Missing jogger turns up, and says he fell into a ravine

Was it an incredible story of survival or just a case of someone who didn't want to be found?

That's what some are wondering after 47-year-old Michael Schreck, whose disappearance set off a massive search on Cougar Mountain, suddenly showed up at his family's Issaquah home late Monday with a remarkable story of living off nothing but muddy creek water since Friday.

	Schreck

"He said he fell into a ravine and he's been unconscious since then," King County sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said. "We're going to take his story at face value."

Publicly, that's the attitude of those who participated in the search, but privately some have their doubts.

"I don't believe everything about his story," said a man who searched Sunday, and who asked not to be identified. "I have some reservations."

Tuesday, neither Schreck nor his family would answer questions from the Seattle P-I. Cars lined the steep driveway of their home as celebrating family members peered from the windows of his four-bedroom house.

Younger brother Joe Schreck, who held back tears when talking with reporters Sunday, closed the door on them Monday afternoon.

"We're not talking," he said, handing over a two-paragraph typed statement.

The statement thanked searchers and, by way of explanation, said Michael Schreck slipped off a Squak Mountain trail and was knocked unconscious. The area was part of an 11-square-mile search with no sign of the jogger, police said.

The family's statement said Schreck was beneath a log and covered with leaves for warmth. He suffered no serious injuries, they said. When deputies interviewed him about 1 a.m. Tuesday, he appeared in perfect health.

"No injuries, no bumps or bruises," Urquhart said.

The statement said Schreck "came to on Monday" and began working to get himself out. "Scrambling up the ravine, he filled his water bottle with muddy water and at around 2 p.m. began retracing his steps."

He tried hitchhiking at dusk Monday, the statement said, but when he didn't get picked up, he made the roughly five-mile walk home from the trailhead where his sport utility vehicle was found Friday.

Schreck's next-door neighbor and golfing buddy, John Warnick, discounted the idea that Schreck's story was bogus.

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"Sometimes miracles like this happen," he said.

Schreck had last been seen about 7:15 a.m. Friday when he left for a run along the wooded Cougar Mountain trails. His wife called sheriff's deputies when he did not come home by 11 p.m. Friday.

Deputies found Schreck's locked Ford Explorer at the Red Town trailhead later that night.

Over the rainy weekend, more than 100 searchers looked for Schreck on foot, on horseback and with dogs, but saw no sign of him after tramping along all 52 maintained trails and abandoned mine shafts in the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park.

The King County sheriff's helicopter, Guardian One, scanned the area from the sky and Joe Schreck joined in the search, fighting through thick and thorny underbrush.

The police search was called off Sunday about 9 p.m.

"On Sunday night, we knew he wasn't on Cougar Mountain," Urquhart said. "What we didn't know was (a) where he was and (b) what he was doing."

As part of the search, investigators questioned Schreck's family about his personal and work life, trying to find out whether there were any issues that could prompt him to disappear on his own.

But investigators believed early on and remain convinced that there were no issues to explain a voluntary disappearance in Schreck's case.

Urquhart said some may have doubts about the story, but that isn't the concern of the Sheriff's Office and there will be no investigation.

Neither Schreck nor his family is expected to pay for the cost of the search.

"There's no provision in state law to recover the cost for searches," Urquhart said. "We wouldn't want that in any case."

He said the "real stories" are the volunteers: "They spent the entire weekend out in the rain looking for this guy. ... They're the real heroes, as far as we're concerned."