PHOENIX, OREGON — Dennis Day showed up on his friend’s front porch one Sunday last summer. He needed help.

Day told his friend, Kirk Pederson, that he had something to report to police in the small Rogue Valley town.

The police station was closed that day, so the two planned to go the following morning, Pederson recalled in a recent interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

They never did.

The July 15, 2018, encounter appears to be one of the last times anyone would see Day, a larger-than-life character who rose to early acclaim as an original member of TV’s “The Mickey Mouse Club.”

Nine months later in April, a specially trained search dog found a decomposed body in Day’s rundown house at the end of a gravel road near the city cemetery.

Only last month did investigators confirm the dead man was the missing 76-year-old.

Oregon State Police wouldn’t disclose information about Day’s cause of death or how he was overlooked inside an 1,800-square-foot residence that had been searched multiple times by a Phoenix police lieutenant. They cited an ongoing death investigation but wouldn’t say if they suspected foul play.

The silence only added to the mystery.

Then, last week, the local police arrested three people with ties to Day.

On Friday, state police accused one of them in his death: Day’s live-in handyman, a 36-year-old with a lengthy rap sheet.

Daniel James Burda

Daniel Burda faces charges of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree abuse of a corpse and identity theft, among other felony crimes, police said.

State police said the investigation is ongoing and declined to comment further after Burda’s arrest.

Pederson said he was the one who introduced the handyman to Day. Pederson isn’t a person of interest in Day’s death.

The Oregonian/OregonLive has captured a fuller picture of Day and the days before he vanished through interviews, court records and a review of media coverage as the search for the missing Mouseketeer unfolded.

Many details remain elusive.

Day’s troubling end touches on the transience of fame, the vulnerabilities of growing old in poverty and the contraction of community as connections fade away.

His Disney popularity made an indelible impression on a generation and ultimately helped marshal attention to his disappearance.

Yet Day was so much more, friends and family said.

“Dennis spent his entire life coloring outside the lines,” Pederson said.

‘HE CHANGED MY LIFE’

Decades before he vanished, Dennis Day was known to millions who grew up in a postwar America in front of their living room’s black-and-white television sets.

His talent as a child actor and entertainer in California had landed him a role on “The Mickey Mouse Club” when it first aired in 1955. Bright-eyed and impish, he tap-danced, played banjo and bantered beside the star, Annette Funicello.

Dennis Day

Day spent only two years wearing mouse ears and a white sweater emblazoned with his first name. But the role would help shape the rest of his life, a fact that Day reflected on as bittersweet.

“I have to say I owe a lot to the experience; my whole life has been influenced by it. But now that it’s too late, I know I should never have been in television,” he told Rolling Stone in a 1971 profile. “I don’t know what else I should have done. Maybe grown up with my family like a kid.”

He set off on different path as an adult.

During his 20s and early 30s, Day immersed himself in California’s burgeoning counterculture scene and lived openly as a gay man. He produced musicals, taught community dance and drama and managed a head shop in Los Angeles.

He later decamped to the Bay Area and became a fixture in renaissance festivals, including the Renaissance Pleasure Faire — one of the nation’s oldest and most renowned. Day donned period dress and played outrageous characters. He mentored actors and directed plays.

“It was in those rehearsals that he changed my life,” said Sylvia McRae, who began performing with a renaissance troupe led by Day in 1973. She now lives in Australia and spoke with The Oregonian/OregonLive by phone.

It was during the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, an annual festival filled with costumed characters set in Victorian London, that he met the love of his life.

Mouseketeer Dennis Day at the Great Dickens Christmas Fair. Date unknown.Courtesy of Rosanne Reynolds / "Help Us Find Dennis Day"

Henry “Ernie” Caswell had several inches and nearly a dozen years on Day. He spoke five languages and managed performers. He also was a priest within the Christ Catholic Church, a small denomination that merged independent Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions in the U.S.

After several years together, Day and Caswell left in the 1980s for southern Oregon, which was more affordable. They lived in trendy Ashland for a while but eventually settled down nearby in Phoenix, a much less fashionable town of 4,500 people just south of Medford.

The men earned a modest living making wine jellies, jams and chutneys at their home on North Pine Street near the middle of the city. They married in 2013.

Day also worked at the Harry & David plant in Medford packaging the company’s popular gift baskets and loved to frequent rummage sales on the weekends. Caswell sang in the Rogue Valley Gay Men’s Chorus.

For years, the two volunteered on political campaigns and championed progressive causes. That’s how they first met Pederson, 62, who would become one the couple’s closet companions.

The longtime friend recalled how Day and Caswell’s vibrant personalities stood out. They loved going to Home Town Buffet, an all-you-can-eat chain, clad in the most elaborate attire they could find.

Caswell, over 6-feet-tall and close to 300 pounds, was fond of a red velvet fedora with a leopard-print band. Day, who reminded Pederson of a playful leprechaun, loved flashy jackets, men’s and women’s alike.

“Those two could turn a few heads,” Pederson said.

But their advancing age and limited financial means began to take a toll. They ventured outside their home less and Day became especially reclusive. Caswell, now in his late 80s, struggled with a series of health problems, including battles with colon cancer, diabetes and short-term memory loss, according to police and Pederson.

Their single-story house, painted a funky shade of purple and tucked away from street view, fell into disrepair.

Boxes of tchotchkes that Day had amassed at sales piled up in every room. Grime accumulated in corners and counter surfaces. Cats and dogs they kept as pets would urinate or defecate inside.

They stopped cooking and largely relied on Meals on Wheels to eat.

Then Caswell began to suffer falls inside the home. Sometimes, he couldn’t get up and Day was unable to help him. In those instances, Day would call 911 for assistance.

Dennis Day and his husband Henry "Ernie" Caswell together in a photo taken around 2008.Courtesy of Rosanne Reynolds / "Help Us Find Dennis Day" Facebook page

Authorities wouldn’t disclose the number of times that emergency responders visited the couple’s home. But dispatch logs published on Twitter by Emergency Communications of Southern Oregon, the area’s 911 call center, show 28 calls for service since 2015.

The last three of those calls came on July 13, 2018, the logs show. According to police, Caswell had fallen several times that Friday and was eventually taken to a hospital in Medford and never returned home.

Two days later, Day arrived at Pederson’s place, a secluded property several miles outside Phoenix and in the foothills of the Siskiyou Mountains. Pederson said he didn’t recall seeing Day’s car parked in the long driveway, but is certain Day must have driven to the house.

Standing on the front porch, as Pederson remembers it, Day said he had been knocked to the ground by his handyman.

“He said, ‘I need your help getting Dan out of my house,’” Pederson recalled.

DAY BECAME DISTRESSED

Pederson said he was the one who had introduced the handyman to Day and his husband.

About five years before, Pederson said, he had hired Daniel Burda to do odd jobs around his own 3 ½-acre property. Burda would haul leaves and brush and help with other projects as needed.

When Day and Caswell began to need more regular help around their home, their friend would pay for the handyman to tend to their yard and remove junk for them. Burda would do a day’s work for $100, Pederson said, and was reasonably reliable in an area where a good laborer was hard to come by.

But Burda also had problems. Court records show he has an extensive criminal history in Oregon, including convictions for robbery, assault and trespassing. He started using methamphetamine in 2017, according to police and court records.

He told police in January 2018 that a girlfriend was “possessed by spirits” after they arrested him on suspicion of strangling her, a probable cause affidavit alleges.

In May, according to Phoenix police, Burda began to sometimes board at Day and Caswell’s home. He continued to do work for them in exchange for a place to stay.

Day didn’t like having Burda in their home, Caswell would later tell police. Things were sometimes fraught. Day would become distressed.

Then, Pederson said, Day came to him and claimed Burda had hurt him.

Because it was a weekend, Pederson told Day that they could go to the Phoenix Police Department when it opened the following morning. They finished talking and Pederson watched his friend leave. Day had said he had to run some errands at Walmart.

He’d never see Day again.

‘SOMETIMES PEOPLE JUST UP AND LEAVE’

Neither would Caswell.

After his fall, Day’s husband had been taken to Providence Medford Medical Center and then transferred to a nearby assisted living facility.

Day never came to visit. Medical staff contacted Phoenix police and asked them to run by the couple’s house and see if Day was OK, according to police and Pederson.

Dennis Day and Ernie Caswell's home in Phoenix, Oregon.

Officers came to house and there was no answer at the door, said Lt. Jeff Price, who oversaw the missing persons case for the department. The officers left and later spoke with Caswell.

Caswell told them Day had mentioned he might leave for a couple of days, but he didn’t know where his husband intended to go or whether Day planned to travel with anyone, Price said.

Police returned to the home on July 27, 10 days after the first visit and 12 days after Day disappeared. It isn’t clear what efforts they made that day but they didn’t find Day.

That’s when Price put out a check for any vehicles that belonged to the missing man.

Day’s car turned up more than 130 miles away. Oregon State Police records show troopers had impounded Day’s 1996 Ford Escort off a rural highway in Coos County the day before.

A man and a woman from the Medford area had been in the car when a state trooper contacted them along Oregon 42, police said. The woman, Lori Declusin, told the trooper that she was borrowing the car from her friend Dennis Day, Price said.

Declusin, whose arrests in Jackson County have included charges of drug possession and theft, was cited for driving with a suspended license, court records show.

Months later, Declusin would tell Phoenix police she had stolen the car from Day’s home after going there with Burda and a female friend several days before she was stopped by the trooper, according to Price.

She told police that Burda had begun using methamphetamine at the home and that his erratic behavior frightened her and the friend, so they took the car and left, Price said. Declusin said she had never seen Day.

Price met with Caswell the day he learned about the impounded car and asked if Caswell wanted to list Day as missing. He did. But Caswell, due to his short-term memory loss, was unable to provide basic details about his husband, such as the names of friends or relatives or even the type of clothes that Day wore, Price said.

Near the end of July, police finally contacted Burda, according to Price.

He told them he last saw Day leaving home on July 15 on foot with his dog, Price said.

Ernie Caswell, June 2019.Janet Eastman

Burda repeated what Day’s husband had told police: Day, who had gotten to the point of rarely leaving the house, had planned to visit friends for a couple of days, Price said.

“Even after having Dennis entered as a missing person, I still could not be certain that he was voluntarily missing or involuntarily missing,” Price told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email. “Sometimes people just up and leave, which is not illegal.”

But Pederson said the story that police reported getting had just one problem.

“Dennis didn’t have any friends that he’d go to visit,” Pederson said. “There’s absolutely nobody that would fit that description.”

‘NOBODY BUT US WAS GOING TO DO IT’

Additional leads were hard to come by the rest of last summer and into fall. The weather cooled, as did the investigative trail.

Price connected with Pederson, but never found any other friends or acquaintances of the couple in the area. He said he couldn’t locate any of Day’s relatives, despite attempts to do so.

The missing man’s debit card hadn’t been used.

Searches inside the recovered car and the couple’s home turned up no evidence of a crime or foul play, according to Phoenix police.

Price combed through Day and Caswell’s residence on multiple occasions, looking through cabinets, drawers, a chest freezer and even the home’s attic and crawl space, he said.

Dennis Day and Ernie Caswell's home in Phoenix, Oregon.

At least once, Phoenix police received a report of a “bad smell” coming from the home.

An officer who responded on Aug. 8, more than three weeks after Day was last seen, reported encountering no bad odor and nothing unusual in the area, according to police. Police did not say whether the officer went into the home.

Pederson said he also spent many Sundays inside the couple’s house going through boxes and removing junk.

“The odor of cat piss and excrement was everywhere,” he said. “The place smelled something awful.”

While a photo and description of Day appeared online on the state police missing persons list, authorities did little else to publicize the case.

Slowly, however, word of Day’s disappearance began to reach those who knew him, especially during his time working with renaissance fairs in the Bay Area.

Phoenix police in August had reached out to a woman known to Day from that period, who then began to share the news with other people. Friends who hadn’t seen or spoken with Day or Caswell in many years grew concerned and decided to get involved.

Among them were Sylvia McRae, Day’s friend now living in Australia, and Rosanne Reynolds, who also had performed with him from years ago.

The pair created a Facebook group in late October to bring far-flung acquaintances of the missing man together and to provide updates about the case.

A missing person poster made for former Mouseketeer Dennis Day and distributed in southern Oregon.Courtesy of Rosanne Reynolds / "Help Us Find Dennis Day" Facebook page

Worried about the approaching winter months and what they perceived as a waning interest by law enforcement, McRae and Reynolds grew determined to get the story of Day’s disappearance out into the world.

“It rapidly became apparent that nobody but us was going to do it,” McRae said. The friends put together a press release and began contacting local news outlets.

It wasn’t until December that the first story ran in the Medford Mail Tribune. Shortly after, a nephew of Day’s living in Roseburg spotted a local television news report about his missing uncle.

Day’s family, most of whom live in California and weren’t in regular contact with him or Caswell, joined the search.

Amid the sudden and growing publicity, Price called in additional resources. His department has just nine sworn officers, none of them detectives, according to a copy of its organizational chart.

“After five months of having absolutely no evidence pointing towards foul play, no direction to look where Dennis may have traveled willfully, very little to no information of relatives or close friends, or medical history, I reached out to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and Oregon State Police,” Price said.

Both agencies later assigned a detective to assist Phoenix police with the case.

‘WE HAD NO IDEA ANYTHING WAS HAPPENING’

In late February, Day’s disappearance became national news.

A story had just published on the “Dateline NBC” website and featured his sister, Nelda Adkins, of Coalinga, California, and her daughters.

“We are devastated. We had no idea anything was happening and six months into it, we figured it out. We should have been notified,” Dennis’s niece, Denise Woolsey Norris, told “Dateline.”

A slew of other articles about the missing Mouseketeer, appearing in publications from FoxNews.com to the Hollywood Reporter, followed. The case also appeared in an hourlong segment of The Vanished Podcast, which spoke with Price, Pederson and Adkins, among others.

Frustrated by how the case had been handled, the family tried at one point to raise money on GoFundMe to hire a private investigator. Reached by Facebook and in person, Day’s sister and nieces declined to speak with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

As the stories continued, hundreds of people flocked to the “Help Us Find Dennis Day” Facebook group started by McRae and Reynolds. Dozens reminisced about the man.

“He encouraged me and challenged me and loved me. He taught me great lessons with a lilt,” wrote Kalyn Wolf, another of his students from decades ago. “A lot of who I am is because of Dennis Day.”

The missing persons investigation continued through April, when Phoenix police returned to Day and Caswell’s home. For the first time, they brought cadaver dogs with them to search the property.

One of the dogs located human remains inside the home, police said.

A month later, the Oregon State Medical Examiner’s Office identified them, although investigators were unable to use dental records or DNA because of the condition of the remains, state police said in a statement.

Investigators haven’t said where exactly in the house they found Day’s body or the condition of his remains. They also have declined to say how Day’s body could have been overlooked in previous searches or whether it had been moved into the home at some point.

Late last month, Declusin, the woman found in Day and Caswell’s car, was indicted by a Jackson County grand jury on charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle. The woman with her at the couple’s home, identified in court records as Wanda Garcia, was also indicted in the alleged car theft and accused of stealing and selling a brooch that belonged to the men.

Lori Declusin appears by video at her arraignment in Jackson County Circuit Court on June 27, 2019. She's accused of stealing Dennis Day's car less than a week after he was last seen.Janet Eastman

Declusin was arrested June 26 and was released several days later.

“The only reason I’m being charged is because I refuse to tell the officers —” Declusin said during her arraignment the following day. A public defense attorney in the courtroom cut her off before she could continue speaking.

An attorney assigned to Declusin declined to comment Friday.

Police also picked up Burda on the same day Declusin was taken into custody. Burda had remained in the Phoenix area since Day first disappeared.

Records show he remained held in the Jackson County Jail on a probation violation in connection with an unrelated third-degree robbery conviction in 2018.

Caswell appears to be doing well in his residential care center, greeting visitors in his red velvet hat, his silver hair tied back in a short braid with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache.

He said several times that his memory was failing but he recounted in a recent conversation about meeting Day at the Dickens Christmas fair.

Day and Caswell’s friends, meanwhile, are still looking for answers.

“I eagerly await the end of the investigation,” McRae said after the manslaughter accusation was announced. Within minutes of learning of Burda’s arrest, she had the word out on Facebook.

“There’s still so much that doesn’t quite make sense.”

The Oregonian/OregonLive staff writer Janet Eastman contributed to this report.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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