February 7, 2008
Utah Couple Foumd

Photos provided by Lincoln County Sheriff Thomas Garner

Tamitha Garner

By Dave Maxwell, Staff Writer

Just prior to press time The Lincoln County RECORD was informed that the missing couple from the Salt Lake City, Utah area have been found by the Iron County Road Department. The couple was stranded in the Modena Canyon area. At this time, the only details available are that the couple, and their dog, are alive and were being transported to the hospital in Cedar City, Utah for evaluation. The RECORD will do an updated story as details are made available to the press.

The search for the Utah couple missing in Lincoln County since January 26 had been called off by the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Kerry Lee said air and ground search units had searched areas east of Panaca on Highway 319 and on into Utah, but had been unable to find any sign of Thomas and Tamitha Garner of Salt Lake City, or the Dodge Dakota pickup they were driving. Lee said he suspended air search efforts, largely in part to the heavy snowfall February 3.

A tip of a possible sighting of the couple late last week turned out to be a dead end. Lee said his office received a call from a man saying he thought he had seen the couple, and directed them to the Tule Desert area. Search and rescue sent eight men to conduct an all day search in the Tule Desert on February 2, but turned up nothing, Lee said.

In the meantime, Washington County, Utah detectives contacted the man and showed him pictures. He confirmed the people he saw were not the missing couple.

A meeting was held February 5, in Cedar City with Sheriff Lee, the three Sheriff’s from Iron, Beaver and Washington counties in Utah, and their Search and Rescue commanders to share information and see if there might be any place that has been overlooked.

The Garner’s were in Lincoln County doing some photographic work of wild mustangs, and their last known whereabouts was about Noon January 26 when they used their credit card to buy gas at McCrosky’s Shell in Panaca. A video surveillance camera showed their vehicle heading east on Highway 319.

But Sheriff Lee said there had been no further use of the credit card since that day, and he said the Garner’s, up to that point, had used a debit credit card for most of their purchases. In addition, they had not used their cell phone to call other family members in Utah, which Lee said, “is very much out of character for them. It just does not seem right for them at all.” He said on this current trip, the Garner’s had been in contact with other family members “almost every day, but that just stopped after January 26.”

Most of the search effort had been by air with the Civil Air Patrol and a helicopter from the Nevada Air National Guard Unit at Nellis Air Base. He said the Civil Air Patrol search was scaled back February 1. Search efforts by air and ground units in the Tule Desert area on February 2 failed to find any traces of the missing couple.

Lee said ground searches were very limited because of the terrain and road conditions in the search areas in Iron County and Washington County. Utah Sheriff’s departments from those counties have also been actively involved in the search. Even air searches failed to see anything.

Lee said, “Unless we have any more tips or leads on someplace to search, we have pretty much covered everything we could cover.”