Search continues for woman

Heather Rawlyk

Wednesday, May 5, 2004 | 10:24 a.m.

As the sun slipped behind the mountains of Red Rock Canyon near Spring Mountain Ranch Tuesday evening, an anxious and sleep-deprived Jason Caudill checked his wristwatch and sighed.

"Another day has gone by," he said, looking down at his 2-year-old Siberian Husky, Tayla. "We'll find her. It's only a matter of time."

The intensive search for Caudill's mother, 45-year-old Christine Asleson, who has been missing since Sunday afternoon, continued this morning, a Metro Police Search and Rescue team officer said.

Asleson's been missing since Sunday, when she went to the area of First Creek Canyon near Spring Mountain Ranch State Park to search for a friend's lost dog that had run away nine days earlier.

Asleson, a former Boy Scout troop leader and stay-at-home mother of two, left her northwest Las Vegas home Sunday morning around 8 a.m. and told her 12-year-old son Shane that she was going to search for Laicka, her friend's white pit bull mix, Caudill said.

Caudill said his mother had planned to meet up with her friend Felicia at the trail later Sunday afternoon.

"When Felicia got to the trail, she saw my mom's car but didn't find her," he said. "She wasn't worried though. She figured she (Asleson) was just out looking for the dog."

Caudill admitted he was not worried about his mother's whereabouts, even after she did not return home Sunday evening.

The 27-year-old former marine said his mother is "pretty physically fit" and "knows how to take care of herself and deal with emergencies on the trail."

"She's an experienced hiker and has been known lately to stay out late looking for the dog," he said. "Just two days earlier she was out until 2 a.m. looking for him. I thought she'd be home when I woke up."

But Asleson was still not home when Caudill awoke at 7 a.m. Monday, he said.

Caudill immediately drove to First Creek Canyon and spent the next four hours looking for his mother, he said.

Employees of a nearby trail ride station told Caudill they had seen Asleson at 12 p.m. Sunday when she asked them where she could find any "watering holes" in the canyons.

Asleson told trail ride employees that she planned to sit at a watering hole for twelve hours and wait for the dog to show up for a drink, Caudill said.

Prior to the start of the search for Asleson, there were many sightings of the missing pit bull by hikers, Clint Bassett, Metro Search and Rescue Coordinator, said. That has changed.

"Since she's gone missing, no one has seen the pit bull at all," he said. "Normal people were seeing this dog on a daily basis and here we have helicopters with infrared (cameras) and heat sensors, we're finding coyotes, rabbits, burros, but we can't even find the dog."

Metro Police Search and Rescue teams scoured the area from 11 a.m. Monday until midnight, using helicopters, bloodhounds and ground units, Bassett said.

The search resumed Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. with two helicopters, bloodhounds, six horses and more than 30 volunteers on foot, he said.

"We searched State Route 159 to Pine Creek to the top of Blue Diamond and above the red band," Bassett said at 6 p.m. Tuesday. "We went clear into the steep canyons, and in most cases, went through the areas twice."

Bassett compared Tuesday's search to "looking for a 3-year-old child who's playing hide-n-seek and not wanting to come out."

"Yesterday (Monday), our crews worked fast, looking for someone who was responsive and looking to be rescued," Bassett said. "Today (Tuesday), we went slow and were basically looking for someone who is hiding and unresponsive, and that's due to the heat and the environment."

With temperatures climbing toward triple digits -- Red Rock's Tuesday high was 90 degrees, the National Weather Service reported -- Bassett said chances of survival depend on a person's activity level.

"We are optimistic because the woman is in good shape, she is an experienced hiker and has no medical problems," he said.

Asleson's 12-year-old son told police his mother left the house with a black bag containing 3 water bottles, Bassett said.

"We hear she had water, so that's a good sign," he said. "But without it, there could be all sorts of problems. If she gets dehydrated and her electrolytes get out of balance, she could walk in circles or lose her bearings easily."

Although searchers have found no signs of foul play, police have not ruled out the idea that Asleson might have been abducted.

"It's something we're thinking about because we feel we've searched this area and we've searched it well and either she left the area against her will or she is just tucked into some rough terrain," Bassett said. "I will say that she could have been very vulnerable at night walking around with a picture of the dog and approaching a lot of people for help."

Bassett said the search and rescue team remains optimistic about today's search.

"We're hopeful, and we'll be out here looking again Wednesday," he said. "We'll keep looking for days till we find something that can give us some answers."

He estimated the rescue's cost at about $5,000 per day, and said that many of the searchers were volunteers who took unpaid time off from work or used paid holiday time to allow them to help in the effort.