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MURRAY -- An ill-fated search for a legendary gold mine in the rugged Arizona wilderness last summer left three Utah men missing and a mother wondering what happened to her son.
And since a hiker last weekend found the skeletal remains of two men presumed to be part of that trio of prospectors, Carol Merworth is still wondering.
"I've gone through a lot of stress," she said Wednesday. "We've cried and everything else. I want to find my son. I was hoping he was going to be alive but it doesn't look like he is."
We've cried and everything else. I want to find my son. I was hoping he was going to be alive but it doesn't look like he is.
–Carol Merworth
Her son, Curtis Merworth, 49, and two companions Malcom Meeks, 47, and Ardean Charles, 66, disappeared last July while hunting for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine in the Superstition Mountains about 40 miles east of Phoenix. The three were not well prepared for the planned three-day trek and two of them had medical conditions, she said. Temperatures that week soared into triple digits.
Maricopa County sheriff's officials are awaiting forensic and dental reports on the remains, said detective Aaron Douglas. But, he said, there is some indication the bodies belong to two of three missing men but declined to reveal anything specific. The sheriff's office isn't releasing further information until it receives "100 percent confirmation" of their identities, he said. Merworth said Arizona authorities have contacted families of the two men but have not called her. "That makes me mad," she said.
She understands one of the bodies has gray hair matching that of Charles, an American Indian, and the other black hair matching that of Meeks, an African-American. Her son has brown hair, she said. Charles rented a room in Merworth's Murray home and Meeks is a neighbor of her son's in Salt Lake City.
"I'm glad they found them," she said. "I just wish they could hurry and find Curtis now."
Douglas said the sheriff's office intends to send out its search-and-rescue team this week in hopes of finding a third body. The area is filled with steep canyons, rocky outcroppings, cactus and heavy brush.
"They wanted to get rich," Merworth said.
Curtis Merworth had to be rescued in the same area last year when he got lost and called for help on his cell phone. He was hospitalized with dehydration.
On this trip, she said, the three left Utah with sleeping bags, some food and six jugs of water. They planned to camp or sleep in the car. They did not take a cell phone. Merworth said she last saw her son the day he headed to Arizona.
"I didn't want him to go. I had a premonition. God told me if he went, he's not coming back. I begged him not go. But he went," she said.
The men's vehicle was found at a trailhead in Lost Dutchman State Park on July 11, about a week after they were due home. Rescuers scoured the mountains on horseback and by helicopter for six days before the searing heat forced them to scale back and eventually call off the search.
The Lost Dutchman mine has drawn prospectors of all kinds for more than a century. Fabled as a mother lode mined by a Mexican family in the 1840s before being lost, it was supposedly rediscovered by a German immigrant named Jacob Waltz and a partner in the 1870s.
The partner was killed by Indians (or possibly Waltz himself, according to a history on the state park website). Waltz purportedly hid stashes of gold before returning to Phoenix, where he died in 1891. Searchers have tried in vain to find the mine ever since.
Merworth said she doesn't have the means to bury her son. She set up a memorial fund at Credit Union One, 3226 S. Main, in Salt Lake City. The branch also has cans on the counter for patrons to donate.
E-mail: romboy@desnews.com
