COLTON, Oregon — I met Andy Letourneau 10 years ago, when I was investigating an old Portland mystery. In 1959 the Martin family -- mom, dad and two daughters -- left their Portland home to cut down a Christmas tree. They, and their car, disappeared. Five months later, the girls' bodies turned up in the Columbia River. After I wrote an initial column, a high-tech search expert offered to help search the river for the Martins' car. Andy Letourneau volunteered to dive into the deep, cold, swift water. We searched the river for four weeks. Andy and diving legend Mark Angel made repeated dives near a place where tire treads had been seen going off a cliff in 1959. Andy put in many hours, for free. He was an experienced deep diver; he was meticulous in his preparations and surfaced whenever conditions seemed even slightly unsafe. He wanted to solve the mystery and was disappointed when the late autumn weather forced us to end our search. Andy made a lot of dives to help other people. He recovered bodies after drownings. He found lost objects -- once he found a wedding ring someone had lost off a dock in Lake Oswego. "If somebody needed help, Andy was right there," says Lisa Morrison, Andy's sister. "And he never expected a reward. I don't think he ever took money for anything. He just wanted to help people solve problems." Andy died during a dive in British Columbia. | | Andy Letourneau, 46, died while scuba diving near Port Hardy in British Columbia, Canada. "We think something happened with his gear," Lisa says. An autopsy showed Andy did not drown. "We don't know if he had too much oxygen or not enough. The Canadian Navy recovered the diving gear, and they're analyzing it." Andy was a lifetime Oregonian. He and his wife, Meegan, had just bought their dream home in Colton. He was 46. Andy was a generous man, a kind man. He helped a lot of people. by MARGIE BOULÉ |
