This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Wyoming authorities scaled back their search for a missing Utah Transit Authority worker on Tuesday, the second day sheriff's deputies had combed the areas around Pinedale without finding a trace of 63-year-old Kay Porter Ricks or his company truck.
Meanwhile, law enforcement officials in both Utah and with the Sublette County (Wyo.) Sheriff's Office declined to say whether they had established any links between Ricks' disappearance last week and kidnapping suspects Flint Wayne Harrison, 51, and his son, Dereck James Harrison, 22.
The Harrisons — who remained in the Sublette County jail on Tuesday, pending extradition proceedings — are believed to have fled to the Pinedale area from Salt Lake City sometime late last week, possibly on Thursday. Their whereabouts had been unknown, however, until the elder Harrison turned himself in early Saturday morning; his son was captured near Half Moon Lake, just north of Pinedale, late Saturday night.
On Monday, and again Tuesday, deputies and volunteers focused their search for Ricks and his white UTA truck within the Half Moon Lake and nearby Fremont Lake areas.
The Harrisons are wanted for the alleged abduction and baseball-bat assault of a woman and her four teenage daughters in Centerville last Wednesday.
On Monday, during an extradition hearing in a Pinedale courtroom, both men asked for attorneys to be appointed for them. On Tuesday, however, father and son both appeared in court again, this time waiving extradition and clearing the way for their return to Utah.
Maryann Harrison, mother of Dereck and ex-wife of Flint, also waived extradition on Monday. She was arrested for violating parole by crossing state lines to travel to Pinedale, ostensibly to aid her son.
Centerville police are seeking return of the father and son; the Utah Department of Corrections is seeking Maryann Harrison.
The question of whether the timing of Ricks' disappearance and the Harrisons' fleeing Utah for Wyoming were more than suspicious coincidence remained unanswered. The elder Harrison, after initially helping authorities locate his son, reportedly has clammed up, and specifically has refused to discuss how he and his son traveled to Wyoming.
"We don't want to rule anything out," Sublette County Undersheriff/Colonel Mark Farrell said of a possible connection. "If there is a chance that these two cases are related, we want to do our part to assist in searching areas that we knew the Harrisons had been prior to their arrests."
Farrell said much of the accessible areas in the search grid had been covered by nightfall Monday. Tuesday's effort involved a smaller number of volunteers to "check a few more spots," he said.
In addition to ground searches, the sheriff's office also planned to use sonar-equipped boats to probe the depths of Half Moon Lake on Wednesday.
Meantime, authorities continued to ask citizens in both Utah and Wyoming to immediately call local police if they see the missing UTA truck, a white Ford with a bed-mounted equipment rack, UTA markings and a Utah license plate No. 206886.
Twitter: @remims