By Donna Hales
LAKE TENKILLER — An anxious father whose then 26-year-old son went missing Dec. 13, 2004, waited Monday at Cherokee Landing as volunteers using high-tech sonar to search deep waters.
Leads recently received by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation prompted the latest search of Lake Tenkiller in the Keys area by Texas EquuSearch volunteers from Illinois and Texas.
Three vehicles were located — but not the one the searchers were hoping to find, said Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation Agent Vicky Lyons. The search will resume today, she said.
Stephen Adams left a class at Northeastern State University, reportedly was seen in a convenience store near Cookson, and then just seemed to drop off the face of the earth. He and his pickup truck, a 1995, white GMC short bed, haven’t been seen since.
His father, Carl Adams, believes his son is the victim of a contract killing, but won’t elaborate.
Six volunteers connected with EquuSearch used three boats outfitted with an imager “that is the greatest thing to come along since the fishing hook,” to find the younger Adams, said volunteer searcher and professional crappie fisherman Dennis Watters of Moro, Ill.. Watters praised the Hummingbird Electronics equipment being used.
“You get underwater images that are just unbelievable,” Watters said. “I can scan 100 feet to each side — it’s extremely fast. I have found bodies, all sorts of vehicles and boats.”
Watters has scanned areas 360 feet to 600 feet deep on recovery missions.
Watters and his wife, Tammy, started the search Sunday afternoon, after arriving in the area from a national crappie tournament in Mississippi. They scanned large areas of the lake and by Sunday night had eliminated certain areas.
Their motivation?
“If we can help a family put everything to rest — then that’s pretty satisfying,” Dennis Watters said.
Dennis Watters has been “in and around” search and recovery his entire life. His father was commander of a search and rescue team when Dennis Watters was a teenager in Illinois.
He has personally recovered three bodies. One was in a vehicle in the water and two were drowning victims.
The first body he recovered had been in the water for three years and three months.
“I wasn’t even looking for it — I was imaging the ruins of a lock and dam in Alton, Ill.,” he said.
The woman was an elderly accident victim — a beloved retired school teacher from Alton who had been pulling into a riverboat casino, Watters said.
“The casino had her on camera (as she went in the water),” Watters said.
There had been multiple sonar searches for the woman. Watters credits the innovative Hummingbird equipment he was using for finding the woman and her car.
Hummingbird developed the equipment he uses now about two years ago, and in January will release a new, redesigned unit with higher resolution, he said.
“It will produce one-third better images than we’re using now,” Watters said.
Watters’ speed was between 31/2 mph to 7 mph while scanning Sunday.
“We’ll be here as long as it takes to get the lake scanned,” he said about 7 a.m. Monday.
Coweta volunteer George Foster brought his boat, also sonar equipped, to Cherokee Landing to meet the Watters on Monday morning, as did two Equu-Search volunteers from Houston, Luis Herrera and John White.
Watters said usually the person who calls he and his wife out for a search pays their expenses. They don’t except any other pay.
“But in this situation, our payment would be finding that boy’s body, so his family could put it to rest,” Watters said.
Another EquuSearch volunteer, Jeff Ezell, drove to Lake Tenkiller to coordinate the search. He transported a very important seventh member of the team — his yellow Labrador retriever and cadaver dog trained to work in water — Hunter.
Hunter was decked out in a lime and black jacket. He brought along his refrigeration pads that fit in pockets on the sides of his jacket and are used when it it’s hot outside. The apparatus can keep Hunter at a cool 54 degrees and keeps him from getting too hot while he works, Ezell said.
“That means he can work a whole lot longer,” Ezell said, patting his dog.
Ezell, retired from a career in technical sales, said he got hooked on EquuSearch five years ago by founder Tim Miller.
“I like helping the families find their missing loved ones and trying to help get bad people in jail,” Ezell said. “My dog is needed, and it’s a way to contribute to the process.”
Tim Knight, owner of Nautical Adventures Scuba of the Cookson area, helped mark targets on maps of Lake Tenkiller for the search group. He told them of the terrain and where the steep bluffs were and about drop-offs and boulders in the lake. He knows the shallow areas and the deep areas of the lake.
Cherokee Nation Marshal Service brought seven divers in case they were needed. Knight trains dive teams and is proficient in recovery. He took divers on the search Monday.
Three vehicles were found, but not the one they were looking for, Knight said.
In addition to target areas, all landing or boat ramps areas were to be searched.
“Anywhere there’s a boat ramp or it looks like there’s a road or where you can hear a car and can’t see the road — scan it,” Watters told fellow searchers.
Reach Donna Hales at 684-2923 or dhales@muskogee phoenix.com.
