Still Missing: Rethinking the D.B. Cooper Case and Other Mysterious Unsolved Disappearances
Authors: Ross Richardson
Tags: #Biographies & Memoirs, #True Crime, #History, #Americas, #United States, #20th Century
STILL MISSING
Rethinking the D.B. Cooper Case
and Other Mysterious Unsolved Disappearances
Ross Richardson
Terra Mysteria Media
Published by Terra Mysteria Media
Copyright © 2014 Ross Richardson
All rights reserved.
Editors: Cal Kothrade
www.calsworld.net
and Jeffery Sandman
Cover: Cal Kothrade
www.calsworld.net
Layout: Susan Leonard,
RoseIslandBookworks.com
Photos in Chapters One and Five from Lisa Lepsy’s personal collection. Used with permission.
Photos in Chapter Two from John Block Jr.’s personal collection. Used with permission.
Photos in Chapter Four from C. Patrick Labadie Collection, Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Alpena, MI. Used with permission.
For my wife Jennifer,
whose love and support made the writing of this book,
and surviving life, possible.
I love you.
Table of Contents
Preface
I
met John Block Jr. in November of 2011, at a lecture I was giving about local history at a library in a neighboring town. During the lecture, I mentioned my website,
www.michiganmysteries.com
, and the fact that it was dedicated to stories of missing persons, planes, ships and drowning victims in the Michigan Region. He approached me after my presentation and briefly told me the story of his parent’s disappearance and gave me his card. I called him a few weeks later and we met up for coffee. We have become good friends since, meeting monthly over coffee or breakfast to discuss the missing person cases and unsolved homicides in our area.
In early March of 2012, while sitting in my dining room, John Block Jr. pushed an old faded and wrinkled newspaper article from October of 2002 across the table towards me. I flipped it around so I could read it. It read:
HUNTERS DISCOVER SITE
OF ’89 CRASH
Curtis (AP)—Hunters discovered the wreckage of a small plane that vanished in 1989 and the remains of its pilot in a cedar swamp.
Authorities identified the pilot as Karl Eugene Warm, of Escanaba. He was 37 when the small fixed wing plane he was flying disappeared on Dec. 1, 1989, state police at the Newberry post said.
The Mackinac County Medical Examiner’s Office was expected to use dental records to positively identify the body, which was found strapped in the aircraft’s cockpit, police said.
Police said two bear hunters found the wreckage on Sunday about 6 miles southeast of this Upper Peninsula Village in a heavily wooded swamp.
The Federal Aviation Administration will examine the wreckage in an attempt to determine what caused the crash, police said.
“See,” John said wishfully, “they’re finding things like this in the woods all the time. This gives me hope.”
John, a retired Grand Traverse County Sheriff’s Department detective from Traverse City, Michigan, has a reason to be interested in this article; his parents disappeared, along with their Cessna aircraft, and they are still missing. They have been since 1977, when they flew off in their green and white plane and never arrived at their destination. Three and a half decades later, he is still hoping they will be found.
The concept of this book is really quite simple. It contains stories of things that are missing, things which can be, and hopefully someday soon, will be found. These things are not easy to find, because if they were, they would have been discovered by now. But, they are findable.
One of these stories is a missing person’s case which you have never heard of. The reason you’ve never heard of it is, it’s so obscure and its details are so vague, little or no mention of the case has ever been made publicly. As of the writing of this book, only about a dozen people are aware of this case.
This missing person’s case doesn’t really stand out on its own, though it is intriguing.
What makes this case stand out is the uncanny resemblance of the missing person to the FBI sketches of the suspect in the legendary D.B. Cooper skyjacking case. This book isn’t about Dick Lepsy being D.B. Cooper. This book merely examines the coincidental similarities in physical appearance between the two individuals and offers opinions and commentary on the two individuals.
The purpose of this book is to create public knowledge and interest in the missing person cases of Dick Lepsy and John & Jean Block, and hopefully, inspire the resolution of these cases by locating Mr. Lepsy and Mr. and Mrs. Block.
The author accuses no one of any crime, wrong doing, or immoral act. This book contains opinions of the author, and is solely meant for, and as, entertainment.
Enjoy
This book is a memorial for those who are missing,
For those who are adrift on the sea of oblivion,
So when they gaze towards the distant shoreline,
They see us standing on the beach, staring back,
And know that someone remembers. Someone cares.
CHAPTER ONE
Robert Richard Lepsy
O
n October 29, 1969, a man disappeared. The quiet, unassuming grocery store manager went for a drive at lunchtime and was never seen again. All he had with him were the clothes on his back. His car was found in an airport parking lot several days later with the keys in the ignition and a half a pack of his favorite cigarettes on the dash. He was never heard from again. He never had a funeral, nor was he given a memorial service, and only about a dozen people, family, friends, coworkers, still remember that he ever existed.
Did he run off to start a new life, abandoning his high school sweetheart wife and their four young children? Was he murdered, robbed, and his car staged in an airport parking lot to cover up the crime? Or did he finally succumb to depression and the pressures of life and kill himself? To this day, his disappearance remains a perplexing mystery, barely investigated by the authorities, and barely recorded by history.
In the eyes of his daughter, Lisa, who was only 12 years old when he disappeared, the friendly family man was a wonderful father who could do no wrong. Nearly every second of his time was spent either working, or with the family he loved. He was a pretty average, all-American dad, loyal friend, and was also highly intelligent.
Robert Richard Lepsy was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 26, 1936 to Frank Lepsy and Otillie Mary Amann Lepsy. The brother he was closest to, George Lepsy, was twelve years his senior, and he and George shared the same father, Frank. He had an older half-brother, Charles Robertson, from his mother’s first marriage. Lepsy also had two younger sisters, Carol and Susie Darlington, from his mother’s third marriage.
His parents and siblings preferred to call him “Richie,” while “Dick” was what his friends and classmates called him. Growing up in Chicago during World War II left an indelible impression on the young boy. As a youngster, Dick experienced the blackouts, rationing, and an overall feeling of anxiety that pervaded the bustling Midwest town. Young Dick experienced other not-so-savory aspects of everyday life also.
Lepsy shared with his daughter Lisa the story that, when he was elementary school age, his mother would bring him to a theater, buy him a ticket and sit him in a seat, and then leave for the afternoon to run errands. Dick’s father was none the wiser; thinking his wife was watching their son. Dick was none the wiser at the time either, watching movie after movie, and newsreels about the war. In his adult years, though, he would be haunted and saddened by this.
In elementary school, Lepsy was one of the brightest kids in his class, but he struggled to fit in, never achieving overwhelming popularity as a young lad. Many years later, he would again relate to his daughter Lisa that one year in elementary school, for Valentine’s Day, Dick and his classmates made special decorated boxes for collecting each other’s cards. Dick was particularly proud of how fancy his box was. At the end of the day, he opened his box, and it was empty. None of his classmates had bothered to give him cards. He was crushed.
Dick’s parents eventually divorced, and both would later remarry. His mother married John Darlington, the man that would eventually father his two half-sisters. Dick grew older, taller, and smarter. In his youth, the Lepsy family often vacationed in the small Northern Michigan town of Grayling.
The town of Grayling, Michigan sits on a somewhat flat piece of land, carved out of the Northern Michigan Forest. Sometimes beautiful, sometimes depressing, the town of Grayling derives its name from the grayling fish, which at one time thrived and filled the Au Sable River: a beautiful stream which snakes and winds its way through the quaint and established town. Early settlers in the Grayling area reported the majestic grayling fish would lie like cordwood in the Au Sable, and a fisherman could catch three of them with one cast! Civil War-era accounts tell of fishermen catching grayling by the basketfuls and hauling them home by the wagonload.
Eventually, all of the over-fishing, coupled with the destruction of the grayling’s natural habitat due to the logging of the area’s virgin timber, led to the demise and extinction of the once prolific fish. The last graylings were captured in the 1930s in a last ditch effort to save the fish from extinction. These efforts were unsuccessful and the Michigan grayling fish disappeared from Michigan’s waterways.
Robert Richard Lepsy high school photo.
As Dick grew older, he schooled in big-city Chicago, always receiving excellent grades and becoming more and more street-smart and savvy. His summers, however, were spent in small-town Grayling, swimming, fishing, picnicking, and enjoying the slower pace of life that rural, unspoiled Michigan had to offer.
Pranks were a fact of life for the Lepsy children. Dick shared a bedroom with his older brother, George, 12 years his senior, whom he respected and somewhat idolized. George set up an elaborate contraption using fishing line run through eyelet screws, which he would attach to objects like toys or trophies with one end of the fishing line; the other end would be tied to his big toe. When the lights went out, things mysteriously moved and went bump in the night around in the Lepsy boys’ bedroom, driving a terrified Dick to tears. Later, George explained what he had done, and both boys got a good chuckle out of it.
On summer break in his early high school years, Dick met Jackie Hunter, a vivacious and curvaceous blonde with a tempered will that matched (and maybe even overpowered) his. The “big city boy” and the “small town girl” hit it off, and they spent more and more time together. Both were known for their sense of humor. Some described Jackie as “the life of the party.” She was the type of girl who if she saw something she wanted, she went out and got it… and she wanted Dick Lepsy.
Jacqueline Susan Hunter high school photo.
For his senior year, Dick convinced his family to let him stay in Grayling, and graduate from Grayling High School. Dick and Jackie shared a locker, as well as much of their time, with each other, under the watchful eyes of Jackie’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter. Dick excelled in the ROTC program and achieved straight A’s.
To help support himself during the school year, he worked at Clayton’s Gas Station. His days were long, starting in the early morning with getting ready for school and finishing up homework he didn’t finish the night before. Then he would head off to school for a full day, followed by working into the evening at the gas station. There, he would pump gas and try to get as much homework done between customers as he could. Even with this heavy workload, Dick was on track to graduate the valedictorian of his class.
While visiting Chicago during spring break of his senior year, one of Dick’s old friends convinced him to leave Grayling and move back to the Windy City. While usually well thought-out and conservative in nature, Dick made a rare impulsive move and left Graying, along with his chance of being his class’s valedictorian.
