Body Is Identified as Missing Teacher’s

Dragging from a sinus infection, Diana Furry loaded up her car and headed to the New Age camping festival she hadn’t missed in 10 years, a weekend expo where she joined hundreds of people around bonfires and played her beloved African drum for hours without pause.

But officials believe Furry, 51, of Laguna Beach took a wrong turn on the way to this year’s event, which had outgrown its usual campsite near San Diego and was being held for the first time at Buckhorn Campground near Idyllwild.

Search crews confirmed Tuesday that a body they found Monday was that of Furry. The search had continued for more than a week after she was reported missing. The elementary-school teacher was discovered beneath a rock overhang a quarter-mile from where her car was abandoned in the San Bernardino National Forest.

The body showed no obvious signs of injury, officials said. An autopsy is scheduled for today. Furry, found barefoot and wearing shorts and a shirt, may have died of exposure, some speculated.

Her hat, purse and identification were found near her red Honda CRX, spotted a week after her Sept. 13 disappearance. It appears that the car became stuck in soft dirt on a rugged path about 11 miles off California 243.

An old sign at the foot of Black Mountain Road, directing visitors to a YMCA camp, likely prompted Furry to turn off the highway, officials said.

“It looks like she would’ve found the place if she had just continued up the highway another 10 miles or so,” Riverside County Sheriff’s Sgt. Mark Lohman said.

The rutted, curving road that Furry found herself navigating is intended only for four-wheel-drive vehicles, but her boyfriend, Robert Brown, said the woman he dated for five years would have plowed on, determined to reach the camp.

“She just loved it,” Brown said of the Whole Being retreat held twice a year. “I wasn’t sure she would make it this time because she said she wasn’t feeling well, but sure enough, she packed that drum in her car and went for it.”

A rocky road would not have stopped her, Brown said.

“She was there because she thought she could make it,” he said from his Claremont home Tuesday. “She was adventurous and trusting and probably wasn’t too concerned about it.”

Officials speculated that Furry abandoned her car and tried to walk toward the visible lights of Palm Springs.

She could have lost her footing in the dark and slipped down the steep slope nearby, landing in the rocky ravine where her body was found, according to search and rescue officials. “We believe she just became lost and disoriented,” search commander Dennis Keene said. “She was barefoot and unfamiliar with the area. It isn’t difficult to get turned around out here.”

Furry had planned to meet Brown at the festival but never showed. Co-workers became concerned when she failed to report for work Sept. 15 at Monte Vista Elementary School in Santa Ana, where she had taught for 14 years.

“When she didn’t phone in Monday, that has never happened before,” school Principal Helen Matthews said.

At Monte Vista on Tuesday, a team of five counselors and psychologists met with the 20 first- and second-grade students who had been in Furry’s class for the last six weeks.

Brown said Furry reached out to many people but especially loved her students, whom she referred to as her “little angels.”

She talked about them when the couple hiked together, and was always looking for more ways to connect to them and touch their lives, he said.

“She was such a beautiful woman,” Brown said. “She was a really giving person, not much for her herself but for others.”

A candlelight vigil will be held in Furry’s memory at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Main Beach in Laguna Beach.