My grandfather was the Inspector on the case, and he had a very different perspective on this entire thing. The report that has been posted a few times shows on the last page that even after everyone had discontinued the search, he returned alone for another 2 days of searching by himself. In his decades of being a Maine Game Warden, this specific case haunted him. And he continued to return to the area to search on his own time, determined something would turn up.
I never got to speak to my grandfather personally about this case as I was young when he passed, but I have spoken with my dad and grandmother on multiple occasions about what they remember during those 2 weeks of searching.
To those who aren't from this section of Maine, our mountainous woods are filled with caverns that could easily swallow up a child if they stepped just right. Moss often covers these openings making accidents easy.
I also agree with a previous comment stating that the volunteer caretaker was absolutely fed up with "people from away" leaving their items in the woods, and he probably walked it to the dump out of frustration. I believe the caretaker (which was very common around here, especially in the 70's and 80's, to have a local look after a public space like this. Maintain the road, pick up trash, help out campers if needed etc) was most likely maintaining the dump pile, his daughter probably went for a walk to visit him then walked back to the campsites. his way to leave the dump, he spotted the trike.
Now, my grandfather was very good at finding people, he was the one they called in for all the searches around this time period because up until this point he had found every person he searched for. This is still the only missing person in his career he never found.
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