Missing Millionaire's Plane Found After Hiker Seeks Lawyer's Help
After a California hiker found identification and $1,000 in cash in a remote area on Monday, he asked an attorney for help.
The name “Fossett” on the ID meant nothing to his client, Preston Morrow, says attorney David Baumwohl. But it rang a bell with some of his friends and the lawyer, who tried to contact Illinois counsel for the missing millionaire adventurer and pilot Steve Fossett. He disappeared over a year ago while on a pleasure flight in a single-engine airplane, according to the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.
“We figured if it was us, we’d want to know first. We wouldn’t want to learn from the news,” Baumwohl tells the news agency.
But lawyers for Fossett, who was declared dead by an Illinois court earlier this year, didn’t immediately respond, and “We assume they thought we were scammers,” Baumwohl tells the Times.
In fact, apparently based on the information that Baumwohl and his client provided to authorities, after visiting the site with a video production crew, the Madera County sheriff says the mangled remains of Fossett’s plane have now been found in the Inyo National Forest, near the town of Mammoth Lakes, Calif.
It is unclear whether Morrow will be paid a reward or compensated for his work with the video crew.
