Thursday, October 27th, by Johnny [Reblog]
(http://www.thecordovatimes.com/) BODY OF EYAK ELDER FOUND—Acting on information received from Alaska private investigator E. I. “Kate” Shugak, authorities discovered the body of Herman Obadaiah Gordaoff at a remote cabin on his gold claim on Cheneganak Creek in Prince William Sound. Evidence at the scene indicated that Gordaoff had been physically assaulted and that he had been dead for some time before his body was found. The Alaska State Troopers say that the investigation is ongoing.
Friday, October 28th, by Johnny
We went home by way of Cordova. We met up with Myra Gordaoff at the Cordova House, who had been out at her grandfather’s cabin at Boswell Bay. She’s a quiet, pretty girl with a lot of black hair who seems younger than nineteen. We told her what we think happened.
She was, I don’t know, kind of frozen. She wouldn’t believe us about the boyfriend, but she did say she didn’t like his friend, Fred. She said Fred was a pilot, that he was older than Chris, and that they had both come to Alaska this summer, looking for work. She said that she and Chris had gone out to Boswell Bay to spend the weekend, and then Fred flew out to pick him up because he said he had a line on a couple of high-paying jobs in Prudhoe Bay. Chris told Myra he’d be right back and to wait for him. When he didn’t show up, she hitched a ride back to Cordova with a fisherman named Hank and his daughter, Annie.
I remember once Jim telling me that the worst part of being a state trooper was having to inform the victim’s family. “You never know how they’re going to react,” he said.
You sure don’t.
Thursday, December 5th, by Johnny [Reblog]
(www.ADN.com, 10am) USCG CALLS OFF SEARCH—The U.S. Coast Guard has called off the search for a small airplane missing since the end of October. The pilot, Frederick Berdoll, age 41, of Anchorage and his passenger, Christopher Mason, 37, also of Anchorage, took off in Berdoll’s Cessna 172 from Cordova, where Mason was visiting his fiancée, Myra Gordaoff.
Rescuers, including response teams from Kulis Air National Guard Base and the Civil Air Patrol, searched for weeks but found neither debris nor any sign of either Berdoll or Mason. Since much of the flight plan was over the Sound, it is assumed that the plane must have gone down in the water. “Currents and tides in Prince William Sound are pretty powerful,” NWS meteorologist Jim Kemper said. “That plane is probably halfway to Hawaii by now.”
The day after the plane failed to arrive at Lake Hood as scheduled, Myra Gordaoff said, “I waved them off from the Cordova airport. They should have been back in Anchorage later that afternoon. I watched until they were out of sight and I’m no pilot but the plane seemed okay to me.”
(www.ADN.com, 4:13pm update) The disappearance of Berdoll and Mason took an odd twist when this afternoon a spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers reported that the Cessna 172 in which the two men were flying was revealed to have been stolen from Lake Hood airstrip the week before it disappeared. The aircraft was registered to Matthew Liedholm of Airport Heights, who said he had been notified of its theft by the police. “Kinda wonder what I’m getting for my tiedown fee,” Liedholm said. He also said that to his knowledge he had never met either of the missing men.
