Idaho couple helps drowning victims' families recover

FLATHEAD LAKE — You might say Gene and Sandy Ralston are in the recovery business.

Armed with a side sonar device, they scan lakes, rivers and ponds around the country, looking for drowning, homicide and suicide victims.

The Ralstons don't actually recover the body themselves — that's left to divers and occasionally an underwater robotic unit — but in all other aspects, though, they are in the business of recovery. By locating bodies underwater, they play a vital role in helping the families involved recover from what is always an emotional experience, they said.

The Ralstons arrived last Sunday, May 1, to search Flathead Lake for the body of Pablo resident Dennis Silgen, 59, who is believed to have drowned April 30 during a brief storm. The search for Silgen's body was called off late last week at the request of his family.

For more than 20 years, the Ralstons have traveled throughout the country, usually in a motor home pulling their 20-foot boat armed with a side sonar, helping families achieve some sort of resolution (they prefer that term to "closure").

"We've spent up to 150 days per year doing searches, from San Francisco Bay to the Chesapeake Bay (in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area)," Gene Ralston said. "We recover homicide victims, suicide and accidental drowning."

"Anything underwater," Sandy added.

The Ralstons' side sonar device, acquired four years ago, has probably been their most effective tool, but they actually got their start in the early '80s using regular sonar equipment.

"We recovered a drowning victim, a suicide, in 1983. We found the person the following day," Gene said. "The thank-you letter really showed us how much people appreciate the volunteers involved."

Although the Ralstons are often paid by state, county or federal agencies in a homicide or accidental drowning, they rarely ask for payment in many other situations, they said.

"We don't want the family's ability to pay to influence their decision to have us search or continue searching longer," Gene said. "That's why we don't quote a firm, fixed price."

The FBI and National Park Service pay 50 percent of the commercial rate, for example, while friends and family of both victims and the Ralstons will also contribute money, they said, but much of their time is volunteer.

The Ralstons didn't charge the Silgen family for the five and a half days of searching, and only accepted reimbursement for their fuel expenses, according to Silgen's widow, Laura.

"We thought we'd owe thousands of dollars because we'd heard what kind of fees these types of people charge. But when we went to pay him he gave us a dollar amount that was just for the gas," Laura said. "When we insisted on paying more, he turned us down, but we kept insisting. Finally he accepted, graciously, a donation to help other families that couldn't afford to pay."

In the four and a half years they've had the side sonar, the Ralstons have recovered 38 bodies, and dozens more using regular sonar before that. Side sonar is more effective because it allows them to "see" an area of about 150 feet underneath the boat, to depths of hundreds of feet.

The Ralstons, who live in Kuna, Idaho, work as consultants performing sediment sampling and hydrographic surveying — mapping the bottoms of lakes and rivers — when they aren't searching for bodies. Although they are reimbursed for most of their work searching for victims, they "go in the hole" about $10-15,000 per year due to their travel, insurance and other costs, Gene said.

Death knows no holidays or time of year, and can often pull the Ralstons in opposite directions. Prior to coming to Flathead Lake, they had wanted to return to Iowa to a pond where a young man had drowned last fall. The search had been suspended because the water had frozen, but it had recently thawed, Gene said.

Homicides, however, do take precedent because of the need for evidence and because a timely recovery can help solve the crime, the Ralstons said.

"We've gotten to the point where we have to prioritize to a certain extent. That's very difficult," Gene said. "The priority is homicide victims so we can recover evidence in a timely manner. In a situation like this (the Silgen case), we'll go until we're satisfied we've done everything we can or until a family asks us to stop."

One time they were searching Lake Mead, which covers parts of Nevada and Arizona, for a drowning victim when they got a call about another person who had just drowned in the lake. They scooted over to the site and located the body within 15 minutes — within enough time for potential resuscitation. However, authorities had waited 45 minutes to call them, so there was nothing they could do for the victim.

Their searches have uncovered all kinds of unexplained situations.

"We found a fellow in Priest Lake, Idaho, who had been missing longer than 25 years and as much as 100. The Sheriff went through police reports back to the early 1900's, but nobody was missing in that area of the lake," Gene said. "We found an old boat 200 feet away that looked like old boats you see in photographs of marinas from the early 1900's so we think that's when it happened."

The Ralstons have found two bodies they weren't looking for, airplane parts, and several sunken boats, including a 60-foot commercial fishing boat off the coast of Alaska "that nobody seems to know anything about," Gene said.

(Barron estimates there are 28-29 bodies at the bottom of Flathead Lake — not unusual for a lake its size and that sees as much recreational activity.)

Their expertise has spread throughout law enforcement and search and rescue crews around the country, so much so that they are even asked to aid in searches from their Idaho home, via wireless Internet connections if they or another searcher are out on a boat.

One searcher was working the waters of the Savannah River in Georgia and requested the Ralstons' help with interpreting images he'd taken of the bottom of a local marina. They overnighted sonar images to the Ralstons, who were able to ID a body in the 16th image.

"This was over the weekend, and divers weren't able to go out until Monday. By then, the victim had moved 200 feet away. They sent images directly from the boat using wireless Internet, and I called to tell him where the victim was. By the time they dove again the next day, she had moved," Gene recalled. "It was a pretty emotional day for me sitting in Idaho, not knowing what was going on out there. I wanted to get on a plane and go help out, but it worked out in the end."

Occasionally the Ralstons will travel via airplane, and the two airlines they use give them heavily discounted ticket prices because of the nature of their work and the people they help, the Ralstons said.

"You just have to call and talk to the right person," Sandy explained, saying they have specific customer service reps at Alaskan and United Airlines they work with.

Freight companies, including overnight shipping companies, usually ship equipment for free. Ideally, the Ralstons said they like to use their own equipment and boat so they aren't left at the mercy of local search and rescue personnel and their availability.

"We prefer to use our own boat, so we don't have to wait for them to get equipment, especially if they are dealing with staffing issues (during a search and rescue situation) and that sort of thing," Gene said.

While Gene scans the bottom, Sandy drives the boat at approximately 1.5 mph. Using information from witnesses and including weather conditions, tides, and other factors, Gene can map a general area of where a victim might be. In this case, they had an idea of an area of a few hundred square yards, based on the Silgen family's account of what happened, the location of his dog the next morning, and other factors.

Their boat has a differential GPS device that enables the Ralstons to map coordinates, accurate to within three feet, Gene said. Once a body is located, they "mark" it so that divers can begin the recovery process. Through their work, the Ralstons know divers in California and Seattle who can dive more than 400 feet — much deeper than the average diver can.

The Ralstons have found bodies in waters more than 800 feet deep, and at those depths, recovery experts use a Remote Operational Vehicle to retrieve the body.

"It's an underwater robot, if you will, available to rent," Gene said.

While Gene scans the sonar images on his computer screen, Sandy must drive a path plotted by their GPS system, similar to the hash marks on a football field. A slight deviation from the straight path means they could miss a critical part of the search area, or spend too much time overlapping areas they've already scanned. Keeping a boat on a straight line given tides, waves and wind conditions is harder than it looks, the Ralstons said.

"One guy tried it and he couldn't keep it within 40 feet of the line. He got so mad he got up and stormed out of the cabin. He was fuming," Gene said. "I think he thought if a women could drive it then he could do better. Most people think it's easy to drive a boat in a straight line, but most of the time they are 40 to 50 feet out of the line."

Driving a boat in a perfect line takes a physical toll on Sandy, who must deal with an achy neck and sore arms after a 10 hour day, she said. Because stopping would increase the chance of overlooking a spot, they bring a lunch with them and have a porta-potty — basically a five-gallon bucket with a seat — on the boat with them.

Last Tuesday, May 3, they were able to search an area four tenths of a mile by seven tenths of a mile from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

"If we can get in a good 10-hour day, we can cover a lot of area," Gene said.

They have to suspend operation in high winds, which throw their 20-foot boat around, causing their side sonar device — their "tow fish" — to jerk around underneath them. The device is identical to a torpedo or a Sidewinder missile, weighs about 140 lbs. and is towed by a line underneath and behind the boat.

"The tow-fish has a pretty intimate association with the boat," Gene said, saying that if the boat is jerked around by high winds, the images appear smeared on the computer screen.

Looking down 300 feet into Flathead Lake, Gene was able to identify fish as small as 1 1/2 feet, and as large as four feet, on the lake bottom. A six-foot-tall person would show up about the size of a dime on his screen, and sonar images of past victims in a variety of depths shown to a reporter clearly had the outline of a human body.

"Doing this is long periods of sheer boredom punctuated by periods of great excitement," Gene said.

Usually local law enforcement will have a boat nearby to ward off recreational boaters whose wake — and inquisitive personalities — interfere with the Ralstons' work. They said sometimes utilizing law enforcement-type lights can cause more harm than good.

"We have flashing red and amber lights on the cabin, and that can be a real problem. All that does is attract people. 'Hey, whatcha doin' over there? Do you need any help?'" Gene said, mimicking a recreational boater who drove over to inquire, thus interrupting their search.

Through it all, their work has brought them in contact with some high profile cases, including the Laci Peterson case. Periodically, California law enforcement will ask the Ralstons to scan areas below certain bridges that have proven popular dumping grounds for homicide victims, they said.

They also helped search for pieces from the Space Shuttle Columbia in areas of Texas

The Ralstons recently recovered four homicide victims, and the suspects in the case face international money laundering, extortion, kidnapping and murder charges. But the reality of their lives is dealing with families who have had their normal, everyday lives turned upside down by the death of a loved one.

"We are very sensitive to families. Quite often, they consider us part of the family after all the time we spend looking for a family member, " Gene said.

One California woman still e-mails them four years after her husband's death, telling the Ralstons how well her children are doing because they know their father didn't just run out of their lives after the Ralstons recovered his body. They planned on visiting the Iowa family who lost a son last fall, whose body hasn't yet been recovered.

"They were amazing people. We told them to stop searching, but they didn't want to. We just wanted to know that Denny was in deep water and leave it at that, and he gave us peace of mind," Laura Silgen said. "He showed us what he had done (searching), and then he cried. He had tears streaming down his face."

The hardest thing, though, is searching and not finding a victim, the Ralstons said.

"What affects us more than anything is not finding the victim and having to leave," Gene said. "There's an incredible sense of satisfaction when we find a victim."

"He wasn't even going to charge us for expenses," Silgen said. "We were just blown away. God has strengthened us through this ordeal by bringing us in contact with people like them."