Thousands of acres of dense woods crisscrossed by rain-flooded creeks north of Houston seem to have swallowed up Dennis Rogers without a trace. The amateur race car driver’s cellphone beamed his last location before going dead on March 8, 2012. It indicated he had trudged at least six miles into brambles and briars in this remote area where Liberty County intersects Harris and Montgomery counties. In his last cellphone conversation, Rogers, 54, of Plum Grove, said he was lost and confused. On March 8, 2012, the day he vanished, he had spoken with his eldest daughter, 29-year-old Crystal Usher, at lunchtime just before he started his walk. His usual pattern was to check in with family members about every 30 minutes during the walk. But phone records show he didn’t contact anyone for the next four hours until Crystal called him at 5:48 p.m. to tell him supper was on the table. He lived nearby, and she made sure he ate properly since the heart attack. That’s when he told her he was lost. He could see “lots of pine trees,” a trail, and a deer stand but had no idea where he was. Panicked, she drove to the loop where she thought he might be, honked her horn, and yelled. But Rogers could not hear anything, so she alerted Lacaze, who dialed his cellphone and persuaded him to call 911. This gave law enforcement a ping for his coordinates inside the 67,000-acre forest. Although his family begged him to stay put, he kept moving. Family members, during two dozen phone contacts after that, once heard him fall into some water, but they said he stayed calm. The phone eventually went dead at 9:31 p.m. But his youngest daughter, Kimberly, 22, made one more attempt to contact him 3½ hours later at 1 a.m., and somehow her father’s cellphone had enough battery power to connect one last time.”He just told her that he was lost and confused again. Then there was nothing,” Lacaze said. Since Rogers’ disappearance, that area has been pounded by 8 inches of rain and see temperatures dip into the low 40s some nights. More than 200 searchers using amphibious vehicles, horses, helicopters, dogs and infrared cameras have found no trace of him. The terrain can be treacherous. Several horses became bogged down in the mud, one fire truck sank down to its axles, a four-wheeler flipped, and searchers lost boots and twisted ankles.
from montgomerycountypolicereporter.com
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