An elite team of seven El Dorado County sheriff’s divers early last week went back to a tamer Cosumnes River in Outingdale to look for the body of Louis Hjerpe, who is presumed by his grieving family to be dead. An earlier attempt to search the river on June 9, some six days after the 22-year-old was reported missing, had been called off soon after divers went in due to savage conditions, the Cosumnes at the time swollen by recent rains and spring-melt snow.

But after scouring a mile-long stretch last Monday morning of the milder tempered but still rugged river, including the roiling hole that was thought by Mariel and Fred Hjerpe to be their missing son’s resting place — he wasn’t there, said the diver who went into the hole that remains fearsome.

Suspended by yellow nylon rope attached to gear handled by his buddies onshore monitoring his safety, the sheriff’s diver made several submerged searches in the hole. The rope bobbed and stretched as he became completely engulfed in the cavity, finally accessible in a river that just over a month ago was rushing a good 5 feet higher when divers first went in. That initial dive was made on a Friday; Louis was reported missing on June 3, a Saturday.

But even on this summer Monday with a light breeze playing through leaves above the river, the waterway still appeared dangerous to the untrained eye as the divers worked their way from upstream down toward the targeted hole. Sheriff’s Detective Ryan Lorey who has been a member of the dive team for 12 years told the Mountain Democrat the divers were starting above the suspected site so they could conduct a thorough area search without having to fight the current going back upstream.

They also intended to dive below that hole, a stretch where the Cosumnes sweeps past flat gravel bars before plunging into a canyon sided by dark granite walls.

If Louis has been swept downstream, his mother Mariel told the Democrat in an earlier interview, she thinks the only way to spy or access his remains would be with an aerial search.

The young man left his family home in the Sand Ridge Road area on a Saturday morning, on foot, and despite cursory sightings in the Outingdale area has not been seen since.

Mariel and Fred Hjerpe immediately feared for their son, who is bipolar and suffers from schizophrenia; he had refused his medications for several weeks, his mom told the newspaper then.

The couple called for help the day Louis went missing and El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies and other emergency personnel responded to the area, for days combing the wildlands and Outingdale community by horseback, on foot, using ATVs and even summoning a helicopter to fly over the rugged Cosumnes River canyon where its middle fork runs. Soaking rains late in the season, along with spring snow-melt, had rendered the Cosumnes a writhing morass, rocks and branches churning in its flow. Those conditions in early June prompted the dive team to be ordered back onshore when they first sought to search the hole, which they had reason to think was where the young man’s body might be trapped.

A pair of red sweatpants had been found submerged in the river not far from that hole and it is thought that Louis, wearing nothing but pants of that description when he left home, either walked purposely into the treacherous water or accidentally became its victim.

The hole sits not far from where the pants turned up and is also where a sheriff’s cadaver dog has “sparked” twice, indicating there could be a body there.

Fred and Mariel Hjerpe were so certain that their son lay in the river’s depths at that spot that the couple had gone public with their belief that Louis had perished, even though sheriff’s officials were not putting out that conclusion officially. The news last week that a painstaking search by a sheriff’s diver revealed that Louis’ remains were not in that hole was a shock to his parents, said Fred.

“The news is a devastating setback,” said Fred, told on Tuesday last week that the dive team had concluded Louis was not in the hole, the swirling purgatory that he and Mariel have often visited as they waited for its waters to recede.

The Hjerpes however were not there last Monday to observe the sheriff’s team work the hole that still simmered as though in dare, the river otherwise relatively smooth.

The sheriff’s dive team dared this day and after snorkeling through the upper reaches above the hole, sweeping small caves and large crannies, the diver with the rope attached lowered his body into the hole. A few moments later, not more than a minute, he came up with a startling find — a bone about the length of his forearm. It turned out to be a deer bone, the Mountain Democrat overheard one diver tell another.

The Democrat team perched above the river could hear the men calling to one another, making sure each remained safe. It wasn’t simply the cold snow-melt shoving its way through the gorge that presented dangers to the team; watching them jump from precarious heights off granite boulders down to bedrock at the river’s edge made it clear that traversing the various elements offered its own perils.

One diver was told by his buddy that a jump he was preparing to make might not be a good idea; the vantage from across the river made it easy to agree with the worried officer.

“I can do anything when I set my mind to it,” said the diver, his bright yellow-and-black diving suit flashing in the summer sun as he did, indeed, set his mind to it — landing with a jolt, none the worse.

That diver monitored the activity of another, a guy who was stretched out frog-like as he shimmied and shoved his way through a small opening leading into a cave in one of the huge gray boulders that line the Cosumnes, rocks that can’t decide whether they will be rounded and hugely imposing or jutting straight up with blades that tower over those below.

The small cave being searched, where ice-cold flowing water completely filled the passageway even after the river had dropped 5 or 6 feet since the initial search, is not a dive anyone with claustrophobia would enjoy. The diver came out the other side, indicated nothing was found and the pair of sheriff’s officers began reconnoitering their next move, on down the Cosumnes.

Back at the hole where Louis might lie, the diver secured to the floating rope came up again, talked with the guys onshore then went back under. Shortly a statement was heard, one of the divers on the bank, saying, “If you just lay flat, Johnny, we’ll hold ya.”

That reassurance was repeated once and after some more long minutes, the submerged diver came back out, indicating there was no sign of anyone in that hole.

Fred and Mariel later told the newspaper they didn’t know the divers were going to try again last Monday. The couple has trained their laser focus on the progress of the search, speaking regularly with those in charge, but weren’t informed of the latest diving search.

The next day, told that the hole they were almost certain was where their son’s remains would be found instead was deemed by the sheriff’s team as “eliminated” from that possibility, the news left them blindsided.

Fred said, “As the cadaver dogs had recently seemed to reconfirm the location of Louis’ remains, we were very hopeful he would be recovered when divers were able to get into the water.”

Fred Hjerpe later in the week would tell the paper that he had spoken with one of the dive team leaders who said the dogs trained to find deceased people will be brought back out to the spot to see whether they indicate again that something’s there.

Other steps that might be taken remain unclear, said Fred, but he indicated that sheriff’s personnel are trying to keep him and Mariel posted.

As the dive team left the hole behind but continued Monday morning to slowly work their way downstream, the men were seen carefully exploring any niche that presented possibilities. The Mountain Democrat team standing on a rock outcropping on the opposite side, high above the river with a clear view of the haunting hole, prepared to leave. As camera gear was grabbed, it was noticed that the blond grass that covers much of the cliff was lying flat and broken, creating a sort of trail that surely must have been made under the soles of Mariel and Fred Hjerpe’s shoes on their many treks to this very spot.

Walking up the tricky lichen-and-twig covered rocks to head back to the road that winds through Outingdale, a last look at the river revealed faded, orange ribbons dangling from tree branches on the other side of the Cosumnes, just down from the forsaken hole. A breeze sent them ruffling for attention, prompting the idea that perhaps the streamers were tied there to signal searchers in June that they were in the right place.

Mariel and Fred were certain that it was the right place too, hoping to get beyond this stage in their grief. But their nightmare continues, with impossibly painful questions remaining unanswered.

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