Searchers find bodies of missing 2 Whiting man still missing; three other elderly people found alive

Rescue crews were stretched thin this weekend as they conducted at least four separate searches for missing persons in different parts of the state. Two of the searches ended with bodies being found.

In Medway, a search party of more than 200 was called off Saturday after the body of 84-year-old Peter Misiura Sr., who had last been seen Wednesday morning, was found entangled in heavy brush near Interstate 95.

Misiura got through about 3,100 feet of extremely dense underbrush and thickets in an area between Baker Brook and Route 11 before his struggle to survive finally exhausted him, said his son, Peter Jr.

“He was so close to Route 11. You could see the paved road from where they found him,” Misiura said Sunday. “The condition of his body and everything was so brutal from what he had to do. He fought so hard and struggled so much to get to where he was … It was unbelievable. Yet he almost made it.”

Near Whiting, searchers continued to comb the woods off a dirt road Sunday afternoon looking for 79-year-old Lewis Gardner after the body of his female companion, Mona Cole, 74, was found in their car Saturday.

There were happier endings. An elderly man was found safely by bow hunters near Clayton Lake on Saturday, and searchers located an elderly couple Sunday morning after they had spent the night in the cold near Dixfield, according to the Maine Warden Service.

The Warden Service has overseen nine searches in the past 10 days, according to Sgt. Pat Dorian, including the four searches this weekend. Wardens already were busy with the start of bird-hunting season, archery season and the annual moose hunt, he said.

“It has stretched us pretty thin,” he said. “There’s a lot of us out here working on just a few hours sleep.”

The Warden Service was lucky to be assisted by so many volunteers over the weekend, Dorian said Sunday, but he expressed concern that on Monday, when most people return to work, the wardens might not have as much help to continue the search for Gardner.

Dorian urged volunteers to meet at the command center at the Whiting Fire Department off Route 1 on Monday morning.

About 70 volunteers searched for Gardner on Sunday, combing the woods with a team of search dogs.

Gardner’s son, Bud Gardner of Dover, N.H., reported the couple missing last week after he realized they were 10 days late returning to Kittery from a vacation at the family’s Down East home. They had been missing since Sept. 19.

The search began Friday. On Saturday a helicopter spotted a blue Saturn station wagon on the nearly impassable Barney Field Road, according to Dorian. Searchers found Cole’s body in the car.

While the cause of death had not been determined, it appeared the couple took a wrong turn, got lost in a maze of logging roads and got stuck in the woods south of Josh Pond, according to Mark Latti of the Warden Service.

“We’ve done grid searches north, east, south and west of the car and off the different spur roads,” Dorian said. “But the trees are thick here and there’s a lot of swamps and bogs. It’s pretty slow going.”

There was nothing at the scene to indicate which direction Gardner might have headed after he left the car, Dorian said.

Dorian noted that Barney Field Road is a very rough road.

“It’s not a road you would ordinarily drive a car on,” he said. “That makes us think he might not be thinking rationally and may be making poor judgments.”

Gardner said his father busied himself driving back roads, visiting friends and family members, and tinkering with the model boats and automobiles he liked to build. “I had no problem thinking of him alone up there,” he said.

In Medway, friends and family weren’t immediately worried that they hadn’t heard from Misiura. Often harassed by telemarketer calls, the elderly man and retired millworker didn’t like to answer the phone, his son said. Misiura Sr. also loved the outdoors and frequently disappeared into the woods.

Alarms started sounding when neighbors saw mail piled in the senior Misiura’s mailbox Thursday. Peter Jr. called police and, with his wife, began searching for his father late Thursday night. The warden’s search began Friday morning.

No foul play is suspected, said Stephen McCausland, state police spokesman.

Misiura is remembered fondly. Laurie Stanley recalled how, after her father and brother died, Peter Misiura Sr., who had lost his own wife, made a point of stopping by to ask how she was doing.

“He didn’t even really know me that well. He just knew me from when I worked at the credit union in town,” the Medway woman recalled Sunday. “It was so good that he talked to me about that. That was Pete. He was just a sweetheart of a man.”

Rich Hewitt and Nick Sambides Jr. of the Bangor Daily News staff contributed to this report.