Teen's 1999 disappearance still stymies family, troopers

MEADOW LAKES -- Three years later, the question remains: What happened to Michael Palmer?

The question has confounded law enforcement officials and tormented his parents since the Houston teen-ager mysteriously disappeared after a graduation party. Palmer was 15 at the time of his disappearance in 1999.

Since Michael vanished, theories have been posed ranging from death by hypothermia to abduction. His mother doesn't believe he died of hypothermia. "It's almost like he disappeared in a space ship," his mother said. It's heartbreaking that there is no evidence that he is alive and no evidence that he died, she said.

Today there are no more answers to where Michael is than when searchers began to look for him on June 4, 1999. The only evidence in the case is a bent up bicycle and a pair of tennis shoes.

"Nothing is moving on this, but it remains an open case," said Alaska State Trooper investigator Leonard Wallner, who is in charge of the investigation. He gets an occasional call from people with information, but it is recycled information he already knows.

Victims for Justice is offering a $20,000 reward to anyone who has information leading to resolution of the case.

Other agencies, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Operation Look Out of Seattle, work with the troopers to get the word out, Wallner said.

"They are fielding tips as they come in, cataloging and categorizing information, and funneling it back to us," Wallner said.

Michael's mother, Lisa Palmer, said she hangs on to hope that Michael will surface or that someone who knows something might step forward.

"People tell me I need closure. But if I have closure, I have to give up the hope," Lisa Palmer said Friday. She said she's grateful to Wallner and others who haven't given up on finding the answers.

Palmer lights a candle each night, and tends a tree behind her house that she calls Mike's Tree, planted three years ago. She remains living in the house that her son lived in and won't change her phone number so that Michael can reach her.

The 5-foot-4-inch, 110-pound teen-ager was last seen on Friday, June 4, 1999 at around 4 a.m. as he rode a bicycle on Pittman Road in Meadow Lakes. He was heading home with two friends from a party at a home on Pittman Road.

Michael had fallen behind, one of his friends told troopers at the time. Searchers would later find the bicycle he was riding, partially submerged in a shallow portion of the Little Susitna River near Silver Drive in Meadow Lakes subdivision. A pair of Michael's black athletic shoes were recovered when another teen-ager gave them to investigators. The teen-ager said he found them on his father's airplane runway, which is located close to the place where the bicycle was discovered.

For two days rescue dive teams, police dogs, ground crews and helicopters combed the areas investigators thought Michael could be, including two logjams that divers dismantled in their search for a body.

A dive team official would later say he did not think Michael was in the river.

After troopers called off the ground and river search, they focused their attention on interviewing Michael's family and friends, as well as kids who attended the party, in an attempt to gather any clues.

Two years ago, a three-man team from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington, D.C., came to the Valley and performed an independent review of the troopers' investigation.

The team recommended expanding the search of the area where Michael was last seen, so members of the Alaska Search and Rescue Team returned to the Little Susitna River at the end of April 2000.

That search ended with no new clues into Michael's disappearance.

Lisa Palmer said she knows statistics don't favor the sudden surfacing of missing people, but that "crazier things have happened." Sometimes people tell her they thought her son had already been found. She places fliers around the area to inform the public that, in fact, Michael is still missing.

"He knows we'll look for him every single second of every single day," Lisa Palmer said.

Anyone with information regarding Michael Palmer's disappearance is urged to contact Mat-Su Crime Stoppers at 745-3333 or Alaska State Troopers at 745-2131. Callers to Crime Stoppers do not have to give their name.