Chris Robert Giauque, 36, disappeared on August 9, 2003, after traveling from his Salmon Creek home to a business meeting in the remote Spyrock area of Mendocino County to collect about $150,000. Because he was on probation he left his 1994 blue Toyota pickup near Iron Peak; his business associate Ben Lomax drove him to a property on Simmerly Road in Covelo. Giauque was last seen around 9:00 PM and never returned.

Two days later his wife Rebecca reported him missing, accompanied by Lomax and a lawyer, a detail that family and investigators found unusual. Four days after the disappearance Giauque’s truck was found wiped clean and abandoned about 50 miles north along the Avenue of the Giants. Despite extensive searches no body has been recovered and the case is being investigated as a homicide by Humboldt and Mendocino County Sheriff’s Offices; Giauque was legally declared dead in 2010.

In June 2014 an anonymous caller told Giauque’s father Bob that he had witnessed the killing and implicated Ben Lomax, Scott McKinney, someone known as Vic, and the caller himself, claiming Giauque stabbed McKinney in self-defense before being killed and wrapped in a tarp. Authorities have treated that call as possibly extortion. Bob Giauque continues to pursue answers and has offered a $400,000 reward—$200,000 for remains and $200,000 for information leading to arrest and conviction.

If anyone knew Chris, his movements in the Spyrock or Covelo areas that night, or has information about the people named, please come forward.