Search teams looking for a Texas couple that’s been missing for six days following an intense storm and widespread flooding June 21 have recovered a pair of men’s pants, with keys and wallet inside them, and a woman’s rain jacket, downstream from where their off-highway vehicle was found on the rugged Steel Bender Trail.
The findings don’t bode well for Ray Ankofski, 58, and Maranda Ankofski, 50, after an exhaustive search has thus far been unsuccessful.
“We have four dog teams currently with Search and Rescue,” said Sheriff Jamison Wiggins. “We’ve covered ground from where we found their UTV to the Colorado River, through town, and up to Mill Creek.”
Clues, said Wiggins, have been sparse. In addition to Ray Ankofski’s pants and the contents in them and Maranda Ankofski’s rain jacket, searchers also found OHV parts that likely went to their OHV. The truck and trailer were at the trailhead and a caller notified the sheriff’s office that it had been abandoned. That call on Tuesday prompted an immediate search.
Wiggins said there are indications the couple crossed Mill Creek before the flash flood hit. They saw signs the Ankofskis had to turn around at one point and they followed the tracks back to the creek. “We lost their tracks at the creek crossing,” said Wiggins, which led searchers to believe they were swept downstream, where the items belonging to the couple were found.
While he didn’t say the search has gone from rescue to recovery, Wiggins did say that the couple’s bodies could be covered up by mud or trapped in a “strainer,” the name given to the debris that clings to trees after a flood.
“It’s debris and logs and them more debris and more logs wrapped around about 200 trees,” said the sheriff, adding it isn’t uncommon for strainers to weigh a few tons.
Search postponed at noon
Due to a flood watch warning in effect today, June 27, Wiggins said searchers have been ordered to return to town at noon. “I don’t want anyone from Search and Rescue out there if it floods again,” he said.
Also, the dogs and their handlers came from other agencies in Cache and Utah counties and Mesa County, Colorado. They have to return to their home bases today, Wiggins said.
About the couple
The Ankofskis were visiting Moab from Pearlton, Texas, for the third time in three years, according to social media posts.
Judy Lamb, a sister, told ABC 13 that they’re “big outdoors people who have ample experience hiking, camping, and riding utility terrain vehicles.”
Maranda is an elementary school teacher and Ray is a used car director at a car dealership.
“My parents were 2 amazing people doing something they loved and we are devastated that this is the current circumstances,” wrote their daughter in a GoFundMe to support the search.
Andrew Christiansen contributed to this report.