Body of Missing Man, 71, Found in San Juan Field

The body of Dreyfus Gardner was found Tuesday in a brush-covered field, an area searched three times the previous day by his son and within sight of the San Juan Capistrano nursing home he wandered away from last week.

Orange County coroner’s officials said that Gardner, 71, probably died at about 11 p.m. Monday, only an hour or so after Ron Gardner last canvassed the vacant field between Calle Arroyo and the San Diego Freeway.

“He was right there underneath our noses,” said Ron Gardner, one of seven children who have used the San Juan Capistrano home of Gardner’s sister as a search headquarters since the elderly man’s disappearance early Thursday.

Gardner had moved into the Casa San Juan retirement home near San Juan Creek only about a week before his disappearance, which was first noticed when he failed to show up for breakfast Thursday morning.

The retirement home called police, and an areawide search was launched with sheriff’s deputies, family members and about 30 volunteers combing nearby hillsides and neighborhoods.

Family members distributed more than 3,000 flyers offering a $1,000 reward in an attempt to find Gardner. Sheriff’s deputies searched on foot, on horseback, by helicopter and by private plane.

Gardner had suffered periodic memory lapses since sustaining brain damage in an accident at a Reno mineral hot springs 10 years ago, his son said. The water became overheated and Gardner’s body temperature had reached 107 degrees, his son said. Gardner’s wife, in the water with him, died in that accident.

“I was just talking about this with the rest of my brothers and sisters,” Ron Gardner said. “We’re very thankful for the last 10 years that we had to spend with him. We had a second chance.”

Before moving to the retirement home, Gardner had lived for about three weeks at the home of his sister, Helen Lowe, in San Juan Capistrano. Before that, he had lived periodically with various other relatives in Southern California and Oregon for weeks and months at a time.

At the Casa San Juan facility, he was expected to be able to care for himself and had a key to the front door. “We were a little concerned about him being there, but (they) told us that the people there looked out for each other,” his niece, Helen Lowe, said earlier this week.

From the beginning of the search since his disappearance, family members felt “like we were only a few steps behind him,” said a daughter, Paula Story. Gardner had been spotted Thursday night at a San Juan Capistrano filling station.

Rapped on Door

Then, on Saturday night, a man believed to be Gardner rapped gently at the door of a mobile home about three miles from the retirement home. When Madaline Wagner demanded to know who he was, he muttered something that sounded like “gard . . . “and she slammed the window, fearing that he was inebriated.

“My heart is just broken, because I could have found him help immediately, had I known,” Wagner said this week.

On Monday night, a sheriff’s deputy distributed flyers and interviewed customers at a McDonald’s restaurant on Del Obispo Street, just across the freeway from where Gardner’s body was found.

Ron Gardner said he had searched the field where his father was found at least three times a night.

“My sister and my wife were both through there last night, and I drove probably 50 feet from where they found him, but it was a low spot, right up against the freeway, so I guess maybe I just didn’t see . . ., “ Gardner said.

Lt. Dick Olson, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, said that deputies searched the same field twice on Monday, calling off the search at about 8 p.m. and resuming it at 8 Tuesday morning.

An autopsy is scheduled for this morning, but coroner’s officials said there was no evidence of foul play. Dehydration is one of the most likely causes of death, Rick Plows, a coroner’s official, said.

Could Be Dehydration

“We can’t rule that in or out until we do an examination, but it surely could be (dehydration)--a man of his age missing for five days,” Plows said.

Gardner’s body was found about 50 yards east of the San Diego Freeway, and about a mile north of the retirement home, which is visible from the field, Olson said. “It appeared that he might very easily have been moving around, and possibly might have been following the freeway back to the residence there,” he added.

An area resident riding an all-terrain vehicle through the field spotted the body at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“I know there’s been a lot of time and effort put into this thing, and you always have the hopes that everything’s going to work out fine,” Olson said. “We’re certainly sorry it turned out this way.”