MP of the week: Charles Rutherford Jr.

This week’s featured missing person is Charles “Chuck” Rutherford Jr., a 34-year-old attorney who disappeared with his girlfriend, Lana Stempien, while they were boating on Lake Huron on August 11, 2005.

Rutherford and Stempien at the Presque Isle Marina in Presque Isle, Michigan, and planned to go to Mackinac Island, but never arrived. Their boat was found idling in the lake, ten miles off Mackinac Island, the next day. Two weeks later, Stempien’s body washed ashore. There was elevated carbon monoxide in her blood, but the cause of death was drowning.

In spite of some mutterings about foul play and things being “mysterious”, it looks to me like Rutherford was probably also the victim of an accidental drowning; there’s a theory that they went swimming and became overcome with fumes from the boat motor.

2 thoughts on “MP of the week: Charles Rutherford Jr.

  1. Michelle September 27, 2019 / 10:03 pm

    That is a lie Lana would of not been swimming… How about Lana was found floating and not alive. How about you look and find Chuck, If the lake lost Chuck why did Lana show up?

    • Kenna November 15, 2019 / 12:41 pm

      I feel Chuck may have fallen over board and she jumped in to try and safe him. Thus leaving her jewelry on. Who knows why one body shows up and not the other. Tragic accident.

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