Body found leaves questions

KELLOGG — On July 4, deputies with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) in Washington were called after Silver Valley residents used a drone to discover the body of missing man Michael Marker in the fields nearby the Schrag Rest Stop off I-90.

Marker, 53, of Kellogg, had been traveling to Seattle a week earlier for work when his car broke down near the rest stop and from that point until his death, the facts get very cloudy.

The following is alleged information from Ryan Frick, a friend to Marker and his family and one of the men who went and discovered his body.

As mentioned before, Marker had a residence in Kellogg, but he and his wife were living out of their RV in Seattle where they had both established employment and were also looking after Marker’s mother who lives in the Seattle area.

On Sunday, June 25, after a visit to his home in Kellogg, Marker set out to return to Seattle where his wife had stayed behind.

When Marker’s car broke down, he walked to the nearby Schrag Rest Stop where he called for a tow truck and then called his wife to give her a heads-up.

That would be the last time she was in communication with him.

Over the next few days Mrs. Marker and Marker’s mother would travel down the I-90 corridor, first to where he had called her from, then to the ACSO in Othello, Wash., some 50 miles away from where Marker went missing.

“His wife tried to file a missing person’s report, but was denied because he wasn’t a resident of Adams County,” Frick said. “She then went to the Kellogg Police Department next hoping to get some help, it was there she discovered that a missing person’s report had been submitted out of Adams County despite what she had been told before.”

From there KPD chief Dave Woulle began calling in favors to anyone in Washington he thought could be of assistance and was able to get a confirmation from the ACSO that they would use a drone to search for Marker.

“Chief Woulle really went above and beyond and stepped up to the plate for this family,” Frick said.

After the ACSO’s drone search came back with nothing, the family was nearly back to square one.

But Frick wasn’t as quick to give up the search in that particular area and after another Silver Valley resident volunteered to go back out with their own personal drone, Frick knew the search needed to be continued.

“Jerad Bowman, a chiropractor in Kellogg said we could go use his drone to look for him, he had never met myself or the family, but felt that since he had the drone and the day off for the Fourth of July holiday that he should help,” Frick said. “He’d never met myself or the family before, he just wanted to help.”

By July 4, Marker had been missing for a full week and with no communication between Marker and his family, the outcome was very grim, but Frick and Bowman, as well as a few others went out to help bring some closure to the family.

“It truly was an act of God how we found him,” Frick said. “We had been looking in some of the places that had already been looked at and we decided to go as far as we could with the drone and its reception.”

Marker’s family and others with the search party were watching on the drone’s home screen as in crested hill after hill, pushing the drone to its reception limits but still there was no sign of him.

And that is where intuition kicked in.

“We decided to go out to a place where the drone had been losing reception and try looking there,” Frick said “Marker’s family had gone off to put up fliers in some of the surrounding areas, leaving us to continue the search and that was when we found him. We had gone over this spot several times and the drone would lose reception and I think that was God protecting Mike’s family from having to find him that way.”

After calling in the find to the ACSO, the Washington State Patrol (WSP) came out to assist with the removal and begin investigating the death.

Frick did however overhear something from one of the WSPs that made his blood boil.

“I heard one of them say that if they had known that there was someone missing then they would have been out looking for them,” Frick said.

At this time it is unknown whether or not the ACSO or WSP is investigating Marker’s death further or if foul play is suspected.

Neither the Adams County Sheriff’s Office or the Washington State Patrol could be reached for comment concerning the matter.