EISPIRATEN

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Bones found in Death Valley could be those of missing Germans

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 - 08:43 AM

Police in California said more bones had been found in Death Valley that could be the remains of four German tourists who vanished 13 years ago.

Inyo County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carma Roper said a weekend search turned up the bones in the same remote area where two hikers found skeletal remains last month. A form of identification for one of the tourists was found nearby.

Dresden resident Cornelia Meyer and her four-year-old son, along with her boyfriend Egbert Rimkus and his 10-year-old son, vanished in 120-degree Fahrenheit (50-degree Celsius) heat during a trip to the Mojave Desert park in 1996.

Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingne ... z0ZCYN43Aw

The speculation on the Death Valley boards is that the Germans were trying to reach the China Lake/Fort Irwin military complex. They had a park brochure with a simple map showing the base to be south of the dirt road where their vehicle stopped with 4 flat tires. The map was too crude for them to realize that the distance was 14 miles in the blazing summer heat. Also, unlike the European bases they knew, China Lake has no guard towers or regular patrols. As soon as they set out on foot, their fate was sealed.

If you frequent the Whitney Portal Store message board, you know Bob Rockwell. He was part of the search team for the missing Germans. His pictures of the search are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockwellb/ ... 843864841/

A news story is here:

http://www.inyoregister.com/content/view/121302/27/

If you do not follow the Death Valley boards, you may not have seen this picture. It is one thing to read news accounts, but another to see the evidence. I found it to be sobering.