[glow=red,2,300]Yolanda Bindics’ Body Discovered Close To Popular Hiking Trail[/glow]
CHARLOTTE — For weeks, State Police and county sheriff’s deputies scoured the woods of northern Chautauqua County for fugitive Ralph Phillips with no idea the body of missing Jamestown woman Yolanda Bindics lay only a few miles away.
It was only by chance that hunters came across her body, which presumably lay there for more than two years as the Jamestown Police Department investigated her baffling disappearance.
‘‘It was absolutely a break in the case,’’ said County Sheriff Joseph Gerace, who is now helping the Jamestown Police Department investigate Ms. Bindics’ death. ‘‘We are fortunate they were able to discover it and recognize that what they were seeing were human remains.’’
The body was discovered on state land in the northeastern corner of the town of Charlotte, though it took a few days for the remains to be identified as Ms. Bindics.
That stretch of woods is part of the Boutwell Hill State Forest and the Earl O. Cardot Eastside Overland Trail — a 19-mile trail system that stretches from Gerry to Arkwright and is primarily used for hiking, mountain biking and cross-country skiing.
The state forest is roughly one mile wide with the trail running right through the middle, which means two years’ worth of hikers and skiers were within a half mile of the body.
Nevertheless, law enforcement authorities aren’t surprised it took so long for the body to be discovered — in fact, they count it as blind luck.
‘‘It’s a forest. It’s state land out in the middle of nowhere — a very desolate, typical state forest,’’ said Lt. Todd Isaacson of the Jamestown Police Department. ‘‘There are some trails up there in that area, but it was just by chance that these hunters came across it. We can only be grateful for that, not only for the family, but for the investigation.’’
The reason they consider themselves lucky for the discovery is that there is little reason for anyone to leave the trail and venture out into the surrounding woods. Even if a hiker did decide to leave the trail, the woods are extremely thick and visibility is greatly diminished by the foliage — so much so that one would almost have to stumble on the exact spot to find it.
According to Gerace, those woods were never searched during the Phillips manhunt, since police activity in Charlotte was limited to the western half of the town nearer to Cassadaga.
Also, Jamestown police — which primarily concentrated their search efforts within the city limits — had no reason to venture out there in hopes of finding a body.
‘‘We based a lot of our search efforts on investigative insight gained through interviews and the family,’’ Isaacson said. ‘‘So obviously, searches were based on information obtained through those interviews.’’
Aside from the Fluvanna Avenue corridor, Jamestown police searched the area around Jones and Gifford Avenue, the county landfill in Ellery and the Chautauqua Gorge.
Initially, there was even some suspicion the body was missing Lakewood resident Lori Ceci Bova, who vanished June 8, 1997, since the Boutwell Hill State Forest was not one of the areas searched in the aftermath of her disappearance.
‘‘That particular area was never brought up,’’ said Inv. Paul Gustafson of the Lakewood-Busti Police Department.
According to Gustafson, who has been investigating Mrs. Ceci-Bova’s disappearance since it was first reported nine years ago, there was an extensive search in the southern half of Chautauqua County conducted by friends, family, volunteers and law enforcement officials, who would literally line up and scour any place where a body could have been deposited.
‘‘What we did starting right from day one was our initial searches began at (Lori’s home), and we basically worked out from there with any likely area where we felt there was the possibility of locating Lori,’’ Gustafson said.
But their searches were never conducted as far away as Charlotte and the Boutwell Hill State Forest. The same was true for the Jamestown Police Department.
Ms. Bindics, mother of four, vanished Aug. 10, 2004. She was last scene leaving the Family Dollar store on Fluvanna Avenue. Until her body was recovered, the only physical evidence that ever turned up was her vehicle parked at Arby’s on Fluvanna Avenue and her purse and car keys that washed up out of storm drains south of Chadakoin Park a month after her disappearance.
The medical examiner has not yet determined the cause of Ms. Bindics’ death.
Area where Yolanda was discoveredtinyurl.com/h7r8s