Story of missing hiker in Joshua Tree NP

[Perry]

After doing some research, I see that banks and software give people the ability to give their bookkeepers or accountants read-only access to their accounts. I'm guessing that the business clients of Ewasko did this because there would be no need to allow permission to make payments.

It looks like Turbotax does not have this feature for accountants, but in theory an accountant with client could call the IRS on speaker phone to verify profit. Obviously if the accountant filed taxes for the client, then he or she would have access to the information.

So I can't see anything that is clearly suspicious, just that the compensation is partially based on increasing profit, not completely: "We defer a portion of our program costs, activating them only when you reach the targeted net operating income for a given year, as stated in your tax returns." That's a different statement than "You make your profit or we don’t make ours." on the main page. I'm not sure how a conditional and delayed authorization of payment works. The word "activating" sounds electronic and not just an old fashioned paper check and a contract that can be enforced legally.

[Ed]

AMS describes itself as an accounting and advisory firm. There are companies - generally asset managers of some kind - that have both their accounts and client accounts, and mingling them is a big red line, to put it mildly. You may not go to jail, if you can make restitution and excuse it as poor bookkeeping, but you can quickly lose your license to practice. It happens all the time. It happened to a property manager I had. But I don't see anything in the AMS self-description that would suggest they have control over client accounts. Reading between the lines and being cynical - which comes naturally to me - it looks like perhaps they advise clients on how to do their accounting in ways that magically creates growth in profits. But that is a different game from mismanaging client accounts which have been entrusted to you. Their willingness to defer billing suggests they badly needed clients.

[Perry]

Thanks, Ed. At this point, I don't see a reason to believe that Ewasko faked his disappearance. The recent blog comment is just an opinion. There's also no reason to eliminate that possibility, even if the car did not move during the search. But after having looked inside boulders, I have to agree with some others that it's more likely that he took shelter from the sun and never came out. We found a small cave that was maybe 20 feet long. I also saw a narrow crevice that you can only see into from a certain angle, and someone not paying attention could easily fall into it.

Just looking at the Google satellite image (https://caltopo.com/m/3LDM), there are plenty of unsearched rocks. For example:

[Perry]

Here's what we did on Sunday. Most of the black dots are unsearched rocks that I saw on the satellite image. We were not able to search all of them due to limited time and water.

Sept_23_2018_Search.kml

(83.87 KiB) Downloaded 379 times

Sept_23_2018_Search.gpx

(126.4 KiB) Downloaded 377 times

The tracks have also been added to the online map: https://caltopo.com/m/3LDM

[bgillespie]

Hello, everyone. I don't have anything pertinent to add. I just wanted to stop by and express my admiration of the massive effort you've all collectively contributed towards finding Mr. Ewasko. I live in Colorado and can only haphazardly peruse Google maps of JTNP looking for areas of interest. As someone who's only experienced southeastern California from various training rotations at Ft. Irwin, I marvel at everyone's continued excursions into what appears to be pretty rough, inhospitable terrain.

Even if he's never found, everyone who's participated in the search is pretty damned amazing.

[ColCopperpot]

Wow this is an amazing thread my hats off to everyone involved in searching for Mr. Ewasko. It’s really weird but for some reason the backpack Tom found keeps nagging at me. Who is Yoshi? What are the Arcadia Flutes? Why would you just abandon a backpack full of stuff like that? I wonder how long it took for them to finally collect it.

[RichardK]

Hi ColCopperPot,

The abandoned backpack could not be Bill's. The map in it was dated 3/27/2008. Bill hiked on 6/24/2010 some 2 years later. Bill was a day hiker. He did not intend to overnight in the park. So, the presence of a sleeping bag also rules Bill out. I recall that an abandoned tent and sleeping bag were once found in either the San Gabriels or the Sierra Nevada. It's been to long, I don't remember which. I once walked off and left a day pack behind at a rest stop. I had to backtrack half a mile to retrieve it. It could be as simple as someone forgot it and decided it wasn't worth going back for if they were many miles ahead.

The Arcadia Flutes could refer to Arcadia University of Glenside, PA. It has a music program. Yoshi is likely the name of the person who left the stuff.

[ColCopperpot]

Alright RichardK you may be absolutely right about that but I feel I must offer up my own probably insane explanation for the Yoshi backpack.
It turns out there happens to be a notorious exotic butterfly smuggler named Hisayoshi “Yoshi” Kojima working out of Orange County California when he was caught in 2007. Unfortunately his crime as far as I can tell did not require anything more than a fine so he may have been free to wander the the National Parks he used to catch his specimens even after his arrest in 2007. And the Arcadia Flutes are a possible adult flute band of Orange County known for its rich people arts and crafts.

Of course this hypothesis has as much merit as the U-haul idea of ‘well you can’t disprove a negative’ but in the interest of keeping the Bill Ewasko case alive until he is found and is probably laid to rest I feel anything is worthy of discussion even up to the idea of rewalking every track from the beginnging. Afterall as even Tom admits after eight years things would scatter so something you might not have found in year one you might find in year eight and a half right?

[ColCopperpot]

Oh yeah in case I wasn’t clear

Hisayoshi Kojima was a notorious smuggler of exotic butterflies that was caught in 2007 but only given a fine

The idea that evidence that wasn’t apparent at first when old tracks were explored but may be now is kinda far fetched but kinda not by the fact that evidence scatters thanks to animals/weather/environment. So yeah I believe retracing old tracks at this point is tenable.

[ColCopperpot]

Small question I have for Mister Mahood; do we know if the cell phone ping might have had a delay or not? I was reading up on the case of missing trail runner Jerika Binks of America Fork, Utah last seen 02/18/18 and it mentions that during the tracking of her fateful run through town until she went into the trails her run speed would only match up with the location of the last ping on her cellphone if it had a delay of about ten minutes (why it would have a delay I’m uncertain). If this is so for a cell phone tower in 2018, could that mean a tower eight years ago would have a similar latency? If so how would this change the ping of Bill Ewasko’s phone and where to search if at all?

Unfortunately in the Jerika Binks case there may be foul play involved according to recent news which likely does not track to Ewasko but the cell phone thing may be relevant.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/health-fit ... n-runners/