‘I knew instantly who it was’: Radiologist’s remains found through tip in unrelated case

Published 3:00 pm Tuesday, August 13, 2024

In the nearly 14 months after Medford radiologist Graham Rhode Case was first reported missing, Jackson County Search and Rescue Cmdr. Sgt. Shawn Richards and his team spent more than 200 hours searching by air, land and water for the 47-year-old father of three.

In the end, it was a tip in another missing person’s case that led Richards to Case’s final whereabouts.

Jackson County Sheriff’s Office officials reported late last week that a Central Point Police Department medical examiner had identified and recovered Case’s skeletal remains Aug. 6 from over a steep embankment off Highway 140 outside Eagle Point.

Case was last seen alive June 22, 2023, by his mother, Denise Rhode, who saw her son backing out of the driveway of his home on Aerial Heights Drive near Cherry Lane in his white 2014 Mercedes-Benz GL450 SUV.

Case’s family told the Rogue Valley Times in spring that Case had struggled with a range of health issues, as well as with his mental health after losing his wife, April, to cancer in 2022.

Case traveled with family members to Mexico but cut the trip short and returned home only days before his disappearance.

The search for Case had eluded search and rescue volunteers from near and far for more than a year.

Last year, shortly after Case was first reported missing, volunteer scuba divers for the nonprofit Adventures With Purpose traveled to Southern Oregon to search Emigrant and Lost Creek lakes using state-of-the-art sonar equipment. The team conducted searches for Case’s vehicle, as well as that of missing Medford teenager Brandon Perdue, who disappeared in June 2008.

Divers searched both lakes but failed to locate any submerged vehicles.

In May, the search for Case was the focus of a regional training near Lost Creek Lake with the California Oregon Regional Search and Rescue Task Force. The training brought more than 400 volunteers and personnel from counties across Southern Oregon and Northern California. An aerial search was conducted over rural areas between Medford and Klamath Falls.

Then Richards received what he thought was a tip in the Perdue case — and it took him to the site where Case died after the radiologist apparently drove his SUV off the roadway.

Richards said that when a 911 call came in the night of Monday, Aug. 5, the caller reported “what they thought was a red Honda Civic.”

His immediate thought was of the 1998 red sedan driven by Perdue, who expressed suicidal thoughts to his girlfriend the day before he went missing June 13, 2008.

Richards has kept open Perdue’s case — which predates his time with the sheriff’s department — and regularly searches for the teen, as he does for all his unsolved cases.

“The tip that came in was from a couple of citizens who had seen our work on the Perdue case. They were driving back to Medford on Highway 140 and pulled onto a gravel turnout,” Richards said.

The couple saw the vehicle, marked the spot, came back to town and called the police. Richards went to the location the next day.

“They had marked it exactly where they could see it. I looked, and it wasn’t a Honda. It was like a 1970s Datsun 210, one of those boxy-looking old cars. It looked like it had been stripped down and probably had been sitting there since the ’70s,” Richards said.

“When we were headed over, I was like, ‘Oh my god, we’re gonna solve this case,’ so I was disappointed. But I thought, ‘I’m out here, and this is a large area. I’m gonna put my drone up and look around in the canyon. Just gonna do a drone flight before we head back.’”

Richards had to navigate power lines to lower his drone into the canyon, over 180 feet from the roadway.

“It was a really long way down. There was no way you could see it from the highway. When I put the camera down, I was looking right through the top of the Mercedes,” he said.

“I instantly knew who it was.”

Case’s skeletal remains were found a short distance from his vehicle. The medical examiner identified Case on Thursday, and next of kin were notified before sheriff’s officials reported the discovery Friday afternoon in a news release.

Aaron Lewis, a sheriff’s office spokesman, told the Times that detectives have ruled out suspicious causes, but due in part to the condition of the remains, some questions about how Case died might never be answered.

Richards acknowledged the irony that following a tip from a case he’s long hoped to solve brought about the closure of the missing doctor case.

“You can call it dumb luck or divine intervention,” he said.

“I’d probably go with divine intervention.”

Retired Medford police Chief Tim George, the brother of Case’s stepmother, Nance Case, lauded Richard’s tenacity for taking the time to search the canyon even after he learned the reported vehicle was not related to an existing case.

George described the discovery of Case’s remains as “sad, but also a relief.”

“Shawn Richards is a hero in my book. His efforts — and the only reason that Graham’s vehicle was even found — is he decided to fly that drone in that canyon,” George said.

“Search and rescue crews had to rappel down with ropes, in a swath of 100-foot trees hundreds of yards into the forest, just to get to it. … The area was flown by aircraft looking for that vehicle, and it was undetectable. Who knows how long it could have been down there and not been found?”

George added, “Everything ended up being consistent with what we thought — that he wouldn’t be more than an hour from home, and that it would be a place where, when he was under stress, he was taking drives in the evening and going out some place.”

George said closure for the family had been much needed, despite the manner in which Case died.

“It’s finality. I guess that’s the way to describe it … one of those hard pieces of life. They’re hard to understand, but you’ve gotta just try and do your best,” George said.

“Nobody knows what was going through Graham’s mind … He had a tough set of cards dealt to him with the death of his wife. I just feel bad for his children. They lost their mom and dad within a year. That shouldn’t happen to any child.”

Richards said it was hard to explain feeling relief at learning of the death of a missing person.

“It’s happy and sad. Happy we finally located him and the family can know what happened and move on,” Richards said. At the same time, he wishes it could have been different.

Months away from his retirement at the end of the year, Richards said he’s grateful to have solved the case.

“I was pretty determined. I’d love to solve all our missing cases in the next four months, but we’ll see,” he said.