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GREENLAND — Raymond Lewis and Oscar Hintta went on outdoor trips in the general area of southern Houghton County and eastern Ontonagon County more than a decade ago.

Neither man has been seen since.

The two missing person cases join the 1993 disappearance of Jan Pattison of Greenland as unsolved in the files of the respective sheriff’s departments.

Lewis, a Dollar Bay man, reportedly went fishing on the Firesteel River in Ontonagon County in the fall of 1992. Lewis was alone on the trip to the river, which he reportedly had fished on occasion.

When he didn’t show up in a few days, relatives of Lewis reported his absence to authorities. There was no break in the case until the following spring when a hiker discovered the truck Lewis was driving near the Firesteel.

“The keys were still in the vehicle,” recalled the late Gary Beauchamp, who was then undersheriff on the Houghton County Sheriff’s Department. “I turned the key over and it started, even after being parked all winter.”

There still wasn’t a great deal of concern because Lewis was known as a free spirit, who often disappeared for months at a time.

“I guess he (Lewis) had taken a few trips before without telling too many people about them,” said Ontonagon County Sheriff John Gravier, whose department had jurisdiction in the case. “But no one has seen or heard from him since then.”

Hintta, 69, of Calumet, went deer hunting in the Kenton area with a friend in November of 1989. The two hunters went off in different directions, Hintta going down an old logging road.

When Hintta failed to show up a few hours later, his friend notified authorities. Jim Ruotsala, the sheriff of Houghton County at the time, said the search effort was hampered greatly by a freak weather pattern that moved into the area the very next day.

“First, there was a very heavy rain, almost like a monsoon,” Ruotsala recalled. “Then we had a big snowstorm that shut down things for a couple of days.”

When the search resumed, a Coast Guard helicopter and the MSP Canine Unit from Negaunee were called in. But the three-day search turned up nothing.

“Residents in that area said they never recalled a storm quite like that,” said Ruotsala. “It had a great effect on the general landscape and it’s possible he (Hintta) may have become buried in the mud.”

Hintta’s case was even the subject of an episode on the TV series, “Unsolved Mysteries.”

In a rather bizarre twist in the case, a niece of Hintta’s said she was looking for information on her uncle on the Internet and found information that an Oscar Hintta had died in Bisbee, Ariz., in 1996. She said she has been unable to confirm whether there was a connection to her uncle because the files on the death had been lost.

In the Pattison case, Gravier said there were reports she had been spotted in the Houghton area and on Forest Highway 16 a few days after Aug. 26.

“We weren’t able to confirm those reports, so I don’t know if there was any validity to them,” he said. “The search effort was extensive in the area, there just were no concrete clues.”

Shirley Pattison, Jan’s mother, said the family was contacted by psychics offering their assistance in the case.

“We had a few of them look over the area where Jan was last seen,” she said. “But they never came up with anything that helped.”

Jack Pattison died three years ago. The disappearance of his daughter troubled him deeply.

“I know (her disappearance) was with him every day, as it has been with all of us,” Mrs. Pattison commented. “Not knowing has always been the worst part.”

Gravier said he hopes to come up with an answer to the mystery some day, similar to the discovery of John Buccanero’s remains a couple of years ago.

“Finding (a body) gives a lot of rest to the family, it probably eases their minds,” he said. “We’d like to find Jan .... one way or another .... for the sake of the Pattison family. To help put the family at ease.”

In the meantime, the Ontonagon and Houghton County sheriff’s department will continue to check out clues, and even do occasional searches in the area to find out what happened to Jan Pattison, Raymond Lewis and Oscar Hintta.