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The disturbing disappearance and death of the German Tourists in Death Valley
Egbert Rimkus, Georg Weber, Cornelia “Conny” Meyer, Max Meyer, Disappeared July 23, 1996. Remains found (Egbert Rimkus and Cornelia Meyer) November 12, 2009, Death Valley National Park, California
Updated October 2023
The story of the “Death Valley German Tourists”, which took place in July 1996, is a sad and disturbing story of misadventure in California’s Death Valley, one of the hottest places on Earth.
The group of four German tourists, including two young children, disappeared without explanation in an area near Anvil Canyon, and the only clue was an abandoned minivan with its contents. After a few days of searching, the authorities could not locate the missing Germans and the operation was called off.
However, two volunteer searchers, Tom Mahood and Les Walker, discovered partial remains thirteen years later, in 2009, in an isolated desert location many miles southeast of the minivan. Finally, the mystery of the German Tourists in Death Valley was solved, and it confirmed the horrible fate of Egbert, Georg, Conny and Max in the blistering desert heat. It is a lesson to be ultra careful in an environment that is so forbidding and unforgiving for the unprepared.
Discovery of the Plymouth Voyager in Anvil Canyon
On October 21, 1996, Death Valley National Park (DVNP) Ranger Dave Brenner was on a helicopter flying over the southern part of Death Valley. He was involved in an aerial surveillance mission looking for illegal drug manufacturing labs.
Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, near the border of California and Nevada, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the northern Mojave Desert bordering the Great Basin Desert. It is one of the hottest places in the world, and the Badwater Basin within it is the point of the lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. On July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek in Death Valley. This temperature is the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth. It has an area of about 3,000 square miles (7,800 km2).
In the late morning, Ranger Brenner spotted a vehicle in Anvil Canyon, about 2.4 miles downstream from Willow Spring. He was surprised as it was a standard passenger minivan, not an off-road Four Wheel Drive, all the way down the dirt road. In most circumstances, it wouldn't have got far in the Canyon due to the terrain. Also, there was no official road down Anvil Canyon as of October 1994 due to the Desert Protection Act, which meant it was designated an official wilderness area, thus prohibiting public vehicles from using it.
Local miners had stopped using the road to access their attempts to mine gold, silver, borax and talc after the financial panic of 1907 slowed or stopped most mining activities in the area. According to the Park Service, virtually all metallic mining operations had shut down by 1915. New claims in Death Valley ended with the passage of the Mining in the Parks Act of 1976, but it wasn’t until the closure of the Billie Mine borax operation near Dante’s View that all mining finally ended within the park.
Initial investigations - the German tourists
When the helicopter landed, Brenner checked the car and the surrounding area. The vehicle was a green-colored, desert dust-covered 1996 Plymouth Voyager with California license plates. It was locked, and it looked like it had been there for some time. It was stuck, with the axles deep in the sand. The front left, and two rear tires were flat, and tracks in the sand looked like they had been driven some distance with these flat tires.
Location of the minivan on Anvil Canyon Road:
Checks on the license plate with the California Highway Patrol (CHP) revealed the minivan was reported stolen by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on September 10, 1996. It was owned by Dollar Car Rentals and had been rented to a group of four German tourists in Los Angeles on July 8, 1996.
This group of German tourists was Egbert Rimkus, 34, his son Georg Weber, 11, Egbert’s girlfriend Cornelia “Conny” Meyer, 28, and her son Max Meyer, 4.
The minivan had been due back in Los Angeles on July 26, 1996, but had never been returned to the renters. Dollar usually waited at least 30 days before reporting one of their cars stolen to the police.
Further investigations showed the group lived in Dresden, Germany, and they left the country from Frankfurt Airport and traveled to Seattle, Washington State, in the United States on July 8. They immediately flew to Los Angeles, California, where they picked up their rental car. Cornelia Meyer was recorded as the driver. They had plane tickets on TWA to return to Germany on July 27 but failed to board the plane back.
In early July 1996, the Germans explored the San Clemente area of Southern California. On July 12th, Egbert Rimkus called his bank in Dresden, requesting $1,500 be wired to a Bank of America branch in San Clemente. However, it was wired onto a Bank of America branch in Los Angeles.
A camera was found in the abandoned car in Anvil Canyon, and pictures on it suggested the Germans traveled on to the California coast before heading to the Treasure Island Hotel in Las Vegas. They checked out of the hotel on July 22 and drove on to Death Valley. At the time of their visit to the Valley, temperatures were hitting a super hot 124˚ Fahrenheit (51˚C). Their ultimate destination was Yosemite National Park in California, but they didn’t make it there.
Receipts at the Furnace Creek Visitor Center showed that on that day, someone bought two copies of the “Death Valley National Monument Museum Text” in German. One of these booklets was found in the 1996 Plymouth Voyager.
On October 22, DVNP Investigator Eric Inman was flown into the area of Anvil Canyon, and he started an initial search and photographed the scene. Apart from Dave Brenner’s tracks from the previous day, no other footprints were visible around the vehicle. Some food wrappers were found near the minivan and some human waste and toilet paper.
Inman returned via the CHP helicopter to Badwater Road in Death Valley, where he met with Detective Jim Jones and Corporal Leon Boyer from the Inyo Sheriff’s Office. They then went back to Anvil by car, and Inman was flown back around 1 PM.
The Geologists Cabin, Butte Valley
They opened the minivan’s doors, and inside was an American flag with “Butte Valley Stone Cabin” on it. This cabin, also known as the “Geologist’s Cabin”, is located in Butte Valley, 4.1 miles west of the car's location in Anvil Canyon. This cabin is a shelter with some food and water from Anvil Spring. The flag had been taken from the cabin in contravention of the custom to raise it to show it is occupied.
They also found two unopened full bottles of Bud Ice beer, one empty bottle and one three-quarter full bottle of bourbon, several empty large water and juice containers, luggage and clothing, several rolls of 35 mm film and a “Practika” 35 mm camera, one new Coleman sleeping bag in its box and one empty Coleman sleeping bag box, a tent, a pipe with tobacco, a leather card carrier containing bank cards and a Citicorp credit card, a card from the “Sea Horse Resort” in San Clemente, children's toys, an unused compact spare tire, and jack. The vehicle was removed from Anvil Canyon on October 23.
Due to the altitude of around 3000 feet at the location, the high temperature at the car’s location on July 23 would have been about 107˚F (42˚C) and the low around 79˚F (26˚C).
The probable itinerary of the group in Death Valley
Death Valley Germans itinerary
After visiting the DVNP Visitor Center on July 2, 1996, the Germans had likely camped in their minivan in an area called Hanaupah Canyon that night to save money on hotel accommodation. Investigations indicated the group had not stayed at the Furnace Creek Ranch or Inn, the Stovepipe Wells Resort, or at the Furnace Creek Campground.
Hanaupah Canyon
Warm Spring Mine
Investigators examined the visitor logbook for the Warm Spring mine site, on the route between the main valley and Butte Valley, and this had an entry by the German group on July 23, saying in German, “We are going over the pass”, and was signed, “Conny, Egbert, Georg, Max”.
Mengle Pass
The pass referred to in the mine site book was probably Mengle Pass, located a few miles from Anvil Canyon at the southwesterly end of Butte Valley and the only means by which to cross the Panamint Mountain range for many miles. However, it is an extremely rugged route, only able to be traversed by 4WD vehicles and certainly not by the Plymouth Voyager minivan.
Visitor logbook for the Warm Spring mine site signed by the family
After attempting to go up to Mengle Pass, a very rough road with boulders and potholes everywhere, it seems possible that they decided to change direction and venture down Anvil Canyon. This is an equally unsuitable road for a minivan and the real start of the German tourists’ problems.
Anvil Canyon
Anvil Canyon Road
The official search for the group in October 1996
On the morning of October 23, a search effort was begun by the China Lake Mountain Rescue Group (CLMRG), trackers from the Indian Wells Valley Search and Rescue Group and eight mounted units from the Kern County Sheriff’s Mounted Search and Rescue. They focused on Anvil Canyon, to its entrance at the Warm Spring Road.
Members of the CLMRG found a Bud Ice beer bottle stuck in the sand in Anvil Canyon, next to a bush around 1.7 miles east of the minivan’s location. A ledge had been cleared in the dirt, and someone left a large seat print next to the bottle.
On Day Two, the search area was expanded, and SAR teams arrived from Nye County, Nevada and Inyo County, and two helicopters were brought in. Areas searched this day included more of Anvil Canyon, portions of Warm Spring Road and Butte Valley, Mengle Pass, the area adjacent to Warm Spring Road between the canyon mouth and Westside Road and from the van location easterly to the head of Anvil Canyon at Willow Spring.
On October 25th, a team from DVNP searched the area between the mouth of Anvil Canyon and the far side of the main valley at Badwater Road. A SAR team from Victorville searched the southeasterly perimeters of Butte Valley. A BLM ranger began a search of the route on the west side of Mengle Pass, between Ballarat and Barker Ranch. A team from Lake Mead NP searched from Anvil Canyon north, over the mountains and down into Butte Valley. The Indian Wells team did an intensive search around Willow Spring, at the head of Anvil Canyon. CLMRG started from the middle of Anvil Canyon, then went north, then in a westerly direction.
The fourth day, October 26th, was the final day of searching for the group in this hostile environment. The DVNP team checked areas northerly of Warm Spring Canyon and mine areas where a lost person might have sought shelter. The Victorville team performed searching around Striped Butte in Butte Valley. The Lake Mead team also checked Striped Butte and walked the Warm Spring Canyon Road. The BLM ranger on the west side of Mengle Pass continued searching that area and other possible routes the party may have used if traveling westerly towards Ballarat. The Indian Wells team searched the vicinity of Warm Spring Road and Westside Road when some footprints had been found. A vehicle SAR team from Apple Valley, new to the search, searched areas along Westside Road from Warm Spring Canyon Road north, where a party may have sought shelter. Finally, aerial reconnaissance was made via two helicopters in all quadrants surrounding Anvil Canyon (including south), but this was hampered by high winds that day.
With no new clues found since the beer bottle on the first day and no hope whatsoever that the party would be found alive, the official search was called off. A DVNP spokesperson estimated that at least 250 people were involved in the search. The areas covered were well reasoned, and a high probability of success was expected. But no sign of the Germans was found.
Emmett Harder and Dick Hasselman report
Many additional searches were done over the years by search and rescue teams as well as by private groups (Emmett Harder and Dick Hasselman produced detailed reports, the former report called “Cauldron of Hell Fire”). CLMRG searched for additional areas and examined mine shafts. But there were no signs or clues to be found.
The Inyo Sheriff’s Office had granted Emmett Harder access to view the pictures recovered from the Germans’ camera. Due to his familiarity with the area, he recognized a sunset picture, looking easterly down into the main valley as having been taken in Hanaupah Canyon, located about 17 miles north of Warm Spring Canyon. Given the presence of the Germans at the DV Visitors Center on July 22 and their Warm Spring logbook entry of July 23, this suggested the Germans made camp in the upper reaches of Hanaupah Canyon on the night of July 22.
The Hasselman report indicated there was a story of an individual on an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) finding two “German canteens” in an area described as being the midpoint of a straight line drawn been Sugarloaf and Needle Peak. This would have been about 3-1/2 miles southeast of the minivan’s location. It also said that in the three months between when the Germans went to Death Valley, and their vehicle was discovered, a ranger on patrol about 18 miles south found a sleeping bag in the middle of a remote dirt road. Could it be the missing sleeping bag from the Plymouth Voyager? The sleeping bag was discarded by the Ranger, believing it was trash. The road where the bag was found is very remote, ending at a microwave relay tower at the time owned by AT&T.
Microwave relay tower near China Lake Naval Weapons Center
What happened to the German tourists in July 1996 - theories?
Apart from the obvious explanation that the tourists had got lost, punctured tires, and then died from the heat in Death Valley, some believed in more mysterious conspiracy theories. The fact that the Germans had disappeared without a trace had surprised searchers.
Could the Germans have staged a disappearance and started a new life in a far-flung country? Egbert's co-workers said he talked about moving to Costa Rica. But why choose Death Valley to stage it? The theory sounded unlikely.
Another story was that Egbert was trying to get to the China Lake NWC facility to find “hybrid propulsion” technology, and either the group had been forcibly conscripted into a black ops US government program or they saw something they weren’t supposed to see and were “eliminated” by the government.
Maybe they met foul play by coming across criminals involved in illegal activity or a psychopath out in the desert. Again, this was possible but unlikely. The disappearance of the Germans remained puzzling, and for many years, the mystery remained unanswered.
The Tom Mahood search for the German Tourists
Tom Mahood
Les Walker
It wasn’t until 2009 when Tom Mahood, a search and rescue worker with Los Angeles County, began reading about the case. It was one of the things, he said later, that inspired him to train for and join a Search and Rescue team.
He theorized the following may have happened to the German tourists:
The maps in the "Death Valley National Monument Museum Text” booklet they had purchased showed a route to the west, via Butte Valley and Mengle Pass, past the infamous Barker Ranch where Charles Manson’s followers stayed, then north to the ghost town of Ballarat and on to Yosemite. The most likely scenario is that on the morning of the 23rd, they left Hanaupah Canyon and continued south to Warm Spring Road and turned west. They would have experienced a very fine dirt road at that point and at the Warm Spring camp, they probably stopped because they thought it was an active settlement of some sort to make inquiries as to road conditions further west. Instead, they found the deserted Warm Spring camp so they signed the register, indicating they were going over the Mengle Pass. Continuing west toward Butte Valley, they would have encountered poor road conditions before finding the Stone Cabin. They probably stopped and make another attempt to inquire about road conditions, but when doing so, found it empty and so they went on with the stolen flag. As they approached Mengle Pass they could go no further.
Their booklet offered an alternative, shorter route back down to the valley in the form of a road down Anvil Canyon. Of course, this route wasn't a good one, especially in the late afternoon with daylight fading. The Germans return to the intersection at the Stone Cabin and turn right onto Anvil Canyon Road and probably with a desire to get to Yosemite they were driving way too fast for the road conditions. Then the rocks burst the tyres and they were really in trouble. With three flats, it was impossible to go on.
Perhaps, Egbert, looking at the maps available to him, would have seen the northern boundary of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center (NWC) to be only about 8 or 9 miles to the south of them. It would be easy to imagine crossing the hills he was looking at to the south and seeing the safety of a military installation just a few miles further.
Site of the minivan and Mahood’s pack on Anvil Canyon Road
The group then probably spent the night at the van (a stay of some duration as evidenced by the presence of the faecal material in dug holes) and then early the next morning locked the vehicle and headed east down Anvil Canyon to a little past the bottle bush, then turned south toward the China Lake NWC boundary in hope of rescue.
While official searchers maintained that Rimkus and Meyer and their children would not have gone south into Wingate Wash and so decided not to search there, Mahood concluded that they were wrong and it was their likely destination. He decided to search toward the boundary of the China Lake Naval Weapons Station. He reasoned that the Germans may have believed that rescue could be found at the station on a false belief that soldiers would protect it and have people on the site.
Wine bottle found by Walker and Mahood
Conny Meyers Wallet
After many days of searching in 2009, Mahood and his search partner Les Walker eventually found Conny Meyer’s remains on November 12 and, over the following days, those of Egbert Rimkus. The location was about eight miles from their van and four miles from the boundary fence of the China Lake military facility in very rugged, desolate terrain southeast of an area called Goler Wash.
Mahood wrote on his blog, “We spent the next hour carefully examining the site. The debris was scattered over perhaps 150 meters, but seemed to radiate out from the cliff face. There was a small but active wash near the base of the cliff (which Les had been following), which seemed to disperse some items slightly downstream. We observed multiple items we believed associated with Cornelia, due to their proximity with her ID (including her passport and bank ID with photo). Les found a toothbrush and a tube of some sort of salve or toothpaste. In a small side wash to the northwest, we found remains of a small shoe that could have been a woman’s shoe or that of a child. We found portions of Cornelia’s daily planner, with numerous business cards from places the Germans had stayed on their trip. In addition to the two liter wine bottle, we found a clear bottle about 70’ downstream (This was later identified as one of the Bud Ice bottles from the van).”
The discovery put an end once and for all of the questions and the hope that the missing Germans had been living a secret life somewhere in South America. Subsequent searches by Walker and Mahood and the authorities found more bones, but there was not enough DNA to positively connect them with the children.
Tom Mahood and Les Walker had persevered against the odds and spent many hours researching the case. They had hiked in the dangerous desert and wilderness to find the remains to bring the case to a close after 13 long years. The family in Dresden, Germany, could finally find some sense of closure after waiting so long to learn of the fate of the German tourists.
Mahood was frustrated with the lack of cooperation from the authorities responsible in that part of Death Valley. Without him and Walker, the remains of the Germans would still likely be lost in the desert wilderness, never to be found.
A lesson to California’s Death Valley visitors is to take plenty of food and water supplies, a good map, use an appropriate 4WD vehicle, and notify others of your planned itinerary. Death Valley can be a dangerous place for the unprepared.
Forrest Haggerty Channel videos 2022
Approximate location of Egbert Rimkus and Cornelia Meyer’s remains
In May and June 2022, Forest Haggerty posted two excellent videos on YouTube that covered the hike to the various locations relating to the story, including where the remains were found. He included the following coordinates in his video, giving a useful context to the isolated spots where the German Tourists headed.
Death Valley Germans Incident. Their Path and Death Site Visit
Death in Death Valley: How and Where They Died
The Coordinates for the various locations: Copy and Paste the coordinates in Google Earth in order to view the locations.
Warm Springs: 35.9677572, -116.9315380
Geologist Cabin: 35.9229950, -117.0852121
Van Location: 35.9276853, -117.0236662
Wine Bottle: 35.8674456, -116.9746653
Shoe Location: 35.8676991, -116.9754931
Wallet Location: 35.8677121, -116.9745620
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Further listening
Listen to the Seriously Mysterious podcast from John Lordan and Lordan Arts in collaboration with StrangeOutdoors featuring this story. John has been researching mysteries and crimes for over 5 years on the YouTube show BrainScratch with respectful and deep coverage. Now he's bringing some of his most interesting cases and some fresh ones to his first solo podcast.
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Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley_Germans
Tom Mahood Blog Otherhand http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans/
https://medium.com/@this.and.that/the-hunt-for-the-death-valley-germans-companion-reading-79a7836d7c55
http://pvtimes.com/news/twentieth-anniversary-one-death-valley-s-baffling-mysteries
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/68bdq6/death_valley_germans_did_they_ever_find_the/
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/33919797/ns/us_news-life/t/death-valley-bones-linked-german-tourists/
Retracing the Final Steps of the Death Valley Germans - WonderHussy Adventures