Speaker 1: This is a true story. All names have been changed.
Speaker 1: Place names and dates remain factual. The place main roads,
Speaker 1: the state highways, and large county roads make little concession
Speaker 1: to the Northern Indiana Prairie. They zip north, south or
Speaker 1: east west across the sun's sparkle land. On smaller local roads,
Speaker 1: you feel the contour of the terrain, the gentle swell
Speaker 1: and dip passed innumerable kettle lakes, the drainage ditches, and
Speaker 1: the creeks that veane this country. You smell the lush,
Speaker 1: loamy soil, but above all the ever changing sky. This
Speaker 1: is a rich country, and people have lived here for
Speaker 1: thousands of years. At a creek rock bar, you may
Speaker 1: be surprised how easy it is to find Indian arrowheads
Speaker 1: and pieces of pottery. The archaic and woodland people settled
Speaker 1: here after the last glacier retreated fifteen thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: Glacial melts left behind moraines lakes and the lazy, meandering
Speaker 1: Kankakee River basin with its chaotic half millionacre wet woodland
Speaker 1: known as the Great Kankakee Marsh. Around the time of Christ,
Speaker 1: the Miami and the Pottawatamie Indians settled this area, The
Speaker 1: Manitau protected their dark forests at night. The spirits of
Speaker 1: men hunted, the spirits of animals. The myeline demons dwelt
Speaker 1: under the earth. The first white men here were French
Speaker 1: voyagers in tent on fur harvest. They left behind only
Speaker 1: place names like Lacrosse, Laporte, and Lapaze. Later, real settlers,
Speaker 1: American and Sidebusters began the epic transformation of the Midwest
Speaker 1: wilderness into the agricultural heartland of the continent. The Pottawatomie
Speaker 1: were driven out in the eighteen thirties. The Grand Marsh
Speaker 1: resisted the plow for hundreds of years, too wet to cultivate,
Speaker 1: too thick to navigate, the marsh and the woodlands saying
Speaker 1: with life. This was the largest inland wetland in North America.
Speaker 1: It was a paradise for waterfowl and hunting flourished. Early
Speaker 1: railroads lay down short sidings. As hoosier guides pulled gentlemen
Speaker 1: hunters from Chicago into the swamp. A barrel anchored in
Speaker 1: the marsh grass allowed them to wait snug for the waterfowl.
Speaker 1: At the end of the day's shooting, the sportsman could
Speaker 1: repair to the luxury of the railcar sleeper, and so
Speaker 1: the slaughter began, shot away the deer and drove away
Speaker 1: the last of the eastern bison. Trappers cleaned out the beaver, mink,
Speaker 1: Martin and other fur bearers. Chains accelerated in the eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: when flat bottomed steamed dredges bowled in and their iron
Speaker 1: jaws gnawed away at the Kankakee Wetlands. The Grand Marsh,
Speaker 1: once so vast, was reduced to some pitiful holdings and
Speaker 1: the land lay stripped. Now farmers could begin cultivating fields
Speaker 1: of corn and soybeans. A mint thrived in the rich
Speaker 1: monkey soil, and on monkey summer nights, the aroma drowned
Speaker 1: the land. These families built America, and food prices plummeted
Speaker 1: with the bounty grown in the Midwest. Eden Corn and
Speaker 1: port from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois fed America. Little towns
Speaker 1: thrived built around the railroads and grain elevation. It was
Speaker 1: a good time, although a hard one. Getting your back
Speaker 1: into the work was an accepted part of life, and
Speaker 1: while the mechanization enabled the farms to grow, farm work
Speaker 1: was never done. It follows a seasonal rhythm of tillage,
Speaker 1: planting and harvest, and in winter there were animals to
Speaker 1: tend to and equipment to repair. The man Russell Schaeffer
Speaker 1: was born here in nineteen oh one, sky ane of
Speaker 1: the region's old farm families. It was a big outfit,
Speaker 1: and Schaeffer was a respected man in this community. While
Speaker 1: he was known as Russ to most, his family and
Speaker 1: close friends called him Boots. He was nicknamed as a
Speaker 1: toddler when he would climb into his daddy's waiters and
Speaker 1: clump about the farmyard. The Shaeffer family had been on
Speaker 1: this land for generations and were known, like their journ
Speaker 1: and forebearers, for self reliance, thrift, decency, and common sense.
Speaker 1: Russe's grandfather, Erwin Schaeffer, had built the immense Bank barn
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty. Russell's father Ivan had taken over after
Speaker 1: his grandfather was gone, and now with his passing, the
Speaker 1: farm belonged to Russ. Family was everything to the Shaffers,
Speaker 1: and Russ planned that one day his son Rob would
Speaker 1: take over for him. He and Jesse were thankful their girls,
Speaker 1: Kim and Marylyn, had married local men and their grandkids
Speaker 1: were close. He kept a brown pony called Dot for
Speaker 1: them to ride Saturday August twenty seven, nineteen sixty. Saturday
Speaker 1: dawned clear and cool. It was a golden late August day.
Speaker 1: Labor Day would be the following weekend, and Jesse Shaeffer
Speaker 1: drove the pickup truck to Baths Lake to take her
Speaker 1: widowed sister some blueberries and sweet corn. Alice Bock traded
Speaker 1: with Jesse for garden greens, tomatoes, and peppers. They talked
Speaker 1: about children and grandchildren, and on her drive back home,
Speaker 1: Jesse gasped up at Coffin's Corner Market outside Knox and
Speaker 1: bought two salt blocks. A boy loaded them into the
Speaker 1: pickup truck's bed. Russell Shaeffer spent the morning repairing a
Speaker 1: power take off unit and then repairing a drawbar and
Speaker 1: caring for his animals. It was a clear, warm day
Speaker 1: and he was looking forward to sitting in the shade
Speaker 1: with a tall glass of lemonade before supper. Early that evening,
Speaker 1: Jesse Shaeffer called her husband into their meal of chicken,
Speaker 1: mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans. There was coffee
Speaker 1: in freshly baked blueberry pie for dessert. Shaeffer finished his
Speaker 1: pie and ice cream. He swigged the last bit of
Speaker 1: his coffee, folded his napkin and pushed himself away from
Speaker 1: the table. It was dusk and the cool of the
Speaker 1: day had descended. It was a good time to be alive.
Speaker 1: He told Jesse that he was going to take the
Speaker 1: salt out to the Black Angus cattle herd. He would
Speaker 1: be back in time to help her wash dishes. Shaeffer
Speaker 1: walked out to the truck parked under the trees and
Speaker 1: held the door as his dog, Tarzan jumped in. He
Speaker 1: drove away from the house and he was never seen again.
Speaker 1: The search. The Star County Sheriff Department logged a call
Speaker 1: from a distraught Rob Shaeffer at eleven fifteen that night.
Speaker 1: Shaeffer reported finding his father's truck abandoned and was unable
Speaker 1: to locate his father on their large farm. His mother
Speaker 1: was frantic and insisted he call dispatched. Erected the deputy
Speaker 1: to the scene, and then radio the senior deputy, who
Speaker 1: having just broken up a dust up at a dance
Speaker 1: at English Lake, had monitored the radio traffic and assigned
Speaker 1: himself to assist on his drive out to the Shaeffer farm.
Speaker 1: Deputy Sheriff William Rudd mentally cataloged what he recalled of
Speaker 1: Russell's Schaeffer. He was a church goer, probably in his
Speaker 1: late fifties, married with two no three adult children. Shaefer
Speaker 1: was of average height five foot ten. He guessed he
Speaker 1: was heavy set, not a smoker, probably not much of
Speaker 1: a drinker, aside from an occasional beer at the American
Speaker 1: Legion or the VFW. Most of these farmers were like that.
Speaker 1: Did he wear glasses? Rudd thought so. Shaeffer seemed like
Speaker 1: any other prosperous local farmer, plane modest, perhaps even gruff,
Speaker 1: ruthful and honest, not the impulsive type. You do what
Speaker 1: you can, and you bear what you must. A needle
Speaker 1: in a stack of needles. Schaeffer was renowned, if renowned
Speaker 1: was the right word for it around here, for having
Speaker 1: bought a new nineteen forty seven Indian motorcycle. People said
Speaker 1: it was the only foolish thing the man had ever done.
Speaker 1: Some might dismiss Bill Rudd as a Stark County hill rat,
Speaker 1: but that would be a mistake. Rudd had a keen,
Speaker 1: inquiring mind. He was a veteran of the fierce world
Speaker 1: of death. He had served in a signal unit of
Speaker 1: the forty fifth Infantry Division during World War II, all
Speaker 1: the way from the landing at Salerno in Italy to
Speaker 1: Anzio beachhead, and then the invasion in southern France. Finally,
Speaker 1: the forty fifth had clawed its way into Germany and
Speaker 1: liberated Docowl Concentration Camp. Rudd had seen and done things
Speaker 1: no man should have to see or do. He had
Speaker 1: seen every variety of horror and human frailty. As a
Speaker 1: deputy sheriff, he dealt with more mundane matters petty theft, drunks,
Speaker 1: fighting at a crossroad, tavern, normal ruckuses. The deaths he
Speaker 1: dealt with now were car crashes and drownings and farm accidents.
Speaker 1: Murder in Stark Counting was rare. From time to time,
Speaker 1: one cheating spouse shot the other, but disappearances like this
Speaker 1: were exceedingly rare. Rudd was, in fact a shrewd judge
Speaker 1: of character and a diligent deputy sheriff. It was a
Speaker 1: well known fact if unsaid, that Rudd ran the county
Speaker 1: law department while Sheriff boom Miller cruised toward retirement. Rudd
Speaker 1: was accustomed to being underestimated, and he used that to
Speaker 1: his advance as deputy sheriff. Now at midnight, he was
Speaker 1: speeding to the Schafer form on County Road eight hundred West.
Speaker 1: No one called it eight hundred west to the locals,
Speaker 1: it was Shaefer Road. Rudd pulled into the long drive
Speaker 1: that bisected a field of wax beans. A mounted light
Speaker 1: fixture provided illumination. On his left was the Shaefer home,
Speaker 1: a handsome prairie dwelling. Somewhere inside a dog was barking.
Speaker 1: On his right was an old bank barn, probably built
Speaker 1: in the last century. Next To it was a modern
Speaker 1: pole structure with an attached machine shed with a large
Speaker 1: open lot sheltering an alice chambers tractor. Behind that a
Speaker 1: stand of walnut trees, and in front of that a
Speaker 1: disused corn crib and freshly whitewashed henhouse. Another open lot
Speaker 1: held a station wagon, and behind that grew a tangle
Speaker 1: of trees. He was on a dark farm track, passing
Speaker 1: a cattle enclosure, and Rudd could just see the angus
Speaker 1: cattle bunched up defensively. Near the barn and the head
Speaker 1: were towering fields of corn. He concentrated on the rutted track.
Speaker 1: He had never been on this property before, though he
Speaker 1: had flown over it and had a fairly good idea
Speaker 1: of the layout. Dry weeds swished and crackled under the
Speaker 1: vehicle's weight. In the distance, Rudd could make out a
Speaker 1: sputtering red road flare, and he headed toward it. At
Speaker 1: the end of the path, he pulled up and found
Speaker 1: Deputy Richard Young. He opened his cruiser door. Bill Young said,
Speaker 1: rich what have you got? He could see Young's cruiser
Speaker 1: parked a short distance away, and near it a pickup truck.
Speaker 1: We got Russell's Schaefer, Young answered flatly. Wife said, as
Speaker 1: he left the house at dust check his cattle and
Speaker 1: didn't return, she called the sun. Who found this Young
Speaker 1: motion toward the truck. Okay, Rudd answered, let's start with that.
Speaker 1: They walked over to the truck. Is Rod Shaeffer here,
Speaker 1: Young motion toward the dark west. He's down there in
Speaker 1: the creek looking for his dad. Moonlight bathed the landscape
Speaker 1: and an unnatural cold brilliance. It was very quiet, oddly still,
Speaker 1: thought Rudd. August's crushing insect drone was strangely silent. They
Speaker 1: approached Shaeffer's forward truck, parked up hill from the creek.
Speaker 1: The driver door was open and Rudd leaned in with
Speaker 1: his flashlight, and the key was in the ignition the
Speaker 1: state registration strapped to the sun visor. He could make
Speaker 1: out a Remington eight seventy in the small space behind
Speaker 1: the bench seat. On the floorboard. Next to the shotgun
Speaker 1: was an unopened of buckshot. Rudd duck back out of
Speaker 1: the truck. In the weeds, just below the truck's rocker
Speaker 1: panel lay a dented flashlight in the silvery moonlight. Its
Speaker 1: plastic lens cover shone like an open eye. There was
Speaker 1: a muted air of menace about the whole scene. Rudd, Young,
Speaker 1: and the shaffer boy moved out and apart and began
Speaker 1: their search. Deputies. Rudd and Young swung their county issued
Speaker 1: nine volt flashlights slowly from side to side. They called
Speaker 1: out for shaffer Rob Shaefer carried a battered Coleman lantern. Dad,
Speaker 1: he implored Dad. The lantern soon dimmed and then died.
Speaker 1: In his haste, Rob had forgotten to fuel it. He
Speaker 1: was frustrated. Somewhere in the dark to the northwest, an
Speaker 1: owl called the Quiet Wind brought a whiff of something
Speaker 1: tangy and fowl. The search party of three patrolled north
Speaker 1: east and then south until they ran up against the
Speaker 1: weed choked creek bank. They found nothing. The dark land
Speaker 1: was too vast and the searchers too few. Rudd turned
Speaker 1: to Young, any helpful thoughts here? Rich Young shook his head.
Speaker 1: In the night, it was too dark to find anything. Moreover,
Speaker 1: they were trampling the scene. Rudd, as a senior deputy,
Speaker 1: decided to wait for dawn and a larger search party.
Speaker 1: They were accomplishing nothing here. There was a heaviness about
Speaker 1: the air. It was cold now. Young zipped his jacket tighter.
Speaker 1: Rudd felt an uneasy tingle of being watched. You could
Speaker 1: see everything in the moonlight, and yet you could see nothing,
Speaker 1: And he turned to Young. You ready to get out
Speaker 1: of here? Rudd asked Young to stay on the scene.
Speaker 1: Young was accustomed to that. It was standing operating per Seed.
Speaker 1: He lit a cigarette as he watched Rudd's the cruiser
Speaker 1: pull away. The next morning, Sheriff Miller, Deputy Rudd, and
Speaker 1: the county Search and rescue volunteers returned shortly after first
Speaker 1: light to begin a systematic canvas of the area. For
Speaker 1: a Sunday morning. It was a respectable turnout. Seventeen men
Speaker 1: tumbled out of their four vehicles, some laughing, some grim,
Speaker 1: some stubbing out the last cigarettes Before beginning their search.
Speaker 1: Miller handed Young breakfast in a bag with a plastic
Speaker 1: cup of coffee, and Rudd handed Young a roll of
Speaker 1: toilet paper. Young, grin, Now you're too late with that,
Speaker 1: he said to himself. Rudd decided that Schaeffer had had
Speaker 1: a stroke or a heart attack. Confused and disoriented, he
Speaker 1: had staggered off. He would be found in an adjacent
Speaker 1: field or the nearby creek, and he might still be alive.
Speaker 1: Miller glumly agreed with his deputy, though neither wanted to
Speaker 1: say so to a heart racked to Jesse Schaeffer. Miller
Speaker 1: addressed the search and rescue volunteers and told them the
Speaker 1: purpose of the search, and then Rudd split them up
Speaker 1: into teams and assigned search quadrants. They found out. It
Speaker 1: was a long morning wading through the cornfields and searching
Speaker 1: by the creek, and by noon the sun was hot.
Speaker 1: Search and rescue had turned up nothing. After a fast lunch,
Speaker 1: the search area was extended to the opposite side of
Speaker 1: the creek. An hour into the expanded search, Blaine Smith
Speaker 1: yelled uphill from the creek. He'd found a pair of
Speaker 1: broken steel framed glasses. Rob Shaeffer confirmed they belonged to
Speaker 1: his father, but nothing else was found. It was puzzling, frustrating.
Speaker 1: Rudd thought, sick, people, injured, people don't go uphill. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen, and Rudd now doubted this was a
Speaker 1: medical emergency. The search continued, and, buoyed by finding the glasses,
Speaker 1: optimism flared that Schaeffer would be found, but that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: All the rest of that day, nothing more was found.
Speaker 1: Search and rescues scoured for another day, still nothing. Rudd
Speaker 1: shrugged it off and arranged for Boy Scout Troop one
Speaker 1: eighty six to join the search. It was as if
Speaker 1: Shaeffer had vanished into a thin mist, and by now
Speaker 1: the Shaffer case was local and state news. Volunteers made
Speaker 1: sporadic searches. A week went by, and then another, and
Speaker 1: then a month passed, and the search was suspended. Hope
Speaker 1: faded and finally died. Thea became a curiosity, and then
Speaker 1: it was forgotten. It was now the second week of October.
Speaker 1: It's one hell of a thing, Bill, I've never had
Speaker 1: a stone cold. Who'd done it? Boom Miller sat across
Speaker 1: the office desk from Rudd. Miller had been Stark County
Speaker 1: sheriff for nineteen years. Though he had been a county
Speaker 1: lawman for many more, he had never had a missing
Speaker 1: person case like this before. From time to time, teen
Speaker 1: runaways might take off for a romp in Chicago. It
Speaker 1: was rare, but they always returned to shocked and disapproving parents.
Speaker 1: Miller told Rudd he could recall only one similar case
Speaker 1: in Laporte County during the war. A timber cruiser had
Speaker 1: been working north and west of Five Lakes and had
Speaker 1: utterly vanished. Miller didn't know if that case had ever
Speaker 1: been cleared. No, he told Rudd, they never found the guy.
Speaker 1: There's big woods up there, well, there used to be.
Speaker 1: He and his brother ran a sawmill house was the name,
Speaker 1: the lumberyards, still in the family. They dismissed the notion
Speaker 1: that Shaeffer had been kidnapped. The circumstances didn't fit. Moreover,
Speaker 1: there had been no ransom contact. The Shaeffer was not
Speaker 1: the type to just take off. Miller quietly snorted, No,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't do that. It's not like we made a
Speaker 1: hash of this. We've just got no way forward. Bill.
Speaker 1: With the investigation at a standstill, it was time to
Speaker 1: inform the family that the official investigation had ended. Rudd
Speaker 1: volunteered to do that. He met Rob Shaeffer for breakfast
Speaker 1: at Sissy's cavet in downtown Knox. Rob Shaeffer took the news. Well,
Speaker 1: it was what he expected. There's just a few things,
Speaker 1: Rob Brudd said, Did your dad always carry a gun
Speaker 1: in his truck? Now that's unusual for him. Rob siptis coffee.
Speaker 1: But things have been happening that kind of spooked him.
Speaker 1: Rudd raised a quizzical eyebrow. Well, it was little things.
Speaker 1: Someone broke into the barn a couple of times. Dad
Speaker 1: didn't like that. At first we thought it was just kids.
Speaker 1: He put up a locking barn, a yell lock on it.
Speaker 1: That gut broke, tools came up missing, and stuff moved.
Speaker 1: The cattle were acting weird and other stuff. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just us. Talked to Bud Kridler. He had some things
Speaker 1: going on as well. Anyway, Dad began taking precautions. What
Speaker 1: about the dog, Rudd said, Tarzan, that dog accompanied Dad everywhere.
Speaker 1: That's what really scared my mother. She knew Dad had
Speaker 1: taken him along so when he ran up on the porch,
Speaker 1: she knew something was wrong. That dog never begged to
Speaker 1: be let in, never Betty the house dog. She was
Speaker 1: barking like crazy Tarzan. Why'd you call him that? Rudd asked.
Speaker 1: Shaeffer sighed, he had a funny bark when he was
Speaker 1: a pup. My sister Kim called him that. Rudd and
Speaker 1: Shaeffer talked for a while, and soon Bill Rudd was
Speaker 1: called to break up a dispute over a property line,
Speaker 1: and Rob Shaeffer sat alone in the diner staring out
Speaker 1: the window oblivion. How does a man disappear into oblivion?
Speaker 1: How can he leave his supper table, drive a short
Speaker 1: distance in sight of the home he just left and
Speaker 1: simply disappear? Shaeffer saw or heard something? It was dusk
Speaker 1: and the August light was failing. What did he see?
Speaker 1: What did he hear? The man drives half a mile
Speaker 1: down to beat up farm track. He knows his path
Speaker 1: and the land surrounding it as well as he knows
Speaker 1: every pore in his wife's high cheek bone and her clean,
Speaker 1: sweet lips. This stoic has lived on this land longer
Speaker 1: than he has been married to his wife. In this
Speaker 1: land of grace? How is it that Russell Schaeffer faced
Speaker 1: only retribution? How is it that he stepped into oblivion?
Speaker 1: After math? The Russell Shaeffer case never cleared. Nothing more
Speaker 1: was found. For a few years, people remarked on it,
Speaker 1: and then, as is the way of all things, it
Speaker 1: was forgotten. It became a slim file in a three
Speaker 1: drawer cabinet. Once or twice someone would pull the file
Speaker 1: out and read through it. With nothing to add, it
Speaker 1: was put back boom. Miller hung on and remained county
Speaker 1: sheriff until nineteen seventy two. Bill Rudd got tired of waiting,
Speaker 1: got tired of police work, and got tired of a
Speaker 1: community where everyone knew everyone else's business. He began night
Speaker 1: courses at the local college and got his law degree,
Speaker 1: specializing in criminal law. He was hired by a legal
Speaker 1: firm in South ben There's always good work for a
Speaker 1: good criminal attorney in South ben. Later he was recruited
Speaker 1: by a larger firm in Indianapolis and practiced there until
Speaker 1: he retired. In nineteen ninety eight. He and his wife,
Speaker 1: Doris moved to Panama City, Florida. I interviewed him there
Speaker 1: a few years before he passed away in two thousand
Speaker 1: and sixteen, Rudd remembered the Schaeffer case. It was a
Speaker 1: strange one. We never uncovered anything on that case, he said.
Speaker 1: We never cleared it. We never came close to clearing it.
Speaker 1: I always hoped that someday a body would be found,
Speaker 1: least something, and if that didn't solve the mystery, at
Speaker 1: least it would provide some solace and some comfort to
Speaker 1: that family people around there. I just don't disappear like that,
Speaker 1: you know. The Shaeffer place fell apart after Russell disappeared.
Speaker 1: The son couldn't run it and they eventually sold out
Speaker 1: to con Agra. The fine house and all the outbuildings
Speaker 1: are gone. It's like the way of life disappeared with Shaeffer,
Speaker 1: which run as a factory farm. Now, Rudd paused, you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen things, Doris and I. We've been places. Our
Speaker 1: son met and married a Peruvian girl he met at Purdue.
Speaker 1: His father in law convinced Paul to move down there
Speaker 1: and do an inventory control on his fishing business in Lima.
Speaker 1: It's quite a wealthy family. We visit Paul, Marina and
Speaker 1: our grandchildren down there. It's a beautiful country, wonderful food,
Speaker 1: Lima Kalo and Machu Picchu. I've talked to the Peruvians.
Speaker 1: We've met. Some of them are Amazon people. I told
Speaker 1: him about the Shaefer case and they told me they
Speaker 1: have similar disappearances down there in the jungle. They blame
Speaker 1: it on sorcerers or even monsters. Some of them say,
Speaker 1: maybe the land took your man. Bill Rudd chuckled. Most
Speaker 1: of them have a lot of Indian bloods, you know.
Speaker 1: They believe in some powerful jujuw in Peru, there's still
Speaker 1: a lot of belief in magic and the supernatural. Rudd
Speaker 1: paused again, I don't know. Maybe it's as good an
Speaker 1: answer as any. This story was written for Blanche, Bernice
Speaker 1: and Alice. The author is Gerald Gustuffson. Written in August
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one.