Posted on 03/17/2008 4:57:14 PM PDT by Coleus
Leads continue to trickle in more than a month after Bergen Catholic graduate Alphonse "Mike" Barbiere went missing during a Colorado ski trip. But there is still no sign of him. "It still just remains a mystery," said Assistant Chief Greg Morrison of the Breckenridge Police Department.
Six members of a search and rescue group spent Thursday searching along the Blue River. "A lead came in and we followed up on it," Morrison said. "But we did not find anything." The 5- to 7-foot snow drifts have been melting over the past week, but a storm Thursday into Friday was expected to dump another 1 to 2 feet of snow on the historic mining town.
"We're waiting for any kind of lead to come in," Morrison said, "and if we don't get anything else, certainly, we're waiting for the snow to melt." Barbiere, a 23-year-old commodities trader, has been missing since he alone walked out of Cecilia's Martini Bar on Breckenridge's Main Street on Feb. 8, during a blizzard that shut down surrounding highways.
"If you could see this Main Street — all lit up like a winter wonderland — you would say, 'Who could get hurt here?' " said Chris Barbiere, Mike's mother. She returned last week to Wyckoff from a two-week trip to Colorado, where she searched for the youngest of her three children. Her time in Breckenridge was about getting the word out — through television and radio interviews and by asking people: "Do you know about my missing son?" "I would go out at 1:30 in the morning and do the walk that Michael did," she said. "You do it for your own sake, but also for the investigation." Her time in Colorado was difficult. "It's hard to be there," she said. "It's hard to be here."
But when the tip came in this week that took searchers to the river, she was sick over being so far away. "That's my son and he's in the hands of someone else," she said, describing what ran through her head while speaking to police and people from the coroner's office. But the search turned up empty. Barbiere points to the Web pages people have built, the fund-raising efforts of Mike's friends, and kind notes from friends and strangers. "You can feel compassion," she said. "And when you have nothing else, it really, really matters."
What a nightmare.
How many cases are piling up of young men who walk out of bars and end up in rivers? All coincidence?
Sometimes things are not found till Spring.
Probably went skiing the day after a big dump, smacked into an aspen, and was killed instantly. Further snow covered his body. It would not take long for the predators of the Rockies to remove his bones one by one. It’s a scenario the Ski Patrol warns one about: if you ski alone and get hurt, they may find your body in the spring, or they may not.
Update:
Body Found in Colorado Thought to Be Jersey Man Who Disappeared in Blizzard Two Months Ago
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346957,00.html
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