Two Teens' Bodies Are Discovered In Creek

Frederick Boys Had Gone To See Rising Waterways

One of the last things Michael White did was leave a note for his parents: We've gone to the river, the 14-year-old boy wrote Tuesday.

His father, Tom White, did not think much about the message at first. He thought his son and his friend might have wanted only to have a look at the flooded Monocacy River as rains transformed small streams and rivers into wild rapids Tuesday night.

But then it occurred to him that the boys -- sharing a bicycle because one of theirs was broken -- might have gone to a favorite swimming hole at a small dam below a railroad trestle on Little Pipe Creek near the Frederick County town of Ladiesburg to see what it would be like to swim in the rising waters.

"I just got a gut feeling something was wrong," White, 43, recalled yesterday. "I told my wife I had to go."

White said he hurried to the dam, which had been built in the days when trains needed to replenish their engines with water drawn by lowering barrels to the creek, but he found no sign of the boys at the swimming hole.

Then he saw his son's bicycle. And he saw their clothing: hats, T-shirts, shoes. Realizing they had gone into the water in their shorts, White raced home, told his wife to call 911 and went back to the creek, wading through the muddy water and searching the banks for the boys.

"But they were nowhere in sight," White said.

About 10:30 a.m. yesterday, searchers, including family friends, found the body of Michael T. White in Little Pipe Creek west of Route 194 and about 250 yards downstream from the boys' belongings, Maryland State Police said.

The body of his friend Thomas Plunkard, 16, was recovered about three hours later farther downstream, about a quarter-mile from where Big Pipe Creek empties into Little Pipe Creek before flowing toward the Monocacy. Sgt. Russell Newell, a state police spokesman, said the bodies would be taken to the chief medical examiner's office for autopsies.

Meanwhile, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office released new details about the drowning Tuesday of three other people near Myersville, including a couple who were trying to reach their 2-year-old daughter at a relative's house.

Investigators believe the three -- Jesse R. Haulsee, 24, Angelia S. Haulsee, 29, and family friend Eric C. Zepp, 19 -- hitched a ride in a Chevy pickup on flooded Route 17 and then bailed out near the home of Jesse Haulsee's mother, evidently believing they could wade or swim across the water, Cpl. Jennifer Bailey, a spokeswoman, said yesterday.

Family members gathered at the Haulsee home yesterday on East Church Hill Road but said they were not ready to talk about the couple's deaths.

"It's devastating," said Charlie Baker, Jesse's brother-in-law. He said the family had created a fund for Jesse and Angelia's two children, Jesse Mayhew, 8, and Jocelyn, the 2-year-old they wanted to reach.

Efforts to reach the Zepp family were unsuccessful.

No one was at the Plunkard home yesterday afternoon. But a neighbor and the neighbor's 7-year-old son described Tom Plunkard as a great kid. Tom loved bicycles but was especially excited that he had turned 16 and would be able to drive, said neighbor Wayne Harris, 48, a Frederick County employee. He said Tom was close to his 6-year-old brother.

Harris said Tom treated Harris's 7-year-old son like a little brother, too.

"We played in our dirt pile together," said the son, Chandler Harris. "We just rolled around in the mud, and after it rained, we splashed in the mud. When my bicycle quit, he fixed it and made it work again."

A few hours before the boys disappeared, the Harrises saw them riding around in the rain.

Tom "was riding on the handlebars of the other boy's bike, and they were wet, and there was mud all down their pants," Chandler said. "They were both smiling."

Tom White, who works for Bollinger Construction Inc., said his son was the youngest of three children and the only boy. He loved soccer and dreamed of pursuing the sport as far as his legs would take him. Father and son watched match after match of the World Cup, rooting for Germany because of their German roots, White said.

"We watched about every game," White said. He said his son had been looking forward to attending a week-long soccer camp at Mount St. Mary's University next month.

In fact, White had driven Tuesday to the Frederick County college campus to pay the last installment on the soccer camp's fee when he returned to find the note. Now he, his wife, Cheryl, a manager at the McDonald's in Walkersville, and his two daughters are grieving and thinking about what went wrong.

"Tom's mom told them, 'Whatever you do, please don't go in the river,' " he said.

Staff writer Nelson Hernandez contributed to this report.