DON BENDELL: THE TRACKER

By Jason Blevins Denver Post Staff Writer July 5, 1999 - MONTEZUMA CREEK, Utah - All the police are gone. DON BENDELL: THE TRACKER "The hundred or so cruisers from four states that clogged this tiny Navajo settlement are nowhere to be seen. The helicopters that buzzed over the San Juan River for the past five days are gone. Police say they won't return until there is a positive sighting of two fugitives sought in the slaying of a Cortez policeman. But Don Bendell isn't waiting that long.

"Just because they gave up doesn't mean I have to give up," said the gangly, outspoken ex-Green Beret captain and martial arts expert from Canon City..."

FROM: SPEAKING OUT Letters to the Editor, CANON CITY DAILY RECORD, 1998

from Leroy Davis

"Mr. Bendell was kicked by the horse he was riding and it was feared that his leg might be broken.

And yet, mere hours later, after a doctor determined the leg was okay, Mr. Bendell was again out at the search site.

My brother was especially impressed by Don Bendell's perserverance. I remember him saying, more than once, "If anyone every finds Troy, it's going to be Don Bendell. There's no quit in that man."

Those words have now been true.

Thank you, Don Bendell: For believing, when others would not. For never quitting, when others seemed more than willing to do just that.

With all our hearts we say: Thank you, May God bless you and your family, in all ways."

By Darrell Smith, THE GAZETTE (Colorado Springs, Colorado), Tuesday, May 26, 1998

"Don Bendell is a former Green Beret, a rancher, and a writer of western novels, whose hero, Chris Colt, is a tracker.

Bendell, 51, brought his own fictional hero  to life wth his own relentless search to find missing hiker Troy Tilley.

The story ended late Sunday when Bendell discovered Tilley's body face down in a creek atop a waterfall near Tanner Trail.

The discovery capped a monthlong search, which became Bendell's personal cause after a tearful plea from the missing man's wife, Jolene Tilley."

By Davalynn Spencer, AMERICAN COWBOY magazine, July, 2000

"Following Bendell's success at finding Tilley, United States Representative Scott McInniss recommended him to help ferrett out three cop killers in the Four Corners area of southern Utah. Though he didn't find the fugitives, Bendell spent several weeks compiling clues and theories that aided the FBI in their continued search."

By Jim Mallory, THE DENVER POST, May 26, 1998

"When I was a kid my buddies always wanted to be the cowboys and I wanted to be the Indian," he said.

Bendell, 51, said he used those same tracking skills as he looked for Tilley, riding his pinto, Eagle.

"I put Tilley's whole trail together. You have to get inside the mind of the person you are tracking," Bendell said Monday." 

By Bob Steller, article to WESTERN HORSEMAN, published in June, 2000, about his missing National Endurance Champion Arabian horse, Markoss

"On the seventh day a famous tracker, Don Bendell from Canon City, Colorado volunteered to help find Markoss . . ."

"Hours later, Don returned and told us, "Markoss is not dead, he is not injured, (I think) he has been stolen . . ." "Other pressing commitments did not allow Don to cover the other 25% of the land . . ."

"On the ninth morning . . ."

"Shortly after 9am Monika called, "Two hunters just found Markoss!"

Note from Don Bendell: On August 25, 2001 Markoss went on to represent the Mountain Team of the United States of America in the Pan American Games. 

Don Bendell in an article entitled HIAWATHA HUNTING in BOWHUNTER Magazine's 1988 DEER HUNTING ANNUAL

"My technqiues are not based on scientific data but on my own practical experience and what I learned by studying the secrets of super bowhunters, the early American Indian."

Ironic new development:

In the late fall of 2001, while hunting for elk near Durango, Colorado, Don and his oldest son, Don Bendell, Jr., tracked and caught a horse which had been missing from a children's camp for over five months and had turned wild, living on a high mountain ridge with elk and mule deer, and many people had not been able to locate the horse after numerous tries. Don and Don returned the horse to its owners.

IMPORTANT NOTE FROM DON

If you are a law enforcement officer or search and rescue leader, searching for a missing hikers or  fugitive, please call me.   I really believe, if life's experiences have given you some kind of expertise, God feels it should be used to the benefit of others, so call or Contact: Don Bendell  immediately before  the trail gets contaminated.