The Search for Donald Foster

Day One

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A Missing Person report was taken for Mr. Foster on 9 June 2010.  A SAR Hasty Team was deployed from the Joshua Tree station at noon Friday 11 June.  Six members of the Morongo Basin SAR team were deployed to the location of Mr. Foster’s vehicle.  Mr. Foster’s family, who had previously located his vehicle, had completely obliterated any of Mr. Foster’s potential footprints around the vehicle.  Dep. Mary Lee Brown located one partial print on the inside bottom of the driver’s door.  The team used that partial print in the attempt to find Mr. Foster’s track.  The wind had been blowing steadily for several days prior to the callout.  The team performed an expanding perimeter search around the vehicle, attempting to locate Mr. Foster’s track.   A set of prints was found, corresponding to the information the family provided as to the type of shoe Mr. Foster was wearing, heading away from the vehicle in a south easterly direction.   The tracking was extremely difficult, due to track age, weather conditions and the sun was directly overhead.  It took the team over three hours to track approximately 400’, when the track was lost.  Later this track proved to belong to a family member.  The decision was made for a County Wide Callout.

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