March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Search resumes for Caribou hunter

GARFIELD PLANTATION — The search for an elderly Caribou man who became lost while hunting last November resumed Sunday.

V. Paul Reynolds, spokesman for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said Sunday that Warden Sgt. Roger Guay of Greenville and his specially trained search dog, Reba, will work alone through Monday in Garfield Plantation looking for Robert D. Smith, 70.

Smith was hunting with his wife, Shirley, and her brothers on Nov. 18 when he left her at a tree stand to circle back toward her. He was never seen again.

When he did not come back, his wife left the stand and headed west along the Garfield Plantation-Township 10 Range 6 line. While doing so, she heard a single shot to the south, but did not see or hear her husband.

Reportedly an experienced hunter, Smith, who was recovering from cancer, was dressed well for the weather and wearing blaze-orange clothing. When he left his wife, he was carrying a .30-06 hunting rifle, four cartridges and a compass, but no matches.

For nine days, as many as 250 game wardens and volunteer searchers using specially trained dogs, airplanes and helicopters equipped with heat sensors combed the woods in a six-mile circle around the point where Smith was last seen. The effort was considered one of the most intense in the state’s history.

If Guay does not find Smith by Tuesday, six more dogs and their handlers from Maine Search and Rescue will be brought in to search during the remainder of the week.

If that search is not successful, Reynolds said, the full ground search will resume by next Saturday with game wardens and possibly volunteers again combing the area.

Reynolds said search efforts will be concentrated in those areas which hold the greatest probability of finding Smith, including a beaver flowage where a boot print matching that of Smith was discovered last fall.

Guay’s dog Reba last Friday led searchers to a makeshift grave near Interstate 95 in Lincoln which contained what are believed to be the remains of 35-year-old Carol Caswell, who was last seen alive more than 1 1/2 years ago leaving a restaurant in her hometown of Portsmouth, N.H., according to Reynolds.


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