March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Father’s hope alive in search for pair> Son, girl missing in bay since Tuesd

FALMOUTH — The father of missing lobsterman Whitfield Steele was clinging to hope that his son and the 18-year-old woman who disappeared with him while riding in a skiff in Casco Bay will be found alive.

“We haven’t given up hope, although we’re facing the worst scenario,” William Steele said Thursday. “We haven’t given up, but we know the chances are fairly slim.”

The Coast Guard suspended an intensive air, sea and ground search Wednesday evening for the 25-year-old Steele, but fishermen and friends of the Steele family returned to Casco Bay to continue searching on their own.

“We hope people won’t stop looking,” said Steele, who hopes his son and son’s girlfriend, Lelana Lipp, will turn up safely on shore someplace. Lipp’s parents, Kenneth and Karen Lipp, were driving from their home in Rapid City, S.D., to Falmouth hoping for any positive development when they arrive.

Steele, a theater professor at the University of Southern Maine, said the family was not yet planning a memorial service.

“In the meantime, we may decide to have a prayer service — a hope service. Memorial service means people are dead. I’m not ready to accept that quite yet,” he said.

Steele has no idea what may have gone wrong Tuesday afternoon before the 17-foot boat used by his son was found circling in the bay with its engine running. He said it was unseasonably warm and clear, with calm seas.

The ensuing search turned up nothing more than a parka identified as Whit Steele’s and, on Thursday, a woman’s headband that has not yet been identified.

William Steele and his wife, Eleanor, who are well-known in the Portland and Falmouth area, have received hundreds of calls, notes and food deliveries.

“We know there were so many more out there thinking of us, and we just want to thank all those people,” he said.


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