NY NY - Roderick Shade aka "Drywall Outlaw", 44, Lake Ontario, 11 Sept 2005

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A LAKE ONTARIO MYSTERY: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE ‘DRYWALL OUTLAW?'

Waynesboro, Penn. boater Rod Shade is still missing, and his family and friends are mourning the man they affectionately call the Drywall Outlaw.

Shade, 44, a drywall installer and enthusiastic fisherman, launched his 25-foot boat Sept. 11 from Port Bay, near Wolcott. It washed up unmanned the next day at Moon Beach with the key in the ignition, the throttle open and the fishing gear set up.

Police agencies searched Lake Ontario and the shoreline, but found no trace of Shade.

Investigator Art Luke of the state police's Wolcott barracks said the area is routinely patrolled, but “the lake is deep.”

Shade is assumed to have fallen overboard and drowned.

His father, Don Shade of Waynesboro, said in a telephone interview that his son went fishing whenever he wasn't working.
When Rod had the time, he'd head to the Great Lakes and the local rivers to catch steelhead salmon, bass, and trout.

Don said Rod was in excellent physical shape. “When you hang drywall you've got to be pretty tough,” his father said.

Don Shade's wife passed away more than five years ago. “Rod was the last one in my family living,” he said.

He has been keeping himself busy - hunting, fishing, and spending time in the mountains - as he comes to term with his loss.

Shade is in the limbo that family members inhabit when a person is presumed to have died but a body has not been found. Although he said he believes his son drowned, he is not ready to plan a memorial service yet. “I'm waiting to hear something. That's what's rough. With the things that go on in the country today - people shooting people - you never know,” he said.

“Rod was a great son,” he added.

Shade's girlfriend of 22 years, Julie Biser, often accompanied Shade on his fishing and hunting trips to central New York.
“We'd been coming up for 15 years. We had dreams of moving up there,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Pennsylvania.

Sometimes Shade fished alone and sometimes he went with a group of friends he had made during his trips.

Drywall Outlaw was Shade's marine radio call name as well as the name of the couple's boat.

Biser is struggling with some strong feelings as she grieves. “Right now I need closure. I would love it if they could find his body. Right now I feel he's lost. But I have a deep faith, and I know he's not in that body,” she said. “It's devastating - losing someone in your life - all your plans - I'm just living day to day.”

A rumor that Shade staged his disappearance has been dismissed as unfounded by police.

“It's a baseless rumor,” said Luke.

“He would never have done that,” Biser said emphatically. “He could not have picked up and left without everything. He worked hard for what he had and he wouldn't leave it.”



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