Alzheimer’s Victim Sought; Missing 3 Weeks

John F. Ward is an avid hiker and nature lover who could still scramble up a crooked mountain trail with the best of them, even after Alzheimer’s disease began to whittle away his memory about 5 1/2 years ago, according to his wife.

On Aug. 31, the retired civil servant, over objections from his wife, walked out of the house on a six-mile trek from his home in the 20000 block of Lassen Street to the Big 5 sporting goods store on Topanga Canyon Boulevard to buy a new pair of hiking shoes.

“I wanted to drive him there, but he is a big guy, and I couldn’t stop him from leaving,” said Simone Ward, his wife of 45 years. “He knew his world was shrinking. He knew he could get lost, but that wasn’t a deterrent for him.”

Ward, 68, never made it to the store, and except for one possible sighting, he has not been seen or heard from since he left his home that afternoon, authorities said Monday.

“If we ever get him back, we will never let him out of our sight again, that’s for sure,” Simone said.

Since he disappeared, Simone Ward has tried everything she could think of to try to find him--from posting 1,500 flyers across communities in the west San Fernando Valley to renting a helicopter to conduct her own airborne search of the hills to climbing into her own car and traveling the rugged fire roads of Brown’s Canyon, in the Santa Susana Mountains north of the Simi Valley Freeway.

The couple’s sons also have led volunteer searches into the canyon on several occasions to find their father, she said.

At first, when the case received some notice in the news media, the LAPD’s Devonshire station received a flurry of phone calls about possible sightings, but those have tailed off to nothing, said Officer Bill Wallach.

To complicate matters, an equestrian who may have seen Ward provided information to the Police Department that was not acted on until six days later, when the missing persons detective assigned to the case returned from vacation to find a note on his desk.

Los Angeles Police Detective Alex Valadez acknowledges the delay in responding to the information, but says that the witness information isn’t as reliable as Simone Ward would like to believe and that he’s done everything in his power to locate the missing man.

The rider described the man she saw sleeping next to a path in Brown’s Canyon on Sept. 1, Valadez said. He wore an aqua blue sweat shirt and khaki shorts, which matched the description of the clothes John Ward was wearing when he left his home, but she couldn’t remember whether the man was bearded.

“She thought it was a bit strange, but she said, ‘Hi, how are you doing?’ ” as she approached the man, Valadez said. “The man said, ‘Fine,’ and she rode on.” She thought he was just a hiker taking a nap, Valadez said.

The detective spent the next three days after he got the note combing the canyon on foot, with search and rescue teams and canine teams, contacting ranchers to let them know about Ward’s disappearance. One night, authorities used helicopters equipped with a night vision apparatus to scour the hillsides for any sign of the missing man.

“I realize that this is something the family wants us to do more on, but sometimes you reach a point of ‘Where do you go from here?’ ” Valadez said.

This isn’t the first time that John Ward has wandered away from his home, but it is only the second time he has wandered away for more than just a few hours, his wife said.

Ward, who at 6 feet, 2 inches and 210 pounds, is still a strong, healthy man despite having Alzheimer’s, disappeared about a year ago. By the time authorities found him, he had walked 25 miles to Magic Mountain, presumably down Malibu Canyon Road, in about 19 hours, Simone Ward said.

“He could walk four miles in one hour without any problem,” she said.

Last Sunday, Simone drove 200 miles to Cambria, where the couple own a summer home, on the outside chance that he might have gone there.

Since he was stricken with the disease, Simone Ward said, her husband has wandered away from the house about eight times.

“It’s like unlearning,” she said, explaining his disease. “There have been times when I have asked him to water the back yard, and he would have to ask, ‘Where’s the back yard?’ ”

Simone has had help besides the Police Department in the search for her missing husband, and she is grateful for all of it.

The Woodland Hills printer who took her order for flyers ran off the first 1,000 free of charge, she said. And the Van Nuys Airport helicopter service tore up a check for almost $700 after she chartered the aircraft to search the canyon for her husband.

“There have been so many people. . . . They kinda get you going when you’re down on your hope,” she said. “They kinda spur you on.”