BETHEL – Searchers from the village of Kwethluk on Sunday evening pulled the body of a young woman out of an open lead in the thawing ice of a branch of the Kuskokwim River, ending one of the longest and largest searches in memory, according to the village public safety officer.
The remains appear to be those of Sally Stone, 27, the third member of a trio killed when their four-wheeler went through the ice in December on a trip from Bethel to Akiak, Alaska State Troopers said Monday.
Stone was originally from the tundra village of Atmautluak but was living upriver from Bethel in Akiak, where her boyfriend, George Evan, was from. The bodies of Evan, 26, and Ralph "Jimmy" Demantle, 51, were recovered earlier. Stone and Evan had a young son together.
Her family has been notified and her body was flown Monday to the State Medical Examiner's Office in Anchorage for an autopsy, troopers said.
Sgt.Max Olick, Kwethluk's longtime village public safety officer, said a man who lives on an island outside the village spotted what he believed to be a person's body at the lower end of the open lead in the ice on Kuskokuak Slough. The man, Wassillie Evan, notified Bethel Search and Rescue president Mike Riley around 5 p.m. Sunday, who alerted Olick.
Around Kwethluk there is open water, and a group that included Olick went by boat as far as they could.
"Using binoculars, we determined it was the body of possibly Sally," Olick said.
The ice was too rotten to walk on. The searchers brought in a bigger boat, Riley said. They wanted "to go high speed and slide on top of the ice to reach where the body was." Olick said.
They were able to recover the remains 150 to 200 feet from where a search effort involving 100 or so people began Dec. 13, two days after the travelers were last seen near Kwethluk. Troopers said the travelers were drinking before they pushed on for the trip home. The four-wheeler plunged into an open hole just past the village.
On Sunday, searchers pushed the boat motor's capability to get across the ice, Olick said.
"They had to accelerate and go 20 to 30 miles an hour on top of the ice to the open lead in the middle of the river," he said. "Luckily they didn't go under the ice."
It was risky with the rotting ice, he said.
"I couldn't even watch when they were accelerating to come back," Olick said.
By 6:45 p.m. Sunday, they had recovered the remains, Riley said.
Just as they arrived back at the area of open water, the boat motor conked out, Olick said. Another boat towed it back to Kwethluk.
People came from all over the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to help with the search, including from Bethel and nearby villages of Napaskiak and Atmautluak, from Akiak, Akiachak and Tuluksak, from the Yukon River, he said.
"They were there," Olick said. "Thank all those people that made an effort."
Searchers kept looking for Stone as long as they could get out on the ice. They used Bethel Search and Rescue's underwater camera. They cut out chunks of ice with chainsaws and dragged hooked bars along the river bottom, the old way. They quickly found the four-wheeler, then Demantle. A Wisconsin man flew up with sonar equipment, which energized searchers but didn't produce results. Then, on Day 42, with the help of a different sonar and camera system brought in by a Minnesota man, they found Evan.
Bethel Search and Rescue now is trying to buy its own sonar, camera and recovery system, the VideoRay remotely operated vehicle. It has raised $20,000, with another $100,000 to go, Riley said.
Early in the search, they found one of Stone's gloves. The body found Sunday was missing one glove, Olick said.
It was one of the longest searches on the river, and involved more people than usual, he said. But she was close by all along.
Now the case of the missing trio is closed, Olick said. He feels relief and the family must as well.