UPDATE: Family members told WTHR that Ronnie and Beverly Barker have been found. Ronnie Barker is deceased and Beverly Barker is alive and has been hospitalized.
The couple was located Tuesday evening on a mountain west of Silver Peak, family members told WTHR.
Read the original story below.
Authorities are scouring the Nevada desert for an Indianapolis couple that family members say vanished along with their recreational vehicle somewhere between Las Vegas and Reno 10 days ago.
Ronnie Barker, 72, and Beverly Barker, 69, were en route from Albany, Oregon, to Tucson, Arizona, when they went missing on March 27, The Indianapolis Star reported.
“They have vanished, literally, into thin air,” the couple’s daughter, Jennifer Whaley, told WTHR.
The Barkers were driving a 2015 Forest River Sunseeker RV with an Indiana license plate and towing a 2020 Kia Soul at the time of their disappearance, the TV station reported.
Esmeralda County Sheriff Kenneth Elgan told the Indy Star on Tuesday that deputies are “actively searching” for the couple.
“The county north of us has a helicopter up flying today. The county south of us has search and rescue teams out in some of their rural areas. We had a helicopter fly Saturday that pretty much covered the majority of our county,” Elgan told the newspaper.
“We have 3,500 square miles and a population of just 1,000 people in Esmeralda County. There’s a lot of wide-open spaces and a lot of area to cover,” he added.
Whaley told WTHR that her parents’ RV was last seen at 6:05 p.m. March 27, along Highway 95 near Luning, Nevada.
“It was caught on a home surveillance camera going down 95,” she told the TV station, noting that their cellphones pinged off local towers for the last time shortly after that footage was recorded.
“The last hard ping was in Coledale, which is south of Luning,” Whaley told WTHR.
Anyone with information regarding the Barkers’ disappearance is asked to contact the family with tips and sightings at findronandbev@gmail.com, the Indy Star reported.
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