Missing man’s second shoe found

Police have located a second shoe believed to have been worn by a Sandpoint computer programmer when he disappeared after closing out a bar one month ago.

Detective Steve Feldhausen, of the Sandpoint Police Department, said Friday that a beachcomber found the second shoe a couple of weeks ago and was prompted to speak out by news accounts in the past few days about the discovery of the first shoe – which police believe they have linked to 29-year-old Dan Clune.

Clune has not been seen since the early morning hours of Nov. 6, when he and friends closed out the Long Bridge Grill in Sagle, across the Pend Oreille River from Sandpoint. The shoes washed up about two miles apart on the Sandpoint side of the river and their discovery strengthens the likelihood that Clune somehow wound up in the water, Feldhausen said.

The detective revealed the discovery of the first shoe on Wednesday. It had been spotted on the north side of the river one day after Clune vanished. Feldhausen said a former roommate of Clune’s identified the shoe as belonging to the missing man, and police found a shoebox in Clune’s house with information that matched exactly the Adidas running shoe’s model, color, size and tread pattern.

The second shoe appears to be the mate of the first, Feldhausen said.

“It was found along the shoreline east of the old Dover mill site,” about two miles downstream from the Long Bridge, which crosses from Sagle to Sandpoint, Feldhausen said. “An individual spotted it Nov. 18 when he was beachcombing. He set the shoe on a rock.”

When the man read news accounts of the first shoe’s discovery, he called Feldhausen and led the detective to the shore Thursday, where the shoe was still sitting on a rock.

The shoe was untied, Feldhausen said. The laces on the first one were knotted.

Family members in New York said on Wednesday they are holding onto hope that Clune, a recent transplant to Sandpoint, will be found unharmed. Their hopes are bolstered, they said, by two psychics, one in New Jersey and one in Sandpoint, who have said they believe Clune is alive.

Police believe it is becoming more likely that Clune somehow fell into the river. He was last seen by companions between 1:30 and 2 a.m. Nov. 6, going back into the Long Bridge Grill to get a sweat shirt. When he didn’t quickly return to the parking lot, crowded with the closing time “rush hour,” his friends checked the bar, stopped to check with groups of pedestrians walking on the Long Bridge and even checked at his house.

There has been no activity on Clune’s cell phone or bank accounts for the last month, Feldhausen said. There have been reports Clune has been spotted in Hawaii or Tennessee or Utah, but the detective said those reports may be sparked by the $10,000 reward offered by family and need to be thoroughly checked out.

Divers and marine patrol deputies with the Bonner County Sheriff’s Office have checked the river several times – and as recently as Tuesday – from the Long Bridge as far downstream as Laclede. Feldhausen said another river search is likely next week.