By
Jason Blevins Denver Post Staff Writer July
5, 1999 - MONTEZUMA CREEK, Utah - All the
police are gone.
"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 missing hikers or fugitives, please
call Don. He thinks 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
before the trail gets contaminated.
(This e-mail address is being protected from
spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
immediately.)
