Mystery Man Jumps From 10,000 Feet : Notary, Cameramen See No Parachute as He Leaps From Plane

A well-dressed man hired a wedding chapel notary and two video cameramen to accompany him on a chartered late-night flight, then jumped out of the plane at an altitude of 10,000 feet as the horrified witnesses watched, police said today.

“We are convinced he did this thing as a stunt,” Las Vegas Metro Police Lt. Paul Conner said. “From watching videotape of the incident we feel this guy was some type of an entertainer.”

Conner said the mystery man rented a plane at a private Las Vegas airport Monday night, then jumped out over rugged mountainous terrain midway between the city and Hoover Dam.

“I just couldn’t believe it was happening,” said Charlotte Richards, the notary who was sitting next to the man when he jumped. “He just opened up the door on the right side of the plane and just fell out of the plane.”

Richards said she patted the man on the back seconds before he jumped and was fairly certain he wasn’t wearing a parachute.

“If he’s committed suicide, what a horrible thing to experience,” she said. “If he did it as a hoax, he better not reappear around me.”

Police using a helicopter and land vehicles searched unsuccessfully Tuesday for the man, who said he was a 35-year-old doctor from Germany.

Homicide detectives working the case confiscated the videotapes and questioned witnesses. Conner refused to allow the media to view the videotapes.

Richards said the man, who identified himself as Dr. Joe Harmns, approached her in the wedding chapel she owns in Las Vegas last week and asked for the services of a notary. Thinking he planned an airborne wedding, she agreed.

Before the plane took off, the man stood with a microphone before the plane and identified himself, her and the pilot before the camera.

“He had everyone sit in certain places,” she recalled. “We took off and he was looking out of the plane continuously. Then he sat down and took off his watch and handed it to me. The next thing I know, he said ‘Will you marry me?’ ”

The wedding chapel owner said she laughed and patted the man on the back.

“It was real spooky,” she said. “After a moment he said ‘I don’t know if I have enough time.’ He just sort of opened the door and fell out of the plane.”