Questions raised in rescue of woman at Red Rock

Jace Radke and Steve Curran

Monday, May 10, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.

The improbable discovery Friday of 45-year-old Las Vegan Christine Asleson after five days at Red Rock Canyon was a great relief, but it is also being treated with suspicion by at least one police officer.

Asleson was found Friday morning by two New York tourists who heard her yelling from a cliff near Bonnie Springs Ranch, an area Asleson told police she had been for days. Police, however, said searchers passed close to the area during the week.

"I guess it's a little embarrassing for us, but we had been over the area where she was found seven times before and she wasn't there," Metro Police Search and Rescue Sgt. Clint Bassett said Friday.

"I find it highly unlikely that she was in the same spot where we found her," said Bassett, who plans to interview Asleson to see if she can shed any more light as to where she was. "I was physically standing about 100 feet away from the spot where she was found on Tuesday and got no response, and on Thursday I watched two women walk by not 10 feet from where she was found."

Asleson's brother, Douglas Asleson, said that while he was putting up fliers about his sister's disappearance when she was found, from what he's been told she was found higher on the mountain than they were searching.

"She said she could see the people and they just didn't come high enough," said Douglas Asleson, who came from his home in Norwalk, Calif., to help look for his sister. "I was probably within 50 feet of her at one time, but I was at the base of the cliffs, not at the top."

Asleson said hearing others was difficult in the canyons, and at one time he and his son couldn't hear each other when they were about 30 feet apart on opposite sides of a ridge.

Asleson said during the search he asked Bassett to search higher on the cliffs, but Bassett told him no dog could get up there so there was no reason for them to either.

Bassett did not return telephone messages seeking comment Sunday, but Metro spokesman Sgt. Rick Barela said the area where Christine Asleson was found was searched.

"It's not true," Barela said about the statement that she was found higher on the mountain than they were looking. "I was at the scene and where she was found was accessible by foot. ... Over at least a three-day period they searched that ridge."

Barela also said Bassett's initial thought was that she "appeared to be more animated than someone who spent five days in the wilderness and the heat without water."

But Barela said that for now "that's the sergeant's opinion and not the opinion of the Metropolitan Police Department."

He said police investigators will interview Asleson to try to find out exactly what happened to her.

Asleson, a former Boy Scout troop leader and an experienced hiker, was suffering from dehydration when she was found. She told police that she had been in the same spot for eight days.

Douglas Asleson said family members were also concerned because his younger sister takes medication to offset the removal of her thyroid years ago.

He also said he was fairly confident Christine Asleson could survive outside for several days.

"She does a lot of hiking, and her son Jason is an ex-Marine, so he knows about survival training and he told her a lot of stuff," he said. But Asleson said he did start to worry when police said perhaps his sister was abducted.

Asleson left her northwest Las Vegas home May 2 to look for her friend's dog that had run away nine days earlier, her son told police.

On Thursday, Laicka, a white pit bull mix wearing a red bandana, was found in the parking lot of the Bonnie Springs Hotel, two miles from where Asleson was last seen, Officer Jose Montoya, a Metro spokesman, said.

On Sunday, Christine Asleson was still at University Medical Center in fair condition.