Search for local man continues on land, water

Kris Fergerson, a 27-year-old single father from Lubec, has been missing since Tuesday, December 2. Reportedly, Fergerson was wrinkling, harvesting periwinkles for sale, near the Lubec Channel Lighthouse, known as the Sparkplug, with another wrinkler, Dennis Knox, 47, when he failed to return. An extensive search, involving two Coast Guard boats, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter, a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter, a Maine Marine Patrol boat, the Washington County Sheriff's Department, the Lubec Fire Department, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police saturated the area during the initial 17-hour search for Fergerson. The total search effort included more than 60 responders and covered 27 square nautical miles area, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

A large number of volunteers, from both sides of the border, took part in the search that so far has proven fruitless. And, in the small, tight-knit community that is Lubec, rumors began swirling almost immediately that Fergerson's disappearance was not what it seemed. Questions were raised about how a man as experienced as Fergerson could be caught by the tide; why his wrinkles, which would not have been carried away by the water, were not found; why Ferguson would be wrinkling on a poor tide, as occurred that night; why Knox did not realize that his friend was not with him when he came in off the flats.

Dennis Knox, who, with his pregnant girlfriend lived at Fergerson's trailer on the South Lubec Road, came to the U.S. Customs station at the foot of the Roosevelt Campobello International Bridge at about 10:30 p.m. on December 2 and said that Fergerson was missing. According to Knox, he and Fergerson had gone wrinkling on the flats off Lower Water Street. Both men were wearing headlamps, as wrinklers do when gathering after dark, and collected periwinkles until the tide turned.

Knox said that he told Fergerson he was going in and that he, Fergerson, should come in, too. When Knox arrived at his car, Fergerson was not behind him as expected. Knox went back to the shore and could hear Fergerson calling for help. Knox went to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection station, which is staffed 24 hours a day, and had a call made for help. He then returned to the beach where, he said, he could hear Fergerson calling for help. Deputy Jack Fuller was the first officer to arrive and, when he got there, could not hear any calls. He requested more assistance and began a search for the missing man. During the night and the next day, searchers combed the waters of the channel as well as the shoreline, examined the tidal flats where the two men were supposed to be wrinkling, and found no trace of Ferguson.

Aided by aircraft from the U.S. Coast Guard on Cape Cod and a helicopter from the Canadian Coast Guard in Nova Scotia, the waters were searched as far up the bay as Deer Island. At press time, four detectives from the Maine State Police were on scene, actively investigating Fergerson's disappearance.

Ferguson's mother, Donna Fergerson, who now lives in Bangor and is staying in town with family friends, confirmed that her son was an experienced wrinkler. "Kris has been doing wrinkles and clams since he was very young," she said. "They do night tides, day tides." Mary Stuart, with whom Donna is staying, lives at the beach end of Lower Water Street in a section of Lubec called Brownsville, adjacent to the area where Fergerson was supposed to be wrinkling. "Kris has been doing wrinkles quite a bit the last two weeks. They go out at night. I live next to the water here on Lower Water Street and that night was lit up -- I have never seen so many stars. There wasn't a big tide that night. As many times that Kris has been out on the mud flats, he knows what the tides are and what the water is like out there at night. Kris knows what the currents are there. He goes clamming, too. I know he knows where everything is out there." Several area clammers confirmed that they had been out clamming or wrinkling with Fergerson for many years.

Justin Doran, a Pleasant Point police officer and Lubec Fire Department volunteer, as well as a Lubec selectman, came out to help search on Tuesday night. He says he and Mark Greenlaw arrived on the scene about 10 minutes after the call went out. "We went down to search on the beach. We had spotlights with us, and we were going along the water. As the tide started receding around daylight, we searched the flats to find anything. We didn't have any luck whatsoever -- no footprints, no clothes, we didn't find any wrinkle bags -- kind of strange. If there had been a bag of wrinkles, it would still have been there by the time the tide came around again. We didn't find any clothing, anything."

Greenlaw, a guard at the Down East Correctional Facility in Bucks Harbor, said, "I don't know Kris' family well, but he has grown up doing that sort of thing, so he would have a pretty good idea about the mud flats. Justin and I noticed there seemed to be too few sets of footprints on the beach that night. From the number of trips Dennis said he made to and from his car, that did not add up to the sets of prints on the beach. Dennis did not seem to know where the Sparkplug was -- they were supposedly picking wrinkles up there next to the Sparkplug."

Greenlaw went on to describe Knox's demeanor. "Justin and I picked up Dennis on the beach, after he had gone to Customs to tell them that Kris was missing. To me, Dennis wasn't very shook up. I work down in the prison in Machiasport around stuff all the time. When stuff does happen, you react, your face shows emotion. That would happen. To me, it didn't seem to phase him or anything. I definitely smelled alcohol either on his clothes or on his breath. So he had been either drinking then or earlier. I suppose you don't have to be sober to go wrinkling, but then, I would want to be."

Deepening the mystery, police confirmed that Fergerson was caught on videotape at the Quik Stop, a local store, at 8:05 p.m. on the Tuesday night, in regular clothes and without his gear. The low tide was around 8 p.m., and generally wrinklers would be on the flats before the low tide, to maximize their time harvesting.

Friends of Fergerson say, although police have not confirmed, that he received and cashed a government check for more than $500 on the day he went missing, possibly from a compensation program for shellfishermen who were impacted by closures due to red tide. "Kris wouldn't go out wrinkling at night, on a short tide, if he had money in his pocket," said one friend.

The investigation being conducted appears to be inconsistent with the normal course of investigation for a drowning. Sergeant John Cote of the Maine State Police says, "There continues to be some concerns or the state police would have less involvement than we do." He says that local "gossip, speculation and rumors -- that is why we remain here to sort through it to get the facts."

Owner Jack Willson of the South Bay Campground, which faces onto Johnson's Bay, says, "The police were in here looking for a body [on Friday]. On the possibility of a live person, I said just drive in. I let them go. I said, I am not going to be the jerk who says you go get a warrant." Willson confirmed that Dennis Knox had been living at the campground before moving in with Fergerson, and that the police had searched, among other places, the area around Knox's camping site. He says, "My son told me that they found a hat, but I'll tell you what, if I could fill this woodstove with rumors..." The Maine State Police have also conducted aerial and ground searches at West Quoddy Head State Park.

Sheriff Donnie Smith confirms that Knox has been in jail "on a few occasions," but he did not have details of his convictions immediately available. Smith says, "If the body is in the water, we may never find Kris. The tides, the currents -- we had a man fall overboard in the harbor at Bucksport, and everyone said we would find him right away, but we never found him. You never know what happens in the tides."

Regarding the search and investigation, Smith adds, "I am very pleased with the response of Maine State Police CID [Criminal Investigation Division] and Maine Marine Patrol."

Justin Doran expresses his feelings about the failed search effort and the rumors around the town. "We were on a rescue mission -- no one stops to think, is this a rescue mission or a crime scene."

An old clammer and wrinkler, a family friend, looking out over the mud flats on the morning after tragedy, summed up the feelings of many in the community. "I just do not understand it. How this could have happened? Kris has been around the flats all his life. He knows the tides. He has clammed and wrinkled all his life."