HISTORY: Community Topics | LOST PERSONS & DEAD BODIES

When Chuckie Philpott was three or four, he disappeared. A big search followed. A few hours later, he was found sleeping in a closet.

When Ryan Ross was a toddler, he got lost. A community search ensued and Pat Russell finally found him locked in the cloak room in the front of the old Joe Rich School house.

Several hunters have been lost in the Greystokes. Nick Hush was lost there for three days. Most have come out into the upper part of the Mission Creek Valley.

One of the most dramatic events of this sort occurred in the fall of about 1977. Leo and Vivian Kleemaier had a helicopter pilot friend. One day, he landed in Joe Rich and dropped into their home. Leo was out, but the rest of the family and Vivian’s brother were home. The pilot invited Vivian out for a ride and so they took off. When they didn’t return, Vivian’s brother, who was baby-sitting, called Gert Weddell to get hold of Leo who he thought was with Jim, but Jim was at the Armstrong Fair. Search and Rescue were called and another helicopter was sent out. They flew all over Joe Rich and the surrounding area lighting up the night with powerful search lights. Eventually, the missing helicopter was sighted beside Brown Lake and a report came back that it had been found, but that there was no sign of life. Finally, Vivian and the pilot were rescued in the very early hours of the morning. Their story was that they had landed at the lake and been unable to take off again. Others wondered and Leo was upset. The story made the Courier.

Perhaps the secluded nature of Joe Rich has attracted some grizzly events too. Some have turned out to be harmless such as the graves which Gert Weddell and Diane Marlatt found in Three Forks Park and that turned out to be buried dogs. Others have been more serious. Bodies of murder victims have been dumped in the Trapping Creek Road area, and near the road to Big White. In August of 1999, the Morrisons discovered the bodies of two men who had been murdered in Kelowna and dumped below Philpott Road.