Beneath the blue waters

Foul play?
If foul play was involved in the disappearance of Lana Stempien and her boyfriend Chuck Rutherford, speculation about who would want to harm two successful young attorneys has run the gamut from pirates on the water, to a mafia hit.

Chris Hansen, Dateline correspondent: This is not an area known for piracy.

Jack Cote, helping the Stempien family in the investigation: No, no.

Hansen: Chuck was a former criminal prosecutor. Somebody in the mafia might have been upset with him and gone after him and this was some kind of a hit?

Cote: Nobody to my knowledge to date has identified someone that he may have prosecuted that would have a vendetta against him. If that motive existed, there’s a lot of easier ways to get at him than out in the middle of Lake Huron.

And Andrew Jarvis says of all the wild theories he’s heard, only one seems plausible: When the couple stopped for the night in Oscoda, or to get gas in Presque Isle, things somehow got ugly.

Andrew Jarvis, Lana’s friend and now Stempien family attorney: They ran into somebody up there on the water that they didn’t hit it off with, had some ulterior motives. Maybe things went sour.

But how did Lana die— and what happened to Chuck?  Five months after he and Lana disappeared, there is still no sign of him anywhere.

Cote: I would have expected his body to have surfaced at about the same time and in the same general vicinity as Lana’s.

Hansen: Do you see it as at all strange that Lana’s body is found two weeks after the incident, yet all these months later we still haven’t found Chuck’s body?

Detective Robin Sexton, Michigan P.D.: Not in the slightest. It is not unheard of for bodies to enter the water and never be recovered.

Still, it’s a troubling question that continues to haunt Lana’s family:

Tammy Swanson, Lana’s cousin: Is he still underwater? I don’t know. Is he somewhere else? I don’t know.

Chuck's family declined to give Dateline either an interview or a statement. Detective Sexton, who talks to them regularly as his investigation continues, says the Rutherfords are just trying to cope.

Detective Sexton: They are extremely saddened by the loss of their son. They are very private people, and they want answers to the questions just like the Stempiens do.

Patrick Quinlan, a college buddy of Chuck’s who’s kept in touch with him over the years, says Chuck’s friends are still in shock.

Patrick Quinlan, Chuck Rutherford’s friend from college: It’s just bizarre to have a buddy just disappear.

Bizarre, and to some people, suspicious.

But Chuck's college pal is angered by suggestions that because he's still missing, Chuck was involved in Lana’s death.

Hansen: Do you think there’s a possibility that Chuck is still alive?

Quinlan: No.

Hansen: That he had something to do with Lana’s death and somehow was able to get off the boat?

Quinlan: No. He’s not a violent, hot tempered person. It just doesn’t match with who he is.

A domestic dispute?
Still, the police are pursuing information that Lana’s family worries could indicate the possibility of some kind of domestic dispute on board “Sea’s Life.”

Hansen: We have been told, that Lana told a bartender friend of hers that “If anything ever happens to me, look at my boyfriend.” Did you check into that?  Is it significant?

Detective Sexton: It’s part of the investigation.

Though Sexton won’t elaborate, Andrew Jarvis checked out the story for Lana’s family and got sworn statements from several people confirming the incident.

He says the witnesses he spoke to told him the comment was made in a Detroit bar a few months before Lana disappeared and was prompted by a television story about the murder of Laci Peterson.

Jarvis: They did not believe she was joking. She seemed very nervous after making that statement.

Jarvis says he also has sworn statements from people who describe a troubling incident at another bar in downtown Detroit.

Lana and Chuck were hanging out in a Detroit bar one night with another couple.  They say Chuck had too much to drink and became belligerent. When Lana told him to straighten up because he was embarrassing everyone, Chuck started swearing loudly and calling Lana names.  They say Chuck’s verbal abuse was so out of hand that at one point one of them had to stand between the couple to separate them. And then, two Detroit police officers who were in the bar having dinner actually had to forcibly escort Chuck outside.

According to Lana’s friends, that kind of behavior had caused Lana to rethink her relationship with Chuck.

Jarvis: From those sworn affidavits, it indicates Lana was going to end the relationship with Chuck. She didn’t believe that they had a future together.

And there’s something else: “Dateline” has learned that the very last phone call Lana made from her boat before she died was to another man— someone who Chuck was jealous about in the past.

Jarvis: It’s a person who Chuck had expressed jealous behavior towards Lana, or been agitated when she had spoken to this individual on the phone.

Two days into Lana and Chuck’s boat trip, at 1:59 p.m. on Thursday, August 11^th, Lana left her male friend a one-minute message.

Jarvis says she was making plans to meet up with him when she’d be on the east coast for her cousin’s upcoming wedding.

Jarvis: She was not taking Chuck to that wedding. He did not know that Lana planned not to take him to that wedding.

Hansen:  27 foot-boat, close quarters. You have to wonder if she’s calling another man, does he overhear it? Is there some sort of disagreement? That leads to an accident or a tragedy?

Detective Sexton: I don’t know.

Hansen: Is that an important piece of evidence in this case?

Sexton: We’re still looking at it.

Detective Sexton says without any evidence, the possibility that a phone message caused an ugly argument is pure speculation.

Detective Sexton: Whether it happened or not, I don’t know. But how would you prove that?

Chuck’s friend Patrick Quinlan says whatever happened on board “Sea’s Life,” it’s a stretch to think Chuck is now hiding out somewhere.

Hansen: You just don’t buy it?

Quinlan: If he was still alive, somebody would have heard from him.

Even Lana’s family is cautious, acknowledging that no matter what was going on in their relationship, it may have absolutely no connection to her death, or to Chuck's disappearance.

Pat Kozcara, Lana's aunt: I feel very much for his family. That’s gotta be terrible to think about that every day that your child may still be in that water.

Jarvis: For all I know, Chuck could be recovered, his remains, and this could all turn out to be a big accident.

Was it murder?  Was Chuck involved? Or was it something else entirely? Something surprising would turn up in Lana’s toxicology report.

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