Finally, in November 2009, after saving money and vacation time and trading in his car for a Jeep, Capen took a month off to hunt for the mine and its legendary treasure. But when he disappeared, he became part of the legend.
We told the story of Jesse Capen's search for the Lost Dutchman -- and the subsequent search for him -- in a June 2010 cover story. When he headed off on his adventure, Capen had told his mother that he'd try to phone. But the first call she got from Arizona came from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, notifying her that her son was missing. They'd found his camp and jeep on Tortilla Mountain, but there was no sign of him.
She and her ex-husband searched the rugged area, but found nothing. The Superstition Search and Rescue group kept looking, though, and found the note he'd left on the top of Tortilla Mountain on December 4, 2009. And then, this past Thanksgiving, three years after Capen had headed off into the wilderness, searchers discovered a skeleton on Tortilla Mountain, just half a mile from Capen's camp.
"We never give up until the individual is found," Robert Cooper, one of the group's leaders, told our partner paper, the Phoenix New Times.
Capen's mother had worried her son might have met with foul play, but searchers said it looked like the man had simply slipped off a ledge and fallen to the ground 180 feet below. Positive identification wasn't possible without DNA testing, though, and yesterday, the Denver Post reports, Capen's parents got the call: The bones belonged to their son.
People hunt for the Lost Dutchman looking for fortune. For Jesse Capen, the hunt ended in misfortune.
From the Calhoun: Wake-Up Call archive: "Flu season in Denver is bad -- but nothing like it was in 1918."
