Michigan couple's fatal boat trip remains a mystery
eartha...@yahoo.com
Couple's fatal trip remains a mystery
Few clues; lots of gossip about why
January 13, 2006
BY JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Lana Stempien and Chuck Rutherford were a laughing, golden couple when
they fired up Sea's Life at Presque Isle, pointed their 27-foot cabin
cruiser toward Mackinac Island and, on a breezy August afternoon,
sailed into mystery.
A day later, the boat was found southeast of Marquette Island in
northern Lake Huron with its engine idling. Stempien and Rutherford --
lawyers who shared a Grosse Pointe Farms home -- were not aboard. Two
weeks later, Stempien's nude body washed ashore at Hammond Bay.
Five months later, there has still been no sign of Rutherford.
Ever since Stempien's body was found, true crime Web sites and cocktail
party whispers in metro Detroit have hummed with hunches and what-ifs.
Even though Rutherford has taken a drubbing in the rumor mill -- with
innuendos that he may have fled and is hiding, and that he was somehow
responsible for the death of Stempien, a 35-year-old skilled sailor --
investigators say there is nothing to warrant such gossip. The State
Police detective in charge of the case says there's no evidence of foul
play and Rutherford could have drowned: It's not unusual for boaters
who drown in Lake Huron never to rise from its deep, cold waters.
An attorney acting on behalf of the Stempiens, however, says there are
still too many unanswered questions to write off the case as no more
than a tragic accident.
Andrew Jarvis, who represents the Stempiens, claims all was not hugs
and roses between the couple: He says he has turned over to State
Police sworn statements from people who maintain Stempien told them
that Rutherford "would be a person of interest to police" if anything
suspicious befell her.
Common interests
Stempien, who grew up in western Wayne County, was a hard-charging
lawyer with Detroit's Law Department, the daughter of a former member
of the Coast Guard; Rutherford a 34-year-old lawyer in private practice
after a stint with the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office.
Coworkers described Stempien as a beautiful blonde who didn't shy away
from hard work. Colleagues of Rutherford, a husky man who grew up a
lawyer's son in Grosse Pointe Park, said he was happy-go-lucky,
standing out in the often-grim world of wing tips and dark suits with
his red socks and bright ties.
"I don't think he had a mean bone in his body," said Richard
Krisciunas, a former ranking assistant prosecutor.
Both Stempien and Rutherford were boaters.
For about a year and a half, the couple had lived together on Muir
Road, a street of close-set modest homes among the mansions of Grosse
Pointe Farms.
On Aug. 10, the couple boarded Stempien's boat at her parents' Canadian
cottage at Belle River and headed north to Mackinac Island.
According to family members, police and the Coast Guard, the first legs
of their trip were uneventful. They spent a night at Oscoda. About noon
on Aug. 11, they pulled the Sea's Life -- it belonged to Stempien --
into the Presque Isle marina for fuel and sandwiches.
Stempien, remembers Gene Austin, the dock attendant in Presque Isle,
asked about shallows she and Rutherford might encounter en route to
Mackinac and the couple ate their lunch.
The two were laughing, Austin recalled. He says they untied their boat
and headed out into the brisk winds about 12:45 p.m.
Once under way, Stempien was able to find a signal and place a cell
phone call to her parents at about 1:45 p.m. She said they were near
Rogers City and expected to make Mackinac in two hours. Her family
expected to hear from her once she and Rutherford made landfall.
By the next morning, Stempien's family still had not heard back from
Lana.
A desperate search
At 9:10 a.m., the family contacted authorities, and the Coast Guard put
out an alert. An hour later, a boater reported the Sea's Life floating
southeast of Marquette Island.
By 11:10 a.m., the Coast Guard was on the scene and boarded the
cruiser, its engine idling. There was no one aboard and no signs of any
struggle. There were no signs of foul play.
Soon U.S. and Canadian searchers were out in boats, planes and
helicopters: For two days, they swept the area between Marquette, Bois
Blanc and Mackinac islands without luck.
Once the official search ended, the Stempien family started their own,
searching by plane and by boat. They found nothing.
Then, on Aug. 24, a woman's body, nude but for a thin gold necklace and
an expensive non-waterproof watch -- items friends say she never wore
swimming -- was found washed up in Hammond Bay, several miles away from
where the Sea's Life was located. Officials identified it as
Stempien's.
An autopsy found carbon monoxide in her organs and determined she
drowned. Traces of alcohol were found in her system -- but at levels
consistent with a body's decomposition.
Rutherford has never been found.
And the questions have continued to pile up, haunting the Stempiens.
For instance, when boaters spotted the Sea's Life floating near
Marquette Island, they reported seeing blue dock bumpers, used to
protect the ship's hull when docked or tied up to another boat,
onboard. But a later inventory by authorities failed to mention the
blue bumpers -- and family members say Stempien carried only white ones
on her boat.
If the bumpers were there, could it indicate they had tied up to
another boat?
Then there is the knob that was found embedded in the sole of
Stempien's sneaker. It's supposed to fasten the boat's global
positioning satellite device to the instrument panel. What was it doing
on her sneaker?
The GPS device, according to investigators, appeared to have been
turned on at about 1:22 a.m. Aug. 12, the day the boat was found. At
that time, it put the boat about 10 miles out in Lake Huron off Nine
Mile Point -- about 12 miles away from where it was found about eight
hours later.
Lots of confusion
Sgt. Robin Sexton, a 20-year police veteran, is the State Police lead
investigator on the case and readily acknowledges there are loose ends:
They may never be tied up.
But nothing he has uncovered so far suggests foul play.
Those loose ends, however, have not only fed the rumors and innuendo
that have surrounded the case but also have troubled Stempien's family.
Jarvis, who worked with Stempien for four years in the city Law
Department, has used his own time to run down leads in search of
answers.
"The family believes there are a lot of unresolved questions that need
to be answered before this can be called an accident," he said Friday.
Jarvis said all the data on the GPS before 1:22 a.m. appear to have
been erased. And then there's that question about the blue blumpers.
Meanwhile, he says a private review of the autopsy casts doubt on the
carbon monoxide findings. Even if carbon monoxide was in her system to
the degree the autopsy found, Jarvis said there's little explanation
for how it got there.
People have been poisoned by exhaust fumes while swimming or wake
surfing, he said, but it's unlikely Stempien went swimming in water
that was 68 degrees and choppy.
Questions about relationship
Jarvis also says the supposedly storybook romance between Stempien and
Rutherford may have been rocky. On Friday, he said he has sworn
statements from two people who say Stempien confided her fears about
Rutherford to them.
"Lana expressed concerns about her safety and stated to them if
something suspicious happened to her that Chuck would be a person of
interest for the police," Jarvis said.
One of the people, Jarvis said, told him there was a disturbing scene
at the Detroiter Bar between Stempien and Rutherford. He won't say more
than that.
Jarvis said he turned over the sworn statements to police.
Sexton said the investigation is still open, but there are no solid
facts to back up a sinister scenario.
Rutherford's absence, while unsettling, is not that unusual, he said.
"Half the people are never found," he said. "That water's too deep, too
cold."
Sexton said in the state where Jimmy Hoffa's fate still compels new
theories almost every year, some have latched onto the
Rutherford-Stempien case as a real-life thriller.
"Look at John F. Kennedy's shooting," he said. "It's probably the most
investigated murder in America and a lot of people still don't believe
it's been solved."
Mike Schouman, Rutherford's uncle, who lives in Grosse Pointe, has
heard the rumors but he can't believe his nephew was involved in
anything nefarious.
"People who knew them say they were young people in love. They have
their ups and downs, that's all," he said.
tiny dancer
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1137386642.0...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005301130006
> Couple's fatal trip remains a mystery
> Few clues; lots of gossip about why
> January 13, 2006
> BY JOE SWICKARD
> FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
>
> Lana Stempien and Chuck Rutherford were a laughing, golden couple when
> they fired up Sea's Life at Presque Isle, pointed their 27-foot cabin
> cruiser toward Mackinac Island and, on a breezy August afternoon,
> sailed into mystery.
Thanks for posting. There was an interesting segment on maybe Dateline the
other night? I always get those news programs confused. The guy who found
the boat originally noted the blue bumpers being pulled behind. He
specifically stated there were blue bumpers attached to the boat when he
first saw it.
Lana's cousin stated that when ever Lana went into the water, she hooked her
jewelry up to the steering wheel on the boat before going into the water. I
agree with the article, nobody goes swimming in cold choppy water,
especially an experienced boat person as lana was. Her father was career
coast guard, and she grew up knowing her way around the water/boats. Plus,
the swim ladder was *up* on the boat, not down.
They also showed how that knob was jammed into the sole of her shoe. The
writer of the article is right, I've never seen anything like that before.
The damn knob was quite large, and completely jammed into the bottom of her
shoe.
Mention was made of 'shady characters' around the place where they had
docked the previous night.
td
tiny dancer
"tiny dancer" <tinyda...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:pRFyf.87$so1...@bignews5.bellsouth.net...
Sorry, forgot to mention, the shoe not only had the knob shoved into it, but
the back of the shoe was also torn.
td
eartha...@yahoo.com
Local couple appearing on "Dateline NBC" tonight
By Ryan Bentley
Petoskey News-Review
Friday, January 13, 2006 1:46 PM EST
HARBOR SPRINGS - For years, a trip via yacht to Lake Huron's North
Channel has been a favorite summer vacation activity for Tom and Mary
Jo Behan.
But when the Harbor Springs couple set out for the island-dotted waters
off northwestern Ontario last summer, something they spotted along the
way would lend a higher profile to this journey than their previous
travels in the area.
While traveling through Lake Huron between Mackinac Island and DeTour
Village, the Behans discovered an abandoned boat, one which had been
reported missing a short time earlier.
The mystery surrounding what happened to the boat and its two occupants
will be the focus of a "Dateline NBC" program set to air at 9 p.m.
today, Friday, Jan. 13. Tom Behan will be among the sources featured in
the national broadcast.
A Dateline crew visited the Behans in Harbor Springs last fall. Tom
provided them with an on-camera interview at the Walstrom marina basin
where he and his wife keep For Sale, their 52-foot Tiara yacht. The
couple, who own Pumco Interiors in Petoskey, provided additional
details about their discovery of the missing boat off-camera.
"They were very, very professional and forward about everything,"
Tom Behan said of the "Dateline" staff. "They have kept in touch
with us."
The visit from Dateline was one of numerous contacts Behan said he's
made with media outlets and other investigators trying to find out why
Grosse Pointe residents Lana Stempien and Charles Rutherford Jr. had
disappeared Aug. 11 or 12 from the 27-foot boat in which they'd been
traveling to Mackinac Island.
Stempien's body was found nearly two weeks after the disappearance on a
rocky Lake Huron shoal off the northeastern Lower Peninsula. To date,
her boyfriend Rutherford has not been located.
On the morning of Aug. 12, Mary Jo Behan was piloting her yacht through
rough seas in rainy, windy weather. Her husband said they detected the
boat which had been carrying Rutherford and Stempien visually and via
radar from several miles away.
When they took a closer look, Behan said he and his wife noticed some
details about the scene which seemed unusual given the rough
conditions.
The boat appeared to be drifting as its engine idled with no sign of
passengers aboard. The vessel's top was down and its companionway door
open. A rope extended from the back of the vessel, with the marine
fenders attached to it floating in the lake.
"It was quite obvious to us that this boat didn't need to be out
there," Tom said.
The Behans contacted the U.S. Coast Guard station in St. Ignace to
report what they'd found. From the Coast Guard, they learned that the
boat had been reported missing.
Since then, Tom Behan said he's kept tabs on media accounts pertaining
to the missing couple. Given the uncomfortable tone which their plight
set for the Behans' trip, Tom said he and his wife cut their vacation a
few days short.
Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Robin Sexton, who works at his
agency's St. Ignace post, said that since Stempien's body was
discovered, there's been a dearth of evidence found about what might
have cut her weekend boating trip short. He added that the
investigation remains open.
"We're looking at all possibilities," he said.
Though he hasn't heard from law enforcement about the situation since
his initial contact with the Coast Guard, Tom Behan said numerous
private individuals looking into the case have sought his account of
how he discovered Stempien's boat.
When "Dateline" initially contacted him, Behan declined to be
interviewed. But he said Jack Cote, an attorney with whom he'd
developed a rapport, convinced him it that would be worthwhile to
participate in the news segment, that his perspective might trigger a
memory in someone that could crack the case.
The Stempien/Rutherford case is one of numerous boating-related
mysteries which Cote has investigated, Behan said.
"There's been a lot of investigation by different groups of people,
from news media to family," he added.
Benita Noel, a "Dateline NBC producer," said today's broadcast will
include a section devoted to unanswered questions and details that
don't seem to add up about the disappearance.
Some details Behan noticed when he found the abandoned boat - details
which the Coast Guard didn't find when they arrived afterward - are
crucial to a theory among some other observers that the couple's
disappearance was not accidental, Noel added.
"He's important to the piece because there's a discrepancy about
something very specific," she said. "Being a very experienced,
knowledgeable boater, he was very credible."
Based on what he saw when he found the missing craft, Behan said it
seemed possible that the boat might have broken loose from a mooring or
that someone might have accidentally been separated from the vessel and
could not climb back aboard. But he's not committed to any one theory
of what happened.
"I'm not qualified to connect the dots," he said. "I'm not going
to create a theory of my own."
eartha...@yahoo.com
I missed the Dateline segment on it. Here's the link for anyone who
also missed it.
imnot911
anyone in the family heard from her was 1:45 P.M., August 11, when Lana
called her aunt in Florida.
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10807318/page/2/>
This was NOT, however, the last time anyone heard from her. Fourteen
minutes later, at 1:59 P.M., August 11, Lana left a one minute message
for a male friend. She was planning to attend a wedding and was making
arrangements to meet up with this guy there. Andrew Jarvis, Lana's
friend who is now her family's attorney, said Chuck was jealous of the
man Lana called. He also said Chuck didn't know Lana was not planning
to take him (Chuck) to her cousin's wedding.
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10807318/page/4/>
That call was the last known contact Lana had with anyone, except
Chuck. I wonder if he's dead or hiding.
JoAnn
tiny dancer
"Courtney" <ve...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:MPG.1e35b3f31...@news-central.giganews.com...
> In article <1137394786.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
> imno...@aol.com says...
>
> > That call was the last known contact Lana had with anyone, except
> > Chuck. I wonder if he's dead or hiding.
>
> much alive somewhere.
>
> From everything that's been said about him by friends, I think he
> couldn't deal with being humiliated if Lana left him so he wanted to
> make sure she couldn't humilate him.
The only thing I'm wondering about that is how he managed to get back to
shore? Seems like awfully far to *swim* in those cold choppy waters of Lake
Huron.
td
>
>
Messalina
Yeah, some freakin' mystery. When somebody who subsequently disappears
goes around telling people if they ever are the victim of foul play
so-and-so did it, I don't quite see the mystery. In fact, the only
mystery here is why she was dumb enough to go out sailing with someone
she suspected may want to kill her.
Mez