct. 26, 1996," Harder said.

On that day, Park Ranger Dave Brenner was taking part in an aerial surveillance mission in a military helicopter over Death Valley's remote southern border.

Below, apparently stuck in the wash at Anvil Spring Canyon, he spotted a green Plymouth van. Three of its four tires were flat.

Brenner reported the find to the California Highway Patrol, which confirmed the van had been reported as stolen.

But there was no sign of the four German tourists