Professional trackers have been back in Grant County, Okla. this week looking for clues in the disappearance of an elderly Winfield man Aug. 1.
Cowley County Undersheriff Don Read said the trackers are working in the same area where Jack Lee Howe’s pickup was discovered two days after Howe was last seen exiting the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot in Winfield and going south on U.S. 77.
The 1999 blue Ford Ranger with a light colored topper was found on the railroad right-of-way south of Caldwell and the Oklahoma border. A two-day search on both sides of the state line failed to turn up any clues.
The trackers, who were there earlier this week and back again Thursday ? and are the same ones who helped find the body of a murdered Arkansas City girl over a year ago ? look for footprints or disturbed grass or broken tree limbs – anything that might help authorities determine what happened to the 87-year-old man.
He has lived alone south of Winfield since his wife moved to a nursing home. The Howes’ son and daughter live out-of-state but are in town trying to find their dad.
Howe was wearing red suspenders, a blue flannel shirt with long sleeves, a blue baseball cap and blue jeans. He is 5 feet, 8 inches tall and weighs 100 pounds.
