CO CO - James Rowe, 26, Crestone, 30 July 2004

jodierenee

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It is coming up to the 1yr anniversary...suprisingly i didn't find a post about him on here, so here we go. He is def. unique looking, and i wish i could find more information on the "seminar" he attended shortly before he went missing.

http://www.texasequusearch.org/missing%20persons%20pictures/JamesRowe2.jpg

Days before James Brian Rowe disappeared he attended an empowerment seminar in Denver, Colorado. After attending the seminar he started to display sudden psychological problems. He asked a friend to drive him to a local trailhead in hopes of getting his thoughts straight. The friend drive him there and came back to town and within a half hour James showed up again, barefoot and confused.
After that James returned to the woods and was not seen again. His Jeep was found Aug. 3, 2004 about 20 miles north of Crestone on a road off Colo. 17.

There is not much info available online, and if anyone has anything to add to this, please do!
 
[font=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]http://www.themountainmail.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=2403&SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&S=1

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[font=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]8/23/2004 [/font]
[font=ARIAL, SANS SERIF][/font][font=ARIAL, SANS SERIF]Missing Crestone man may be in Chaffee County[/font]
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by Arlene Shovald
Mail Staff Writer

James Brian Rowe, 26, Crestone, has been missing since July 30 and may be in the local area.
Anyone seeing him is asked to contact the Saguache County Sheriff’s Department at 719-655-2544 or his mother, Roberta Rowe, in Burlington, Vt.. at 802-773-4593.
Rowe is co-owner of Earth-star Co-Op in Crestone. His brother, Jesse Rowe, reported he attended a Landmark Education Forum in Denver before his disappearance. The theme of the forum was empowerment.
On July 30 the missing man left Crestone with the intention of going to a hot spring. His Jeep was found Aug. 3, about 20 miles north of Crestone on a road off Colo. 17.
“James had talked to friends who described him as being really scattered and ungrounded,” Jesse said. “He had asked a friend to drive him to a local trailhead in the hopes of getting his thoughts straight.
“The friend drove him there and came back to town and within a half hour James showed up again, barefoot and confused.”
After that James returned to the woods. That was on July 30 – the last day he was seen.
Friends said they contacted the Saguache County Sheriff's Department Aug. 3.
Saguache County Sheriff Mike Norris said Thursday air and land searches were conducted in the mountain ranges east of Crestone.
Tuesday a tracking dog from Delores County was brought in and covered the same areas but nothing turned up.
Flyers have been circulated throughout the San Luis Valley and Chaffee County and some reports of sightings of the missing man have been received.
Jesse Rowe said his brother reportedly made a bank transaction Aug. 2 in Villa Grove and on Aug. 3 a woman said she saw him in Wal-Mart in Alamosa.
The most recent reported sighting was at the Conoco Station in Poncha Springs where a clerk identified a man as “either him or his twin.”
James Brian Rowe, 25, is six feet tall, weighs 140 pounds, with dark brown hair (recently shaved), and dark blue eyes. [top]
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wow...i've looked up the "Landmark Education Forums" and they sound very scary!!!:eek:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark26.htmlhttp://www.rickross.com/reference/landmark/landmark86.html

Here are more links to other user's who have set through these seminars...I think most likely James Rowe went to this seminar, got brainwashed, and either became the victim of suicide or is following this "cult" across the country.

Look under "personal stories"

http://www.rickross.com/groups/landmark.html
 
How bizarre! I have trouble imagining people being brainwashed so completely so quickly. My first thought was drug involvement but I don't think they could get entire groups of people to take drugs. James is so unique looking that it seems like it would be easy to decide if sightings of him are credible or not. I will want to go back and follow the link from that link to learn more about this corporation. I hope they find this young man while there is still hope for him.
 
bumping....i wish the media would pick up more on this....he obviously was not mentally stable (due to the stupid landmark forum thing)
 
MISSING MAN FROM CRESTONE, CO TO BE FEATURED ON RACECAR
NASCAR ELITE SOUTHWEST SERIES

Source: Desert Thunder Motorsports
Date: 07/20/2005

COLORADO SPRING, Colorado -- Twenty-seven year old James Brian Rowe is the typical American male that loves to play ball, ski and hang out in the woods. In the summer of 2003 James was living in Wyoming when he decided to do a little traveling and settled in Crestone, Colorado.

One year ago on July 30, 2004 James was attended a Landmark Forum graduate school in Crestone, Co when he became delusional and drove away in his Jeep. Three days later the Jeep he was driving was found abandoned 20 miles from town and law enforcement believe he must have started walking back into town, but has never been seen since.

Have you seen James Rowe? James is a white male, five-foot eleven, one hundred thirty-five, brown hair, blue eyes and a medium complexion. He has distinguishing facial features including gauged ears (¾” disks), pierced chin and a pierced nose. For more information regarding this case please visit this web page. http://www.theyaremissed.org/ncma/gallery/...php?A200401891S

“My son is a responsible man with strong moral values. He is intelligent and open-minded. We just want him home with us,” said Sue Rowe, James mother.

On Saturday July 23, 2005 two NASCAR AutoZone Elite Divisions “Midwest & Southwest” converge on Pikes Peak International Raceway a paved, one-mile, high-speed raceway located in Fountain, CO. Among the many talented drivers competing in the weekend’s action are Jim Pettit II, the current Southwest Series point’s leader and teammate on the Racing for the Missing (RFTM) effort.

Racing for the Missing (RFTM) is a division of the Nation’s Missing Children Organization www.theyaremissed.org. RFTM founded a Personal Safety & Awareness program in 1999 utilizing motorsports as their instrument to reach the public. “The hood of a stock car is perfect, its size allows for a larger then life vinyl likeness of a missing person and there contact information to be displayed in a position everyone can see,” said Darrell LaMoure Co-founder of RFTM with wife Shelley.

Jim Pettit II of Prunedale, Ca will drive the Racing for the Missing #03 Ford and profile another missing person in front of potentially the largest crown in series history this Saturday. “Jim joined the effort at the beginning of this season not having any primary sponsorship, and he felt he could help us get the word out” said RFTM founder and driver Darrell LaMoure. “We couldn’t have hand picked a better spokesman for the program and the huge fact he is a front runner doesn’t hurt, anytime we can reach the public with our Awareness information we have a chance of saving a life!”

The King Soopers Freedom 150 starts at 10:30 a.m. Saturday July 23, 2005. RFTM would like to thank NASCAR for their generous contribution to the program by extending complimentary passes to the family of James Brain Rowe. His mother Sue and others will be in attendance Saturday in hopes of generating that one lead that will result in the safe return of her beloved son, James.

http://www.racingwest.com/news/story.php3/11505/
 
James' story, "A Landmark Decision" is now featured on the Project Jason Voice for the Missing blog.

It is a story about a young man who changed dramtically after attending a personal developement seminar and then disappeared. Was there something about the seminar that caused James' disappearance?

http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2005/10/101105-landmark-decision.html

Be sure to help out the families of the missing by telling others about the blog. This is just another way we can reach out and let the faces of the missing be seen. We welcome appropriate website links. Other ideas are posting the blog link on other forums you frequent, and sending it out to your friends and family via email.

Thank you for helping us to help others.

Kelly Jolkowski, Mother of Missing Jason Jolkowski
President and Founder,
Project Jason
http://www.projectjason.org
Read our Voice for the Missing Blog
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/
 
one person's experience with Landmark Forums...
___________________________________________________


Each time I even think of the word Landmark or the Forum I really do get a sick feeling in my gut.

What happened?

Well in August 2002 my Husband attended the Forum. On the Sunday night he phoned me and we had an incredible conversation.

He told me where he had been "inauthentic," blah, blah, blah.

The next couple of weeks were even more incredible. I use the word "incredible," in the sense that what my husband was doing was just so very unlike the man I have known for 20 years. Remember, language can not be measured, Advanced Course.

He contacted every member of his family, friends, co-workers, and even former employers. And every single one of them he told how and where he had been "inauthentic."

Our own business began to experience neglect.

What topped everything off was that his sister was doing the SELP Course. And she got us enrolled and involved.

My husband experienced sleep deprivation, weight loss, grandiose thoughts, paranoia, incoherent speech, catatonic states and a loss of critical thinking.

After a couple of weeks of trying to get his family to see there was a problem, the in-laws all thought it was just me, they eventually started phoning back and saying, "What's happened to him and what's this Landmark"?

My husband's sister, who introduced us to Landmark, finally admitted it wasn't working for him. And agreed there was something wrong. We sought professional help.

It has been an extremely difficult time for us. I must say my husband's family has been very supportive through this process.

I believe Landmark makes a deliberate assault on your mind and people often become too zealous.

They control you from the moment you are in that room for the Forum.

Looking back now in hindsight, everything seems obvious.

I did The Forum in the fall and later took an Advanced Course, even though I had concerns.

That room we were in had no daylight, which can affect the mind. And all three days were like that. For 72 hours your internal clock is messed up and your mind becomes messed up too.

I have considered legal action against Landmark. My thinking is, when you go for an x-ray, they tell you there is an element of risk with radiation.

But with the Landmark Forum their written agreement waffles about mental health and disclaims any mental health problems that might arise as a result of participation.

It does not state that there may be a risk of psychosis.

They state they are not psychotherapists Yet, it seems to me that they go into the areas of a participant's personal life, where only a properly trained and credentialed professional counselor should enter.

They admit "there will be rigorous inquiries into your life, you may experience enthusiasm, excitement, happiness, sadness, grief," etc. etc.

However, that's just not specific enough.

Hey, you might experience such emotions watching Forest Gump or reading Anne of Green Gables--so what does that mean?

Actually "rigorous inquiries" means more than that.

What they don't spell out in specific detail is how you will be told to go back to your very bad first experience. And if you do not have an appropriate one, you are "skimping," "selfish" or whatever.

If people knew in advance how intrusive the Forum is, many might not want to participate at all.

The reason I have not taken Legal action is the fact that my husband's health is my top priority. And I do not think it would be wise for us to recall all of this again. It might evoke painful memories and feelings.

This was a very scary experience. My husband had to stop working and was put on anti-psychotic medication. The financial strain made it necessary to sell things we owned, such as handed down family antiques, just to make it. I just want others to know there is risk involved in participating in large group awareness training like Landmark.
 
Sighting of James....please help!

He was seen at a truckstop in GA around Thanksgiving Day. He was with a girl named Emily. They also had a small dog with them that looks like a bulldog.

James seemed to be ok. He has a new tattoo of a vine that runs from his neck to chin. He has his ear gauge disks in place and piercings on his nose and chin.

James told the person at the truck stop that he was travelling to a warmer climate, and that he planned to travel along Hwy 110 from Tallahasee Fl to Sacramento, CA.

Anyone in these areas, and especially truck drivers, should be on the lookout for James.

A printable poster can be found here:
http://www.projectjason.org/18wheel/18WheelAngel_JamesRowe.pdf

If you have seen James, please call the Saguache County Sheriff's Department at 719-655-2544.

Thank you.

Kelly Jolkowski, Mother of Missing Jason Jolkowski
President and Founder,
Project Jason
http://www.projectjason.org
Read our Voice for the Missing Blog
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/
 
steph said:
wow...thank god he is still alive!
Hopefully James is found and contacts his family....what great news for his family!!!! Prayers they hear from him soon.
 
We're pleased for Lorne's & James' families that they were one of several featured missing adults in this Boston Globe article. This is great media coverage for them and the other mentally ill missing adult males who are ignored by the media.

Both Lorne's and James' stories were found by the reporter on the Project Jason Voice for the Missing blog. He then made contact with the families. This personally makes me happy because the reason I started the blog was out of frustration at these cases being ignored by the media over and over again. We are finally heard!

Michael Jarvi, Patrick Bowman, and Michael Hogan have also been featured on the blog and/or on our awareness programs.

We want to thank the reporter, Scott Allen, for his care of concern in doing the story. He was quite sincere in his compassion. May the story bring the needed answers for these families.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2006/01/16/missing/

Missing

Thousands of mentally ill people vanish every year, barely noticed except by families and friends

By Scott Allen, Globe Staff | January 16, 2006

Lorne Boulet Jr.'s disappearance came without warning. The childlike, schizophrenic man left his New Hampshire home for a walk one summer afternoon more than four years ago and simply never returned.

James Rowe veered between giddiness and sobs in his last phone conversation with his sister as he described the way a July 2004 conference on personal growth had changed him. Over the next few days, the Colorado restaurant owner abandoned his vehicle, shaved his head, and walked into the woods -- and his family hasn't heard from him since.

Michael Hogan, a shy man with obsessive compulsive disorder, left his job in Vermont one day, saying he needed to be alone. Eight months later, his mother is still so convinced he will call that she's left this message on her answering machine: ''Michael, if this is you, please let me know how I can contact you. . . . I miss you so much."

Boulet, Rowe, and Hogan are among thousands of mentally ill men and women who disappear each year -- barely noticed outside of their families and a clutch of organizations devoted to keeping their hopes alive. Their advocates believe that most of the 8,000 missing adults listed by the FBI as ''endangered" or ''disabled" suffer from some kind of mental illness and may have experienced a psychological break with reality that prompts them to abandon their former lives or attempt suicide.

The missing tend to be men, and their mental health problems run the gamut from sudden breakdowns in the face of adversity to chronic illnesses such as schizophrenia, which can cause delusions or feelings of paranoia. Bipolar disorder, which causes wide mood swings, also accounts for some of the disappearances; its victims follow unpredictable impulses.

PHOTO GALLERY: Missing and mentally ill

''Usually there is some sort of inner logic" when people with mental illness flee, ''even though it seems strange to other people," said Dr. Dost Ongur, director of the schizophrenia and bipolar disorder program at McLean Hospital. ''They might say they need to enroll in the armed services because they really need to go to Iraq to help America when everybody else says, 'You're 65 and you've got a bad back. It doesn't sound like a good idea.' "

The disappearance of an adult -- especially a man -- doesn't usually trigger the intensive communitywide searches that law enforcement agencies launch for missing children. Their disappearance doesn't automatically stir fears of foul play, so police are sometimes slow to investigate thoroughly. And adults can legally leave their lives behind, even if they are not thinking clearly.

''An adult has the right to be missing," said Roy Weise, senior adviser at the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services, which maintains the national list of missing people. ''The wife may think he's missing, but he may be right where he wants to be." Hospitals and homeless shelters, which often house mentally ill people, are caught in a bind, too, needing to protect clients' privacy when desperate loved ones inquire about them. ''If a family member calls me up and says, 'I'm looking for my brother,' we will get a message to that person," said John Yazwinski of Father Bill's Place homeless shelter in Quincy. But, he adds, it's up to the shelter resident whether to respond.

As a result, family members can feel like they're carrying out the search by themselves, circulating ''missing" flyers, maintaining websites, raising reward money, and passing along tips to law enforcement officials.

Louise Holmburg of Bristol, N.H., has turned her van into a traveling billboard about her nephew Boulet, complete with his picture on the side and an e-mail address (findlorne@yahoo.com) for tips. She said people often assume that because Boulet is 25 and weighs more than 200 pounds, he can take care of himself, but ''he's a kid at heart. . . . My best guess would be that his mind got the best of him and he walked away."

Holmburg, like other relatives of missing people with mental illness, is bitter at the lack of public interest compared with the intense focus on sensational cases like ''runaway bride" Jennifer Wilbanks, who initially claimed she had been abducted before admitting she fled because of anxiety about her wedding.

Officials at Project Jason, a Nebraska organization that spotlights missing people, said the media have covered only one of their last seven press releases about a missing adult, most of whom have mental illness.

Once mentally ill people leave their home area, advocates say, they're unlikely to be located unless police stop them by chance and run their name through the FBI's National Criminal Information Center, which has a list of missing people that is available only to law enforcement agencies.

The private National Center for Missing Adults maintains the most extensive publicly available list (www.theyaremissed.org), but its site includes only about 1,173 names, and only a fraction of those are mentally ill.

''Not only is it like looking for a needle in a haystack, but there's a million haystacks and you're blindfolded," said Kelly Jolkowski, founder of Project Jason (www.projectjason.org), named after her 19-year-old son, who did not have a history of mental illness but disappeared from his Nebraska driveway in 2001. ''There really aren't a lot of resources for missing adults."

Many families get discouraged about the lack of progress -- and even interest -- in finding their loved one. People who have been diagnosed with mental illness are likely to be off their medications, making them more unpredictable as the weeks drag on -- and more likely to hurt themselves. Up to 40 percent of people with schizophrenia attempt suicide at some point, and people with major mental illnesses are more likely to abuse drugs, putting their safety further at risk.

James Bowman of Kiamesha Lake, N.Y., suspects that his son is dead, a year and a half after he left their home in the middle of the night. Patrick Bowman, who would now be 47, suffers from bipolar disorder, which subjected him to wide and unpredictable mood swings, his father said, a problem made worse by a cocaine addiction.

''Whatever happened to him is limited only by your imagination," said the elder Bowman. ''The only thing I want is that he's not suffering."

FBI officials said the situation for families is far from hopeless. Law enforcement agencies check their database 5 million times daily, including for routine background checks of people stopped for traffic violations. Agency officials estimate that police checks of the FBI list helped in the recovery of 50,000 missing adults and children last year, though only a small fraction of that number were mentally ill adults.

Police say they take the disappearance of adults very seriously when there are doubts about the person's safety. For instance, Corpus Christi, Texas, police conducted helicopter searches of a remote beach last month where a depressed man abandoned his car after leaving a suicide note. Samuel Young Chong had dropped out of college without telling his parents, who apparently triggered Chong's disappearance when they came for what they believed would be his graduation.

Mike Walsh, commander of criminal investigations for the Corpus Christi police, said, ''We were expecting, based on the rhetoric, that we were going to find a body. Instead, police ultimately traced Chong to Los Angeles, allowing a relative to find him at an Internet cafe there and persuade him to return home.

But for every missing person like Chong, whose case has a happy ending, there are many more like Michael Jarvi of Naselle, Wash., a man with schizophrenia last seen before he abandoned his Ford Escort in an Oregon trailer park in March 2002. His parents received word from a DVD club recently that Jarvi's membership has been paid through April 2005, suggesting that he's still alive, but most of the other supposed tips have gone nowhere.

''How do you even guess where he is?" said Jarvi's father, James Jarvi. ''Every day you think about it, but you've just got to hope for the best."

Kelly Jolkowski, Mother of Missing Jason Jolkowski
President and Founder,
Project Jason
http://www.projectjason.org
Read our Voice for the Missing Blog
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/
 
It's hard to say. The tip never went anywhere, like most tips of this nature. At this point, we may never know for sure if it was James or not. Even if it was not, it does, at least, give the family hope.
 
Valley cold cases haunt law enforcement

“Their voices may now be silent...those who may know the truth are not.”

The motto of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Cold Case Unit is the only hope for families and friends looking for closure when a murder remains unsolved or a missing person is not found.

[snip]

The second missing person cold case in Saguache is James Rowe.

Rowe was 26 years old when he disappeared from Crestone on July 30, 2004. Friends said Rowe was planning to hike to a trailhead outside of Crestone on the evening he disappeared.

Rowe’s car, a 1995 Jeep Cherokee, was found on a county road with the keys in the ignition. There was nothing wrong with the jeep, so car trouble was ruled out as a reason for the vehicle being deserted.

“I like to get information on all disappearances out in front of the public, just in case somebody will remember something and call us,” Norris said. “I talk to James’ mother regularly. And I put information on Rowe, Rust and a “John Doe” murder victim through several national databases to see if there is a hit on a regular basis, too.”

So far there have been no hits on any of the databases.

More: http://www.alamosanews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=20036
 
bumping.... again the high country is melting out and it's hiking season... keep your eyes open when you hit the mountains this year.
 

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