Oregon Police Take Lead in Search for Missing Couple

Police want to talk to anyone who may have seen or talked to 73-year old Kenneth W. Miller and 69-year old Betty Lou Japel in the last year. The couple traveled to Arizona frequently, the last place they were seen alive is Oregon.

Betty Japel and Ken Miller have been missing for approximately one year, and police are hoping that somebody will recognize them and offer a clue about their disappearance

(MCMINNVILLE, Ore.) - Unexpected twists and turns and an extended span of time are problems complicating a criminal case out of Quartzsite, Arizona that involves two Oregon residents. The saga leaves one man dead, a police officer injured from gunshot wounds, and a growing mystery shrouding the facts behind an Oregon couple's disappearance.

73-year old Kenneth W. Miller and 69-year old Betty Lou Japel were last seen over a year ago. The McMinnville, Oregon couple spent years on the road traveling in their motorhome, towing a Dodge pick-up truck behind them.

Two days ago, a man with an extensive criminal history including federal firearms violations who went by the nickname of “Groundhog,” was found laying dead near an assault rifle in the desert, off Highway 95 near milepost 114 in Arizona, twenty miles from the California state line. 45-year old Gregory Allen Cole was a suspect in a police officer shooting in Quartzsite, Arizona that happened May 17th during a traffic stop.

Quartzsite, Arizona is a popular destination for snowbirds and rockhounds Photo courtesy: desertusa.com

Quartzsite Marshal’s Officer James Kemp was shot seven times but will survive his injuries. The motorhome was later found at a camp site but police say Greg Cole was not around.

Arizona Department of Public Safety Spokesman Harold Sanders, says there is “excellent evidence, tying Mr. Cole to the shooting.”

Police say Cole sped away from the shooting in a motorhome. That motorhome, which Greg Cole owned, had a license plate that had been removed from a Dodge Ram pick-up registered to the missing couple.

Investigators have concluded that Cole was involved in the shooting, and is likely behind the disappearance of the McMinnville, Oregon couple, but his death this week still raised a number of questions, and certainly brought police no closer to the biggest question; where are Ken Miller and Betty Japel?

Sanders says they have been able to contact people in Arizona who saw the couple, but all of those encounters date back more than a year. "We want to talk to anybody who has actually spoken with Ken and Betty since last year."

Like any police officer who hates to see a case grind to a halt, he says they are doing everything possible to reach someone who may know what happened to the couple and where they are today, “We are really hurting, we need to contact someone who may have seen them at any time over the last year.”

45-year Greg Cole was found dead this week near Quartszite, Arizona

Greg Cole, “Groundhog”

As it turns out, Greg Cole had an extensive history of federal weapons charges. There were two warrants out for his arrest at the time of his death. The agency that had been searching for Mr. Cole is the U.S. Marshal’s Office.

Federal Deputy Jennifer Wells with the U.S. Marshals out of Yuma, Arizona, says Greg Cole’s fugitive states with her agency began in 2002, when Mr. Cole was contacted by federal authorities on more than one occasion for living on a piece of property that belongs to the Tucson Airport.

Photos found in the missing couple's motorhome show them at an unknown campsite with Greg Cole

“Authorities confronted him toward the end of it and he ended up being arrested.” Wells told Salem-News.com today that he was in possession of, “a number of illegal firearms including automatic weapons.”

An automatic weapon is a gun that fire like a machine gun; repeatedly. With few exceptions, they are totally illegal for a private party to own and possess. A semi-automatic gun, one of the most common types, fires each time the trigger is pulled, but only fires one round at a time, each time the trigger is pulled.

Wells says Mr. Cole, "was arrested for possessing a .380 handgun, a .45 caliber handgun." The list went on to include more weapons, “Several military-type AR-15’s that had been converted to fully automatic, body armor, ammo and machine guns.”

A federal judge originally allowed Greg Cole to post a surety bond according to Wells, but he apparently failed to stay in contact with the courts and that is when they changed his status to fugitive.

“He was a self professed survivalist, anti-government person and probably had some mental issues as well”, Wells said. Photos of Mr. Cole with the missing couple that were found in their motorhome after it was recovered. They show him wearing military/survivalist clothing.

As would be expected with family members who find themselves in a similar situation, none of this sits well with Stuart Cole, Greg’s brother in Tucson, Arizona. He contacted Salem-News.com after a previous story published May 23rd to give the family’s side of the story.

Stuart Cole says he does not believe his brother capable of such acts.

“I don't know what to believe, this whole thing is a shock, and a tragedy. I have not seen or heard from my brother since he left Tucson in 2002, but I do remember Ken and Betty coming to Tucson and "camping" with Greg and my Mother and Father in 2000 or 2001, Mom and Dad introduced them as friends that they had known for some time, from the Quartzsite area.”

Police say the connection between Mr. Cole and the Quartzsite police officer shooting is closely linked by evidence. They have no proof, but they say they are strongly inclined to believe that Greg Cole is a party in each of the alleged crimes, and that in the end he shot himself with an assault rifle they found near his body.

In spite of that, Stuart Cole says he still does not believe his brother shot anybody. He explained, “As for my reasons that I feel he would not be capable of hurting Ken and Betty, they are just a ‘gut feeling’, but I would have never believed in a million years that he would shoot a police officer, or take his own life.”

Two Oregonians remain missing

Harold Sanders with Arizona DPS, says indicators point to the couple having been out of touch with family members for a long time. “One of the challenges, one of the big problems, is that the actual witnesses only account for the time that they disappeared, over a year ago.”

Over a year lapsed between the time that their motorhome was recovered in Bend, Oregon, and the police shooting this week that ultimately appears to have led to the discovery of Greg Cole’s body.

McMinnville Police Department Sergeant Rhonda Sandoval says it all keeps coming down to one thing; the police want to find somebody, anybody who may have seen either Ken Miller or Betty Japel over the course of the last year. She says somebody has been in possession of the couple’s personal information because the investigation turned up bank account activity. Sandoval says investigators are still in the process of pinning down those details, such as whether an ATM, which takes a photo of the bank customer, were utilized, or if it was done at a bank teller station, or even a different way.

Harold Sanders with Arizona DPS, says the last sighting of the couple was at the beginning of last year, “and that is it, that is in Oregon." Sanders also talked about the fact that areas in southern Arizona like Yuma and Quartzsite see an extreme population boom each winter.

In the late 90’s the population there tripled when the weather cooled. “The population quadruples now,” Sanders said. “There are so many people, it makes finding a particular motorhome very tough.”

He adds that some of the visitors, known locally as “Snowbirds”, are staying in Arizona for increasingly longer periods. “The economy being what it is, some of them are having a hard time driving so many miles back and forth when they only get eight miles per gallon, some are even staying all year.”

Most of the southern Arizona visitors that the missing couple would have been around hail from Oregon and Washington. You also see a number of Canadian plates as well and you do see plates from all over the nation. Changing migration patterns of the “snowbirds” and fewer dollars for gas mean finding a person who may have seen the missing couple becomes something like locating a needle in a haystack. “A lot of the RV’ers move around, they may be back in Oregon, but it could be Tennessee for that matter.”

Changing vehicles and license plates

Motorhome that belonged to missing Oregon couple

On May 23rd of this year, Oregon State Police detectives seized the missing couple's 1976 Sportscoach 25-foot motor home after learning it was secured at the National Guard Tank Battalion facility in the Redmond area.

Oregon State Police Spokesman Greg Hastings says the motorhome was found abandoned between May and July 2006, on Bureau of Land Management land near Redmond, Oregon. The abandoned vehicle was actually discovered by BLM employees.

Ken Miller and Betty Japel were a familiar sight around the area, but it seems like Oregon state authorities and federal agencies were not talking to each other, as they apparently kept no actual record of the vehicle's date of discovery.

Hastings indicates that the people involved in the motorhome's discovery had no idea that the people were missing or possibly endangered.

“Military officials knew the couple from previous contacts and to prevent it from being vandalized it was brought back to their training facility until they could notify Miller and Japel.”

He says attempts to learn where the couple was through family members and other local contacts, were unsuccessful. So the abandoned 1976 Sportscoach 25-foot motorhome was secured for safe keeping until it could be returned.

He says detectives searched the motorhome and found information confirming Greg Cole's association with the missing couple.

“Any other evidence or information found during the search is withheld for ongoing investigative reasons. The motor home is secured at an OSP Bend-area location.”

Initial reports indicated that Mr. Cole may have recently become acquainted with the missing couple, but remarks from Mr. Cole's brother bring the understand that he may have known them since around 2000, or even before. It also raises the possibility that Greg Cole's parents may have known them for longer. It is also interesting that he remembers them as being from Quartzsite. This seems like valuable information for everyone to have.

It is also important to note that while police say ther eis evidence linking Greg Cole to the police shooting, there is no direct at this time linking Greg Cole to the disappearance of Ken Miller or Betty Japel.

The recent developments in the case have all taken place in the Quartzsite, Arizona area, and much attention is focused on any community that experiences a police officer shooting.

But it is Oregon that will resume the lead investigation now into the missing couple's disappearance.

A search of a large area to find any sign of the missing couple is anticipated while the investigation continues, according to Hastings. He says the various police agencies that are investigating the case with Oregon State Police as the lead organization, will search locations but they will not disclose where they are searching to preserve evidence.

Anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact McMinnville Police Department Sergeant Rhonda Sandoval at (503) 434-6500.