RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

Divers search lake for missing man

SHREWSBURY — The state police scuba team is searching the depths of Spring Lake today in search of William Michael "Mike" Hogan, nearly four years after he disappeared.

Hogan, who was 28 years old at the time, was suffering from a mental illness and was last seen at the Spring Lake Ranch when he went missing.

Hogan disappeared May 16, 2005, and after numerous false leads, the Hogan family and police are hoping to rule out another possibility.

"With the passage of time, we're stepping it up as a priority now," said lead investigator Detective Sgt. Robert Patten of the open Hogan case.

"We're not getting any concrete information that he's out there," Patten said. "With the passage of time, the grim reality is, he might not be alive."

During the last year, police have received new tips that led them, and the Hogan family, to believe that a search of the lake may lead to a result in Hogan's disappearance.

A client of the ranch, staying there the same time Hogan was, recently told police he saw Hogan near the lake on the day he disappeared and during a recent search, police dogs hesitated at "areas of interest" while police navigated the boat across the water of a section of the 64-acre lake, according to Patten.

There were also a series of sticks lined up along the shore that could have possibly been laid by Hogan, he said.

The dive will be the first by the state's scuba team and if it finds nothing, the New York state police's team will search the entire lake with sonar, Patten said.

"It's one more area to cross off the list," he said.

The Hogan family isn't giving up hope that their son will be found alive.

Throughout the years, mother Sandra Hopkins and father Michael Hogan hired a private investigator, brought police dogs in from Maine to search the wooded area around the ranch, posted fliers, and flown to California for weeks at a time, chasing down a woman who said she saw their son.

"We're gonna keep looking," Michael Hogan said. "I can't imagine anybody would give up and stop looking."

Hogan moved to the Spring Lake Ranch in 2005 at the age of 28 for treatment of his mental illness, a severe case of obsessive compulsive disorder, according to Hopkins.

Hogan was on powerful medications when he vanished from outside the dining room of the ranch around noon May 16, according to police.

Hopkins said her son's illness caused him to ask people questions over and over again, but aside from that, he was like every other 28-year-old. "He had a sense of humor, he was a likable guy," she said.

William Michael "Mike" Hogan is 6 feet tall, 180 pounds, with black hair, blue eyes and an occasional beard. He has a birthmark on his upper back, a slightly receding hairline and a cap on his upper front teeth. He is not a threat to the public.

Anyone with information on Hogan or his disappearance is asked to immediately call state police at 773-9101 or the CUE Center for Missing Persons at (910) 232-1687.

cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com