INTRODUCTION

On October 2, 2008, Jack Nels Gordon disappeared from the face of the earth.  I mean he literally disappeared.  To this day, now almost twelve years later, no trace has ever been found.  This blog will explore different aspects of adult missing persons, particularly those where violent crime is suspected.  Future posts will give links to news articles related to Jack Gordon's disappearance or similar/related cases as well as relevant statistics or other interesting information.
Stay tuned!

ALAMOSA VALLEY COURIER- FORT GARLAND MAN MISSING SINCE OCT 2 2008

When Jack Gordon disappeared in 2008 there was no television news coverage. There were no satellite trucks with reporters doing live feeds. There were no somber faced talking heads reading the spine-chilling details on the six o'clock news.  There were just a few short paragraphs in the Alamosa Valley Courier published almost a week after his disappearance.

Costilla County Sheriff information officer Sgt. James Chavez confirmed that Jack Gordon, 77, has not been seen since approximately 9:30 a.m. Oct. 2, near Fort Garland. Chavez said over the last three days the search for Gordon has included elements of the Costilla County search and rescue unit and rescue dogs from Fort Carson.

The whole report was succinct, with not much in the way of facts.  Within a short time the mystery would deepen.

[Sgt.] Chavez said that as of Wednesday morning, Oct. 8 the investigation has not involved the FBI or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. There is no evidence of foul play at this time, said Chavez

No foul play?  We shall see.


Full article:

Fort Garland man missing since Oct. 2
Posted: Wednesday, Oct 8th, 2008

ALAMOSA — The Costilla County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a search for a Fort Garland man missing since Oct. 2.
Costilla County Sheriff information officer Sgt. James Chavez confirmed that Jack Gordon, 77, has not been seen since approximately 9:30 a.m. Oct. 2, near Fort Garland. Chavez said over the last three days the search for Gordon has included elements of the Costilla County search and rescue unit and rescue dogs from Fort Carson.
Chavez said that as of Wednesday morning, Oct. 8 the investigation has not involved the FBI or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. There is no evidence of foul play at this time, said Chavez, and the CCSO has concentrated the search on backcountry in Costilla County.
Chavez said he has received two reports that someone closely matching Gordon’s description was seen recently in the Walsenburg area. One of those tips was received Oct. 7 and the other on the morning of Oct. 8.
Gordon’s country home in Costilla County sits at the western foot of 9,400-foot La Veta Pass and the town of Walsenburg, in Huerfano County, is located at the eastern base of the pass.
Huerfano County Under Sheriff Dave McCain contacted the Costilla Sheriff’s office, said Chavez, and reported that he saw a man of Gordon’s description near the I-25 exit 49, near Walsenburg. A private citizen told the CCSO that he was “99.9 percent sure” that he saw Gordon in Huerfano County. Chavez is trying to confirm the sightings, determine where theytook place and if they do relate to Gordon.
According to a flyer issued by Gordon’s family he is described as 77 years old, 6’ 2” tall, is stoutly built, weighing 235 pounds. Gordon has a shock of white hair and a short, white beard and mustache. He was last seen wearing a grey, zip-up hooded sweatshirt and jeans. Gordon uses reading glasses but does not wear them all the time.
Gordon’s wife Leni Gordon said he has no history of mental problems or lapses. She said Gordon is an ordained clergyman, but if he wanted to conduct a retreat he would have gone to their home, which is under construction in the Sangre de Cristo Ranches subdivision of Costilla County. It appears that Gordon disappeared from that location. His van was found parked at the country home, but his car keys and a coffee cup he had when last seen are both gone.
Leni Gordon said there was no evidence of foul play, no footprints leading into remote country and no sign of a struggle at the home. She said she knew of no reason for her husband to disappear. “We have two children he loves very much. He would never take off and leave them. He would be gone for two hours and come home and say ‘I missed my family and I wish you could have been with me.’ He would say he missed us when he was only gone two hours,” Leni Gordon said.
Anyone with information on Gordon’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Costilla County Sheriff at (719) 672-0673.

THE LAY OF THE LAND- Part 1

Let's gradually zoom in on the scene of the events in question, using Google Earth ™ mapping services.

Jack Gordon disappeared on October 2, 2008 in Costilla County in south central Colorado about 80 miles north of Taos NM, 30 miles east of Alamosa CO and 50 miles west of Walsenburg CO.

Located in south central Colorado, the San Luis Valley is a high mountain plain bounded by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the east and the San Juan Mountains on the west. The valley comes to its northern apex at Poncha Pass just south of Salida. At its southern end the valley merges into northern New Mexico.

 Alamosa is the largest town in the Valley.  Highway 160 traverses the San Luis Valley from La Veta pass in the east to Wolf Creek Pass in the west. Costilla County is the southeasternmost of the five counties in the San Luis Valley.

The northeastern part of Costilla county contains the subdivided Forbes Ranch, including the Sangre de Cristo Ranches.

The Ranches are traversed by a dense network of dirt roads and are comprised of several thousand five-acre ranchette lots. One of these lots is the site of Jack Gordon’s home building site on Luke Road.  This is the general setting of the Mysterious Disappearance...







ORIGINALLY POSTED 6/7/2012
RE-POSTED 10/29/2012

TIMELINE FOR 10/02/2008

     Up until now, this blog has attempted to tell the story of Jack Gordon's mysterious disappearance on October 2, 2008 in broad strokes.  There is a limited paper trail.  A small handful of news reports and the original sheriff's incident report are the main reference sources.  There are, however, other sources of information and we can try to fill in some of the gaps in the story from first-hand accounts and see if we can pick out any useful details. 

   I'd like to start with a timeline of that day, as well as we can reconstruct it.

October 2, 2008
          8:00 a.m.-  Between 8:00 and 8:30 that morning one of Jack's neighbors sees him leaving his residence in Fort Garland, coffee cup in  hand bound for his home site on Luke Road for the morning.
          8:30 a.m.-  Jack leaves the apartment in Fort Garland in their white conversion van.
          8:40 a.m.-  One of the neighbors from Luke Road bumps into Jack at the Fort Garland post office and chats with him briefly. Nothing seems amiss.
          8:50 a.m.-  Jack stops in at the home of a local auto mechanic on Hwy 159 and speaks with him for a few minutes. He leaves at about 9:00 a.m.
          9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.- No reported contact with or sightings of Jack by any of the neighbors
          1:00 p.m.- Jack's wife starts to wonder why he is not back yet.
          2:00 p.m.-  Jack's wife calls the auto mechanic's home and speaks to his daughter asking if someone can drive out to the place on Luke Road and check on Jack.
          4:00 p.m.-  Jack's wife gets a ride with one of her Fort Garland neighbors the ~5 miles out to Luke Road. The van is parked in its usual spot in the driveway, but there is no sign of Jack on or near the premises.
          4:30 p.m.- Jack's wife goes to one of the neighbor's nearby homes and calls the Sheriff's office. The dispatcher contacts Deputy Jacob Vigil to respond.
          5:00 p.m.- Deputy Vigil talks with Jack's wife at the scene and conducts a brief search of the house and vicinity.  He spots a single set of footprints that "went to the back of the house and around the other side and onto the road where I lost track."  He is unable to identify any distinct tire tracks on the road.  We think he tried to make contact with the neighbor John Busby during this time, but that is not specified in the incident report. He advises Jack's wife to contact him if she has not heard from Jack by 8:30 p.m. She returns to Fort Garland.
          7:30 p.m.- Jack's wife contacts me (as well as other family members to inform us that he is missing.
          8:30 p.m.- Jack's wife contacts Deputy Vigil, informing him she has not heard from Jack
          9:00 p.m.-  Deputy Vigil and a small group of neighbors search the area around the house on Luke Road on foot, with flashlights, find no trace of Jack.
          10:00 p.m.- Deputy Vigil speaks with Jack's wife in Fort Garland and advises her to contact the sheriff's office at 8:00 a.m. the next day if Jack has not turned up, so that Search and Rescue can be mobilized to join the search. On his way back to the Sheriff's office Deputy Vigil returns to the house of the neighbor John Busby (aka John Robert Fureigh) and attempts to contact him.  There is a chain across the driveway and there are no lights on at the house.
      
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS-
     1. Who made the single set of footprints?  Jack? One of the civilian searchers? Jack's wife?  Jack's killer?  Or perhaps Deputy Vigil (remember Winnie the Pooh and Piglet?)
     2. What happened during the time gap from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.?

JOHN BUSBY'S BLOG- PART 1

This week we are going to get to know the neighbor John a little better. According to the 2010 Denver Post article, The Mystery of Two Men's Disappearance on the Same Day, John Robert Fureigh was living in the Fort Garland area under the assumed name of John Busby, taking the last name of his mother's current husband.

Fureigh, using an alias, wrote a blog in which he often groused about trespassing neighbors disrupting his solitude, including an entry four days before Gordon's disappearance in which he complained that a neighbor woke him in the afternoon to ask for water after his well went down.

We'll get to that particular entry at a later date. Busby groused about a lot of things on his blog, entitled Alpine Acres (long since taken down or depublished). Let's go back in time a little and work our way up to the days surrounding Jack Gordon's disappearance. I will give you some sample excerpts over the next few posts, and let you draw your own conclusions.