The strange disappearance of Derrick Engebretson from the Winema National Forest

December 4, 2017 StrangeOutdoors

Derrick Engebretson, disappeared December 5, 1998, Rocky Point Area, Winema National Forest, Klamath County, Oregon.

Revised July 2024

On the afternoon of December 5, 1998, Derrick Engebretson, Dad Robert, and 64-year-old grandfather, Bob, set out for a densely wooded mountainside above Upper Klamath Lake near Pelican Butte, about 30 miles from downtown Klamath Falls. They planned to find a Christmas tree for the festive season. This was the last day Derrick was ever seen.

Who was Derrick Engebretson?

Derrick, aged 8, was also known as "Bear Boy" because of his love of the outdoors. When he was a week old, his mother put him in a pack and carried him on a bear hunt. He grew up hunting with his father and mushroom-picking with his mother's father. He'd been to Pelican Butte on several of those mushroom expeditions.

Where is Pelican Butte?

Upper Klamath Lake is a large, shallow freshwater lake east of the Cascade Range in south-central Oregon. Pelican Butte is a steep-sided dormant shield volcano located 28 miles (45 km) due south of Crater Lake and rises over 3,800 feet above the lake's shore.

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The trip to find the tree

The Engebretson family hadn't planned to go to the woods that year for Christmas tree hunting. Lori, Robert's wife, had talked him into using an artificial tree that year even though he was an enthusiastic outdoorsman who always looked forward to the family's annual Christmas tree hunt.

Lori wanted less mess, but when a disabled neighbor asked for a real tree, Robert headed into the forest.

As Bob's red Toyota pickup climbed Westside Road, Robert remembers telling his father they couldn't hang around as it was already after 2 pm, and it would get dark around 4 pm since it was late in the year. Bob pulled into a turnout at Milepost 12 on the way to Rocky Point Resort. Robert helped Derrick get into his blue snowsuit, and the three of them started up an embankment into the pine forest. Robert walked ahead of the other two, telling Derrick to stay with his grandfather.

As Derrick chopped at small trees with his hatchet, he nagged his grandfather that he wanted to catch up with his dad. The grandfather eventually relented, and then Derrick headed off, apparently after his father.

Derrick disappears

At about 3 pm, with the darkness closing in, Robert and Bob met and asked each other, "Where's Derrick?" Robert remembers asking. "I thought he was with you," Bob said. "He was with you!" Robert turned and sprinted back up the hill as heavy, wet snow fell steadily. He shouted out for Derrick, but there was no response.

At 4.13 pm, Robert flagged down a man driving along the road, Fred Heins, asking him to dial 911 to call for help from the authorities. Heins makes the call from the resort two miles from the area of Derrick's disappearance.

The search for Derrick Engebretson

Throughout the night and for the next two weeks, hundreds of people searched through snow several feet thick, looking for Derrick on foot and using snowmobiles and dogs.

Lori built a bonfire at the turnout, sleeping in a donated camper van, hoping Derrick would see it and come to her. Delirious from lack of sleep, she once thought she saw Derrick walk out of the woods toward her, waving and smiling. But it was not to be.

In the hours immediately after Derrick's disappearance, Robert and other family members found Derrick's tracks in the newly fallen snow. The boy's small boot prints made a short loop from where Robert had last seen him to a clearing near the road, where Derrick had lain down to make a snow angel.

Unfortunately, a snowplow had come by, obliterating the tracks leading away from the angel. No tracks led from the angel back toward the woods. Derrick's cuts in the trees with his hatchet were confined to a small area near the road. Robert felt certain his son hadn't walked back into the trees. By early evening, the snow was estimated at 5 to 8 inches on Rocky Point.

A candy wrapper and a makeshift lean-to shelter made out of branches were discovered, but it was unclear whether they were related to Derrick. Family members were convinced that Derrick had made his way to the road and might have been picked up by a stranger, but the sheriff discounted those concerns.

Bob discovered a hole in the ice in the lake during the search and a child's footprint on the bank. Divers searched the next day, and an additional search was conducted during the spring thaw, but no luck.

The official search ended eight days after Derrick disappeared when Klamath County authorities told Lori and Robert that their son was likely to be dead.

Robert, Lori, and at least 100 volunteers stayed on the mountain for another seven days. Speculation deepened that Derrick had been abducted. On Dec. 18, 1998, sub-zero temperatures forced the Engebretsons to end the search, but every weekend for the next two years, Robert drove straight from his graveyard shift to the mountain, meeting Lori. They kept a map marking areas where they'd searched.

What happened to Derrick?

There was plenty of criticism of the search and rescue effort, as many believed authorities had been slow to get to the scene the night that Derrick disappeared. The search was not started for nearly five hours after the first 911 call by the passing motorist because the coordinator was reluctant to interrupt the Christmas dinner for the Klamath County Search and Rescue team's annual awards dinner at Mollie's restaurant until he was sure a rescue was warranted.

Robert and Bob both passed polygraphs, but some in the community were convinced that they may have murdered Derrick or been negligent in some way. Robert couldn't speak to his father. He blamed himself for not finding Derrick, but he blamed Bob for losing him. Bob Engebretson was too racked with guilt to even talk about it. Robert had taken a lot of time off work. At the same time, the couple had spent thousands of dollars searching for Derrick, paying for psychics and a boat to search Klamath Lake. Eventually, they went bankrupt.

Authorities insisted that Derrick had wandered off into the woods and died and that animals had scattered his remains. But the Engebretson family never really believed that, especially as no evidence, such as bones or torn clothing, had been found. This was supported by a witness who said he'd seen a man struggling with a boy along a nearby highway.

Then, in 1999, some graffiti was scrawled on a rest-area bathroom wall near Burns, which said Derrick had been killed and buried. But the FBI insisted it was a hoax. A boy named Derrick found in Texas under unusual circumstances, looked like the Engebretsons' son but proved to be someone else. A bone discovered in Pelican Butte in 2000 turned out to be from a deer after a wait of several days to confirm its identity.

The Frank J. Milligan connection

In late 2001, a handwritten letter arrived in the family mailbox. It said, "I know who took your son." On July 11, 2000, Frank J. Milligan, a 31-year-old state youth authority worker, approached a 10-year-old boy at a Dallas park and offered him $100 to mow his lawn. When the boy reached Milligan's car, the man asked, "Do you want to live or die?" Milligan bound the boy's hands with duct tape and then stopped the car just north of Salem and forced the boy to walk down a dirt road, and sexually assaulted him. Milligan choked the boy and pushed his face into the dirt so hard he blacked out. He cut the child's throat and left him for dead. But against the odds, the boy woke up, covered with blood and got to a road where a passing motorist stopped to help. At the time of the attack, Milligan was out on bail from the Clatsop County Jail, accused of a 1997 sexual attack on an 11-year-old boy in Seaside. Detectives tracked him down, and he eventually pleaded guilty in both cases. Months later, Milligan's cellmate wrote a letter to police and the Engebretsons saying that Milligan had confessed to abducting and killing Derrick. It arrived at the Engebretson home in late 2001.

An Oregon State Police detective who had investigated the Dallas case and others confronted Milligan. Milligan confessed to killing Derrick and agreed to lead detectives to the body.

Lori and Robert drove five hours to Silver Falls State Park southeast of Salem and waited as the FBI used ground-penetrating radar to scan for Derrick's bones. After several days of searching, they came up with nothing. But a Marion County assistant district attorney told the Engebretsons that Milligan had agreed to plead guilty to killing Derrick if they decided to spare him the death penalty. But when Milligan faced the paperwork a few days later, he refused to sign.

One theory was that the boy's hatchet would be in the lake if he had fallen in. If a hatchet were found in the sediment of the inlet, it could indicate that the boy died there. Portland diver Jeff Preece spent several hours carefully working through the shallow water using a metal detector designed to work underwater. He found several metal objects, including an oil filter and a metal road sign. But no hatchet.

Did Derrick die of cold or from an animal attack, as the Sheriff thought, or was he abducted by Frank J. Milligan or another pedophile? Or did something else happen on that fateful and sad December 1998? It's a mysterious case for sure.

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