As we near the end of 2019, we are continuing our look back at some of the tops stories of the year. At the end of April, search and rescue volunteers found the remains of a woman who had been missing at the Amboy Crater for almost a year. Susan Schmierer, 65, and her husband William, 65, had been reported missing June 13, 2018. Their car was found in the Amboy crater parking lot. William’s body was found three days later, but rescuers did not find Susan Schmierer for 10 more months.
A Namibian hiker who was lost overnight in Joshua Tree National Park was found alive and well in May. Deno Ndilula was hiking with a friend May 15 on the Boy Scout Trail when he became separated and lost. Ndilula found some campers the next morning who brought him to a restaurant in Twentynine Palms to enjoy “his first meal in quite some time.”
A woman suspected of killing two teenagers while driving under the influence in June still has not been charged in their deaths, more than six months after the fatal crash. Nichole Packer was driving a Ford Fiesta westbound on the highway at a high rate of speed June 13 when her car crashed into a Prius driven by Colin Campbell of Los Angeles. Campbell’s two teenaged children—a 17-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy—in the back seat died at hospitals. Campbell and his wife, Gale Lerner, as well as Packer, were seriously injured. The California Highway Patrol is not commenting on why it has not yet charged Nichole Packer with the teens’ deaths. Packer has at least one previous conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol.
We’ll have more of the Morongo Basin’s top stories of 2019 in future newscasts.
