Car pushed off cliff
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March 14, 1981 |
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By Jim Fairchild
Craig Beasley's incredulous voice told me on the phone that he'd been contacted by a representative of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department requesting our aid in looking at a vehicle partially submerged in a pond at the base of a 200 foot cliff. Upon the call-back to the sheriff we learned that the car had been pushed over the cliff the previous night and that we were to take a look for possible bodies inside.
Craig came over to my house, then daughter Carol and I accompanied him to the quarry. Using the No. 2 Van's front axle for an anchor, we set up a 300 foot rope in a lowering mode while Craig put on his harness. Then he was lowered to the car. At the now smashed Lincoln Continental Craig found no bodies, having peering into the passenger compartment and probed the trunk with a stick. The sheriff satisfied, we recoiled the rope, Craig ascended with Jumar clamps. Then it was back to pruning fruit trees, baking bread and doing research in physics, you can guess which of us did what.