On June 15, 1997, 25-year-old James Patrick McElhenie, known to friends as Jimmy, was last seen in Friday Harbor while on a nighttime boat trip with 35-year-old Dan Bentzen. The two had departed Bedwell Harbor in British Columbia aboard a 23-foot Formula Runabout bound for Johns Island in the San Juan archipelago. Communication was lost sometime after midnight and concern grew when neither man returned.

The United States Coast Guard conducted a multi-agency search that focused near Moresby Island in Canadian waters. Investigators recovered a bench seat confirmed to have come from Bentzen’s boat, but neither man nor the vessel was ever found. The Salish Sea’s strong currents and deep channels complicated the search, and with no further wreckage or survivors located the case eventually went cold.

What details about that night or the boat’s final movements might still help explain what happened to Jimmy and Dan?