Two brothers in Alaska vanished a decade apart. Were their disappearances related or coincidental, and how could a family deal with the mysterious losses of two loved ones?
Michael Palmer
Fifteen-year-old Michael Palmer disappeared while riding his bike down a Wasilla, Alaska road on June 4, 1999. Michael, or Mike, spent the night at a friend’s house, and he and three other boys slipped out of the house to attend a graduation party near the Meadow Lake subdivision outside Wasilla. Wasilla, a town of approximately 10,000 residents, is located 43 miles (69.2 km) northeast of Anchorage.
The boys rode their bicycles to the party, and according to Mike’s friends, Mike consumed a few beers, but he was not intoxicated when they left the party to head home at 4:00 am. The party took place at a residence nine miles (14.5 km) from where the boys were staying, so the kids had a long bicycle ride home.
Mike’s friends said they all started riding together on their bikes, but after a while, Mike fell behind the group. They pulled over to wait for Mike at the 7-Eleven on the Parks Highway, but when he never arrived, the boys decided he must have cycled to his own home.
When Mike didn’t come home by the following afternoon, his mother called the friend’s house where Mike supposedly spent the night, but the friend told her Mike wasn’t there. Mike’s mother reported her son missing at 3:00 pm, eleven hours after he disappeared.
Michael Palmer was never seen again. He vanished. Searchers found his bicycle, or one like it, in the Little Susitna River, and sneakers the same size and brand as those Michael wore the night he disappeared were discovered next to a private airstrip located 200 yards from the Little Susitna River. Fifty searchers combed the woods near the river, but no other trace of Michael Palmer has ever been found.
Michael’s oldest brother, Chris, did not believe the bike found in the river was Michael’s, and Michael’s father remains skeptical of the story Mike’s three friends told about the night he disappeared. The father hired two separate private investigators to look into the matter. One investigator quickly packed up and moved from Wasilla when she received death threats soon after she began investigating Michael’s disappearance. The second investigator uncovered rumors suggesting Michael never left the party the night he vanished, and the detective suspected he was either murdered or kidnapped. These rumors have never been substantiated.
Months after Michael disappeared, a local boy stated he saw someone beat and then shoot Michael on a bridge, but when questioned by authorities, the boy claimed he made up the story. Some people wondered if Michael fell into the river and died of hypothermia, but tracker dogs did not trace his scent to the river, and no one saw any sign of a body in the clear river water.
Michael’s brother, Chris, said he heard rumors about fights at the graduation party, and he thinks something terrible happened to his brother at the party. Michael’s father believes his youngest son is dead. His case remains open.
Michael is a Caucasian male with brown/blond hair and blue eyes. He is left-handed. The following photo is an age-progression photo from The Charley Project depicting what Michael might look like today.
The Palmer family had three boys and two girls. Michael was the youngest boy, Chucky the middle boy, and Chris, the oldest son.
Charles “Chucky” Palmer
On April 10, 2010, nearly eleven years after his brother vanished, Chucky Palmer disappeared while riding his snow machine with family and friends near Talkeetna, Alaska, 70 miles (112.65 km) north of Wasilla.
Chucky, his older brother, Chris, their stepfather, and two friends went on a “guy’s” trip to the Talkeetna Mountains where they planned to spend a few days riding their snow machines through the woods. On the morning of April 10, the handlebar on Chris’s snow machine snapped off, and he was forced to stay at the cabin and work on his machine. Chris was an experienced snow machine rider, but Chucky was not. Still, Chucky was eager to ride his new snow machine with the other guys.
According to the group riding with Chucky, all went well until they were heading back to the cabin on the main trail. Around 7:15 pm, Chucky became separated from the rest of the group and then just like his brother over a decade earlier, Chucky disappeared. According to his fellow riders, they last saw Chucky traveling in the opposite direction from their cabin.
Chucky was dressed appropriately for the cold weather, but he did not have a GPS device, food, or water. No one reported Chucky missing until the following morning, and by then, a snowstorm hampered the search party. Chucky’s snow machine was found in deep snow, 12 miles (19.3 km) from the cabin, and Alaska State Troopers guessed he must have gone off on a side trail and then got stuck in soft snow.
Oddly, despite the soft, deep snow, no footprints were found near the snow machine, and the helmet Chucky was wearing has never been located. It snowed several inches after Chucky disappeared, but it seems unlikely the snow could have completely concealed the conspicuous tracks Chucky would have made in the snow if he left his machine in search of the main trail and the cabin.
Chucky was riding at the back of his group, and according to the others, they didn’t realize he had dropped behind them until they saw him heading the wrong direction. There is no explanation for why they didn’t follow him and tell him to turn around. Chris Palmer thinks the older men were traveling too fast, and Chucky couldn’t keep up with them and became disoriented. None of this, though, explains the lack of footprints near Chucky’s snow machine. Fire Chief Ken Farina, who was involved in the search, said he could think of no explanation for Chucky’s disappearance other than an alien abduction. He found no clues and no evidence Chucky had ever been anywhere near the area where they found his snow machine.
Alaska State Troopers performed a second search for Chucky’s body in May 2010 once the snow melted, but they discovered no trace of Chucky.
Chucky Palmer was 30 years old when he disappeared, and he left behind three daughters.
It must be a nightmare to lose a loved one to violence, but how do you cope when someone close to you vanishes? You would never know what happened to him, and you would always wonder if he could still be alive. When a child disappears, the parents suffer unspeakable pain, but to lose two children under mysterious circumstances exceeds the boundaries of what most of us could endure.
What happened to Michael and Chucky Palmer? If you have any information about the disappearance of these individuals, please contact the Alaska State Troopers.
Robin Barefield lives in the wilderness on Kodiak Island, where she and her husband own a remote lodge. She has a master’s degree in fish and wildlife biology and is a wildlife-viewing and fishing guide. Robin has published four novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, and Karluk Bones. She draws on her love and appreciation of the Alaska wilderness as well as her scientific background when writing.
Robin invites you to join her at her website: http://robinbarefield.com, and while you are there, sign up for her free, monthly newsletter about true crime in Alaska. Robin also narrates a podcast: Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. You can find it at: https://murder-in-the-last-frontier.blubrry.net
