James Jacob Dutton - Jake Dutton - June 2012 - Eugene

James Jacob Dutton goes by the name of Jake Dutton.
Jake is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard.
Jake is studying alternative medical services for pain relief through physical therapy.
Jake is active in enviromental concerns and is taking classes to help children with pain symptoms. Jake lives in Eugene Oregon on Portland street.
Jake's truck was found near McKenzie Pass near the French Pete Trailhead

There is a person on Kval's comment page asking you to send tips to them.  DO NOT SEND TIPS to anyone other than the police.  Please.  If tips go to some random person, the family or the police may never receive them. 




Courtesy of the Laura Recovery Center

8/1/2012 via Tommy Foundation

"Update from Laura Recovery Center: Eugene, Oregon: James Dutton's truck was found on July 30, 2012 near McKenzie Pass, Oregon on forest road 19. Authorities believe the truck has been there approximately 7 weeks. His backpack,inflatable boat and hiking boots were not in the truck. Search and rescue teams are searching for him right now."


Eugene, Oregon

JAMES DUTTON Jake Missing Since: June 3, 2012 Age: 32 Missing From: Apartment on Portland Street Sex: male Height: 5ft. 10in. Weight: 170 Lbs. Eye Color: Blue Hair Color: Light Brown Race: Caucasian/white Complexion: light Birth Date: July 31, 1980

Distinguishing Marks: Six-ten, 4 inch slash marks on upper half of both arms
James "Jake" disappeared between June 3rd and June 14th. Missing from his apartment is his backpack, inflatable boat, hiking boots and his 1998, Blue, Nissan Frontier pickup truck, Oregon license plate number 300759.

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Please call the Eugene Police Department at  541-682-5193  if you have any information about JAMES DUTTON- Case number: 58796 Or call the Laura Recovery Center at 281-482-LRCF(5723) or (toll free)  866-898-5723 ; FAX: 888-268-0573; (RN: 1820)

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Download flyers from Recovery Effort Web Site: http://www.LRCF.org
Recovery Effort E-mail: recovery@lrcf.net      

Missing man’s family agonizes

Unusual circumstances delayed a search for a Eugene man last seen two months ago

By Edward Russo

The Register-Guard

Published: August 17, 2012 12:00AM, Today

Cynthia Boucher says she switches between numbness and tears.

The Vancouver, Wash., woman’s 31-year-old son, James “Jake” Dutton of Eugene, disappeared two months ago while hiking in the Cascades. His body has not been found.

In an unusual twist, searchers did not start looking for Dutton until six weeks after he was supposed to have emerged from his trek on the steep and heavily forested French Pete Trail south of Cougar Lake in the Three Sisters Wilderness.

Boucher is in Eugene with relatives this week to clear out her son’s apartment. She hasn’t lost hope that Dutton will be found alive, but acknowledged that she’s having to accept the possibility that he may be dead.

“Every day my heart breaks into smaller pieces,” she said.

A combination of reasons contributed to the delayed search for Dutton.

He was single, unemployed and apparently did not tell any family members or friends where he was going or when he expected to return.

At the French Pete trailhead, he filled out a U.S. Forest Service permit slip to use the trail, which indicated when he started and when he planned to end his hike.

Boucher’s grief is mixed with questions about her son’s disappearance, especially why Forest Service officials didn’t use the permit to figure out that he had not returned from his hike and that his pickup was still at the trailhead, so authorities could have started searching for him sooner.

Yet Boucher admits that her son contributed to the delayed search by not notifying her or other relatives about his plans for a three-day hike in the rugged wilderness.

The hard lesson from her family’s tragedy is that “young people should not go off into the woods without letting somebody know where you are going,” she said.

People regularly go missing in Oregon’s wilderness. Often they are found. Sometimes they are not.

On Wednesday, Marion County officials suspended the search for 52-year-old Ronald Ohm, who was last seen Aug. 9 while hiking near Russell Lake in the Mount Jefferson area of the Willamette National Forest, about 40 miles north of where Dutton disappeared.

Five years ago, University of Oregon math professor Daming Xu disappeared during a solo hike on Olallie Mountain, a few miles from the French Pete trail. Searchers have never found his body.

Little margin for error

John Miller, search and rescue coordinator for the Lane County Sheriff’s Office, said that when people hike alone, especially in remote wilderness areas, they are “totally self-reliant and there is not a whole lot of margin for error, so it’s important to let other people know where they are, just as kind of a safety measure.”

“Mr. Dutton would have been searched for much sooner if he had let somebody know of his itinerary,” Miller said.

Dutton, the youngest of Boucher’s two sons, moved to Eugene about eight years ago, after serving in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Relatives say that he received disability payments from a back injury that occurred during his service.

The back problem led to Dutton’s interest in alternative medicines and therapies for pain management, relatives said.

He volunteered and worked as a personal caregiver for a disabled person until last spring, when his back problem prevented him from lifting.

Relatives described Dutton as introspective, quiet and someone who did not share much about his personal life.

Boucher, for example, knew that her son had dated a woman named Amy, but Boucher never learned her last name.

He had not mentioned that he graduated in February of last year from Lane Community College. Boucher found that out Thursday, when she discovered his diploma among the belongings in his apartment.

On Friday, June 15, Dutton apparently drove his 1998 blue Nissan truck to the French Pete trailhead off Aufderheide Memorial Drive, about 40 miles east of Springfield. He signed a trail permit slip that said he would return by June 18, Boucher said.

Dutton apparently had his cell phone with him, but phone coverage does not extend to the French Pete area of the forest. He had planned to take his 13-year-old nephew, CJ, camping later in June, after a family reunion in Seaside.

Boucher speculated that Dutton, an experienced hiker and camper, went to the trail to scout campsites.

Boucher began to worry about her son in mid-June, when she called to remind him about his older brother Christopher’s upcoming birthday, and she could not reach him on his cell phone.

Her anxiety increased as the days passed with no response from her son.

On June 28, Boucher had to pick up Dutton’s nephew at the Portland International Airport, a task that Dutton had previously agreed to do.

Alarmed, Dutton’s brother Christopher, and then Boucher, drove to Eugene and went to his apartment.

Inside, they found camping gear that Dutton had apparently planned to use on the trip with his nephew.

Boucher tried to find anyone who might know her son’s whereabouts. She put up posters with his photo around the College Hill area where he lived and taped a note to his front door that urged him to call her.

On July 9, Boucher filed a missing persons report with the Eugene Police Department.

Three weeks later, the report, which contained the description and license plate number of Dutton’s pick up, triggered a response from the U.S. Forest Service, which had found the vehicle on July 30 at the French Pete trailhead.

No signs found

Two searches, involving law enforcement personnel, volunteers and search and rescue dogs, took place on July 31 and Aug. 5.

No signs of Dutton were found.

Boucher doesn’t understand why Forest Service officials didn’t read her son’s permit slip to notice that he was overdue from his trip.

“The dots should have been connected,” she said.

But Willamette National Forest spokeswoman Judith McHugh said officials did not immediately become concerned about Dutton because forest officials don’t regularly pick up or read the permit slips, or match them with vehicles at the trailhead.

Forest Service officials use the slips to monitor overall usage of wilderness area trails, not to track the whereabouts of individuals, she said.

Also, the French Pete trail leads to several other trails in the Three Sisters Wilderness area, McHugh said, and it’s common for people to spend several days or more in the backcountry with their vehicles parked at trailheads.

Boucher and other relatives reject theories that Dutton may have committed suicide or disappeared on purpose.

His back pain occasionally made him depressed, Boucher said.

“He has had depression off and on, but he’s never attempted suicide,” she said.

Other clues indicate that Dutton planned to return, including notes on his calendar for appointments and the camping trip with his nephew.

Boucher also found a handwritten note from Dutton that he apparently had planned to mail to her.

Dutton wrote that he wanted to take his nephew to a retreat led by Leia Hart of Eugene, a healer and teacher of “energy medicine and core shamanism.”

“I just got back from a introductory session with Leia and I think it would be interesting to kick off CJ’s northwest trip with a facilitated exploration of nature,” Dutton wrote.

He signed the note “Jake” next to a drawing of a heart.

Looking for witnesses

Eugene Det. Jeff Donaca, who is investigating Dutton’s disappearance, said he plans to use the permit slips from the French Pete trail to interview people who were on the trail during the same period as Dutton.

Donaca said he doubts Dutton deliberately disappeared. “If you are intentionally going to go missing, why would you file paperwork in the area that you are going to hike?” he said.

Miller of the sheriff’s office, said another search for Dutton will take place, though he could not say when.

With limited personnel and frequent emergencies, “it’s kind of a like a triage process,” Miller said. “It’s often not what friends or family want, but it’s what we need to do because our goal is to save lives whenever possible. Our secondary goal is to find missing and deceased subjects whenever possible.”

Meanwhile, Boucher, with help from her sister Kathy Jo Raley and her companion, Richard Kafer of Edmonds, Wash., is engaged in the heartbreaking task of sorting through her son’s belongings at his apartment, deciding what to keep and what to give away.

“I alternate between being numb and uncontrollable weeping,” Boucher said. “It’s kind of living hour to hour.”

“Every day my heart breaks into smaller pieces.”

— Cynthia Boucher, Mother of James Dutton

Missing Person

People with information about the whereabouts of James “Jake” Dutton should contact:

Eugene Det. Jeff Donaca:  541-682-5193 

Lane County Sheriff’s Office:  541-682-4369  or  541-682-6411