Mystery surrounds case of missing Marine

published on Thursday, November 4, 2004 10:59 PM MST

By NICK GEVOCK, Chronicle Staff Writer

A Madison County sheriff's deputy piecing together the mysterious trail of a missing U.S. Marine whose vehicle was found abandoned in the Gravelly Mountains last month has unearthed a few clues, he said Thursday.

Staff Sgt. James Wheeler, 38, was severely depressed, struggled with a drinking problem and may be suicidal, Sheriff Deputy Dan Birdsill, who is leading the investigation, said Thursday.

In addition, the U.S. Marine Reserves had classified Wheeler a deserter in September, 30 days after he disappeared from a base in West Virginia.

Yet Birdsill, who led a search of the area around Wheeler's abandoned vehicle with a dog last week, has yet to determine just what happened.

"We just don't have anything solid to say we're pretty sure this is what happened," he said.

Wheeler, 38, checked in with his Marine Reserve unit in Charleston, W.Va., in late August, Capt. Patrick Kerr, spokesman for the Marine Reserves, said in a telephone interview from New Orleans. Wheeler had moved to West Virginia from Massachusetts and told his commanders he was going to find a place to live.

"They never saw him again," Kerr said. "The next thing we know his vehicle was found in Madison County, Montana."

He was classified a deserter in late September after he was missing for longer than 30 days.

But Wheeler's mother Ellen Wrede said her son had been in the Marines for 20 years, served in Afghanistan and Iraq and planned to re-enlist when his contract was completed in early October.

She said her son was not trying to get out of military service.

"He was very upset about not being able to go to Iraq, because he thought he was better trained than many of the people who were going," she said in a telephone interview.

In addition, her son's friends told her that he had slipped into a deep depression and had recently sold and given away many of his valuables.

Those are some of the telltale signs that someone is contemplating suicide, Wrede said.

Clearly, Wheeler had some problems in his personal life, Birdsill said.

Wheeler had a drinking problem, for which the military had sent him to alcohol treatment, Birdsill said. Yet it appears that he was drinking again. Officers found an empty whiskey bottle in the abandoned vehicle.

Wheeler had also been drawing married pay, even though he divorced in 1998, Birdsill said. But the military was going to allow Wheeler to pay back the money.

In October, U.S. Forest Service rangers received reports of a red Geo Tracker parked near Crockett Lake, about a half-mile off the Gravelly Range Road, but hadn't investigated because they thought it belonged to a bow hunter.

After the Madison County Sheriff's Department determined that the vehicle had been in the same place for quite some time, deputies searched it on Oct. 25.

The vehicle contained an expensive shotgun, military fatigues and uniforms and a sleeping bag.

There were also a few clips from a 9 mm pistol and M-16 rifle, a laptop computer and some food, Birdsill said. The keys were still in the ignition, the doors were unlocked and the vehicle started right away.

Search-and-rescue volunteers plan to search the cabins and old homesteads in a broad area of the southern Gravellys.

In addition, they're chasing a few tips that have trickled in since Wheeler's disappearance, including a Helena man's discovery of a pair of hiking boots sitting on a pile of rocks last week in the Black Butte area.

Nick Gevock is at ngevock@dailychronicle.com

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