Truck Abandoned in Hills 2 Weeks Ago : Searchers Find No Sign of Architect

The white curtain of mist that was stubbornly smothering the mountain pass between the San Fernando and Simi valleys suddenly lifted Saturday morning.

But the veil of mystery that has surrounded the fate of a missing Agoura Hills landscape architect for more than two weeks just as stubbornly refused to lift Saturday for more than 40 volunteer searchers scouring the pass.

A privately organized Reseda search team was joined by Explorer scouts and friends of Geoffrey Bennett in a hunt between Chatsworth and Simi Valley for the father of three.

Truck Found Abandoned

Bennett, 40, disappeared Jan. 15. His pickup truck was found abandoned the next day on the Simi Valley Freeway’s Rocky Peak off-ramp at the top of the Santa Susana Pass. His keys were locked inside along with his wallet, which was filled with cash and credit cards.

Puzzled by the discovery, sheriff’s deputies from both Ventura and Los Angeles counties searched the rocky mountain pass bisected by the county line.

A helicopter was used to check the dozens of steep, sandstone-sided box canyons in the area. A pair of bloodhounds scrambled up fire roads and through meadows, searching for Bennett’s scent on the ground.

No sign of Bennett was found, however. In desperation, friends and family members on Friday called the Citizens Emergency Mobile Patrol, which organized Saturday’s search.

His friends searched for an explanation for the disappearance as they looked for him in gullies and caves after Saturday’s fog lifted.

They said Bennett was a fitness buff who liked to hike and jog and had done so before in the Rocky Peak area. Such an outing could have led him into a secluded canyon or valley, where he could have slipped and fallen into one of several hidden crevices, they speculated.

But they also said he was a loner who possessed survival skills sufficient to enable him to live in the wilds. And they said he was recently troubled by the breakup of his marriage.

“He could go off by himself and be comfortable,” said Bill Landers, a 38-year-old Agoura television engineering director and longtime friend of Bennett.

“When he got separated, he talked about the problems of life. We went skiing in December. But he stopped calling in January.”

Landers said Bennett could “get away and hide and it would be damned hard to find him” if he wanted to disappear in the Rocky Peak area.

Checked Caves and Stream Beds

The searchers divided into groups and checked under cliffs and in stream beds. They peered into caves and searched several lean-to rock houses they discovered in a 14-square-mile area on the north side of the freeway.

Search team leader Leonard Sharp, 44, a sales manager at a Sepulveda welding company, said that a rope similar to one found in Bennett’s truck was recovered from brush a few hundred yards from the freeway.

In the same area, searchers also found phone book yellow pages that resembled pages found in the vehicle.

But at nightfall, the mystery of Bennett’s whereabouts still engulfed the mountaintop as searchers headed for home.