It’s been nearly 30 years since ranger Paul Fugate disappeared while patrolling the wilds of Chiricahua National Monument. What happened to him remains a mystery to this day.
When a ranger on solo patrol in a remote area of a national park fails to return, the event rarely becomes what you’d call a true disappearance. Search and rescue procedures being as good as they are, a ranger who’s lost, stranded, or injured can reasonably expect to be rescued in pretty short order. Even if the missing person is no longer alive, remains are typically found within a few days, weeks, or months.
But sometimes the best efforts of the searchers are not good enough. Years can go by before remains are discovered, often quite by chance and in unexpected places. And sometimes remains are not found at all. Rangers can, and do, disappear.
The most publicized case of this sort was the disappearance of Randy Morgenson, a seasonal law enforcement ranger at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. In 1996 Randy set out on a foot patrol in the Kings Canyon backcountry and never returned. After an exhaustive search failed to locate him, investigators were left to ponder a lot of intriguing questions. Could Randy have walked away from an unhappy marriage? Had his discontent with the NPS treatment of seasonal backcountry rangers marred his judgment? Why would Randy, a commissioned law enforcement ranger, leave his weapon behind in his backcountry tent when he left to go on patrol? Why had there been no radio communications from him? You can read more of the fascinating details in The Last Season, a carefully research book written by Eric Blehm.
Five years after Randy disappeared his remains were finally recovered near a stream bed in the Kings Canyon backcountry. Investigators concluded that he had probably tried to cross the stream on a snow bridge, broke through, slid down under the snow, and was unable to extricate himself from the place where he stopped sliding. Since Randy’s death appeared to be accidental, most of the questions that had nagged investigators were laid to rest.
Unfortunately, there has been no such closure in the case of a ranger who went missing in Chiricahua National Monument almost three decades ago. Early in 1980, law enforcement ranger Paul Fugate left his residence for a foot patrol in the Chiricahua backcountry and didn’t come back.
When Paul did not return from this patrol, the park and then the NPS and the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department mounted extensive SAR efforts to find him, but these efforts turned up nothing. Searching in Chiricahua is certainly no picnic. The park sprawls over 12,000 acres and has complex terrain with numerous canyons, arroyos, and barrancas.
The same kinds of questions that dogged searchers in the Randy Morgenson case troubled the people trying to figure out what happened to Paul Fugate. Did rumors of marriage problems have anything to do with this disappearance? Had Paul been killed after stumbling onto a drug smuggling or illegal immigration operation? Had he decided that the NPS was too conservative for him and just walked away?
The latter notion was born of the fact that Paul had been known as a bit of a non-conformist. He was, for example, one of the first rangers who pushed the boundaries on the Park Service's conservative grooming standards.
Howard Chapman, then-Western Regional Director, was driven to distraction by this disappearance. These kinds of mysteries were not supposed to occur on his watch! In 1986, Chapman commissioned Pete Nigh, one of the NPS's top criminal investigators, and an Arizona Department of Public Safety investigator to review the files and determine if there was anything else that needed to be done.
Meanwhile, the NPS refused to certify that Fugate was dead. Among other things, this meant that Paul’s widow Dotty could not collect survivor’s benefits.
Nigh and the DPS investigator spent a week reviewing the files of both the NPS and the Cochise County Sheriff's office. After combing every piece of paper connected with the case, reviewing the witness statements, and examining the SAR records, they concluded that there was no evidence to indicate that Paul had walked away from his job and was elsewhere.
If Nigh's report didn’t put the question of Paul Fugate’s whereabouts to rest, it did contribute a measure of closure. Based on the findings of this exhaustive review, Dotty's application for survivor's benefits was subsequently reviewed and approved.
To the best of my knowledge, other than a couple instances in Alaska where NPS personnel were involved in an aircraft accident that went down over water, Paul Fugate is the only modern NPS employee whose death is still a mystery and whose remains have not been recovered.
This doesn’t mean that Paul’s remains will never be found. Someday, perhaps, a backcountry hiker will find them and solve a huge mystery.
Comments
I too, would have attended the Memorial had I known about it. Although I did not know Paul or Dody Fugate, as a Tucson resident at that time I followed this perplexing case closely. I vividly remember the "Where Is Paul Fugate?" bumper stickers and my heart ached for his family. I am heartened to hear Dody has moved on and hopefully some day, some how she will gain some type of closure to also move past. After all this time he has not been forgotten - even by total strangers who still have that question cross their minds occasionally, "Where Is Paul Fugate?"
I worked w/ Paul at Navajo NM---1967---and Chir. NM.---1971. As a matter of fact, he was responsible for hiring me as a seasonal ranger at Chir. after a stint in the Army and Vietnam. I don't know if I ever thanked him. At the time it was an important milestone in my life. He was a good friend and I'm sorry that this case has not been solved.
I accepted a transfer to Chir. in Sept. of 1980 a few months after his disappearance on a foot patrol to the Faraway Ranch, it was the topic on eveyone's mind. It's amazing that the mystery continues. I still think about it from time to time as I did today when I googl-ed the name "Paul Fugate." Also, I'm glad things are going well for Dody...considering, and that she is finally collecting survivor's benefits. Paul definitley danced to his own beat. The NPS is a very conservative, closed orginization, thus the "drinking a cold beer on a beach in Mexico" scenario promoted at the time, and the glacial progress of the benefits to Dody.
I'm sure someone knows...somewhere.
I left Arizona in 1979 but Paul had helped me with my thesis work. We were classmates at the University of Arizona and although not a close friend, he was always willing to help with botanical questions. I didn't know him well but I worked in the Chiricahuas and had several contacts who knew him. I was told by a source that Paul had caught 2 trappers from a town just west of Safford (either Pima or Thatcher) running a trapline in the NE corner of the national monument a few days before he disappeared and he kicked them out of the monument and may have confiscated their equipment. I don't remember the details but but did hear rumors that these were well known "bad ass dudes" that had been caught for poaching before in other areas of the state. The fact that he disappeared just a few days after this occurrence makes me wonder if the reference to him in a pickup truck headed north towards Wilcox could have been these 2 guys from the Safford area. Driving north to Wilcox on the west side of the mountains would be the logical way to return to Safford. The story was told to me by Rich "Cachor" Taylor who currently or at least recently led birding tours and once (still?) lives in Whitetail Canyon on the east slopes of the Chiricahuas. I don't know if Mr. Taylor ever told this story to the authorities or if NPS squelched this information as they were not too fond of Mr. Fugate at the time.
Additional comments on the Missing Paul Fugate:
http://officialcoldcaseinvestigations.com/showthread.php?t=10168
Most of the paragraph submitted by Rob seems correct, although I have no knowledge that Paul had had any contact with trappers in the Monument, nor that they might have been from the Safford area. If so, they certainly should have been investigated. I'm positive that I did not provide those nuggets of information to Rob or anyone else. Nonetheless, trappers (how many there were, their prior history with law enforcement, or from whence they came, I have no idea) were working in the northern Chiricahuas at the time of Paul's disappearance. Conceivably Paul's work would have led to an interaction with them. It would be interesting to know if any trappers were ever interviewed. I have often wondered how thoroughly Paul's disappearance was investigated.
Everytime I hear the name "Chiricahuas" I can think only of paying a visit to the monument with a cousin one late summer afternoon preceeding Paul Fugate's disappearance. I was about 16 or 17 years old at the time and, as I remember it, my cousin's then-wife and her family were close friends of Mr. Fugate; having grown up in the same area. We listened at the campground/picnic clearing (Visitors Center?) as Mr. Fugate gave a presentation to the visitors. We then drove with him in my cousin's car up a winding area to a lookout point where New Mexico can be seen, I remember it being pointed out. Forgive my ignorance, as I had never been to the Chiricahuas before nor since that day. Not knowing the area, but appreciating it's rugged remoteness, I find it -on the surface at least - almost implausible that anyone would go so far out of their way to do a drug transaction, for example, and that he may have stumbled upon it (as has been theorized). I do vividly remember news footage of the extensive foot, vehicular, K-9 and aerial searches that took place in the weeks following his dissappearence. Because I met this man once, I suppose I will alway remember this particular case. This is one of the most mysterious cases I have ever heard of; for a man to seemingly vanish off the face of the earth with out a trace -or apparent motive.
It's not a drug transaction they are talking about, but drug trafficking. Big difference. Cartels and smugglers would kill a ranger in a New York minute if it was one man against several and they were looking at life in prison if they allowed him to arrest them.
Mrs. Fugate,
I am sorry for you not being able to find closure to your husbands disappearance. I hope that it will come. May I please ask if you know what became of the basket that was found? Was it ever returned to its original placement?