Richard Emanuel Lawrence, 63, vanished from Tacoma, Washington while attending a church meeting in the winter of 1986. He and his wife had arrived February 28 for a three-day Pacific Northwest District Council gathering; Richard, a district elder from Portland, left the Apple Inn motel about 5:00 p.m. to get gasoline and never returned. He had a history of a heart attack the previous year, wore a pacemaker, and had recent episodes of memory loss and getting lost while driving.

He was last seen wearing a black knee-length fur-type coat, white shirt with a tie, a black Russian-style hat, size 5 black dress shoes, and black-rimmed glasses with a prescription lens in the right eye. On April 28, 1986 his truck was found out of gas on a remote logging road in Vader, Washington, about eighty miles south of Tacoma; an Oregonian dated February 28 and a handwritten note reading Will pick up car tonight or tomorrow were inside. Witnesses said a man matching his description was seen on the road that day and did not appear distressed. A private investigator believed he likely succumbed to the elements within about five miles of the vehicle, but official searches found no trace. Richard was declared legally dead in 1987.

Did anyone who attended the February 28 meeting or who traveled that logging road in late February remember seeing him or his truck?