It was between 5 and 5:30 p.m. April 11 when Colin Jeffery Krusor send goodbye text messages to his friends and family members. Friends and family say the hours between then and the next morning, when his body was found hanging from a Madrona tree, were as frustrating as they were sad.

“I got a text from him at 5:15 p.m.,” said Raquel Stokes, Krusor’s fiancée. “Police officers arrived at our home just minutes after I got home from work.”

When police asked Stokes where they might find Krusor, she suggested North Beach first and foremost, since it was his favorite place, although she also recommended Gibbs Lake and Fort Townsend State Park, both of which she recalled that he’d enjoyed as well.

According to Stokes, Krusor’s mother had called local law enforcement from her home in Idaho after receiving her text message.

Krusor’s car was found in the North Beach parking lot by 6:30 p.m., and while one officer reported seeing a man he thought could be Krusor, the man ran when the officer called out to him. Police called off the search that evening over concerns that Krusor might be armed, as well as their inability to work their way through the brush.

“I told them he wasn’t armed,” Stokes said. “But when we showed up to North Beach at 7:30 p.m., no one else was there except for a park ranger, whose shift had already ended, but who continued searching until midnight.

“We,” in this case, included Stokes and her friend Stephanie Moran, as well as other friends and family members, who searched until about 10:30 p.m.

“At that point, it was raining, windy and dark, and the tide was coming in,” Moran said.

From there, Stokes and Moran decided to return to North Beach the next morning, at first light.

THE NEXT MORNING

Brandon Matney did not know Colin Jeffery Krusor when he was alive, but Matney became involved in Krusor’s recovery April 12.

Through his business partner, Karlton Booth, Matney is mutual friends with Moran, who posted a notice on Facebook on the evening of April 11, to organize the search for Krusor at North Beach that night, after Krusor had sent text messages to his mother earlier that day indicating that he planned to kill himself.

“I had no background on this,” Matney said. “I’d never met Colin before, so I was less emotionally involved.”

Matney and Booth co-own Tippy Top Tree Service, and because Matney remembered the body that was found 40 feet up in a tree at Fort Worden State Park Jan. 13, he came prepared to climb trees or cliffs to retrieve Krusor.

Matney arrived at the North Beach parking lot at 5:45 a.m. April 12, with his climbing gear and his dog, a dingo named Marley, and was met by Moran, who had arrived at 5:30 a.m. and was the only other person on scene at the time.

Moran contacted Clallam County to see whether they could send a search-and-rescue dog, but she was told that such dogs are not sent out to look for potential suicides.

Moran had no more success when she asked the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department whether they could obtain a drone to help conduct the search, as she was told to contact King County instead.

“We were told to do that legwork ourselves,” Stokes said. “That’s a lot to put on the family at a time like that.”

Marley climbed into Krusor’s car to get his scent, and while Marley is not a search-and-rescue dog, Matney deemed her helpful in the search.

“Within about 10 to 15 minutes, she was within about 50 feet of where Colin was finally found,” Matney said, noting the “precarious” nature of the terrain. “Unfortunately, the wind blowing up the hill seemed to throw her off the scent, and she took me up the hill toward the bunkers.”

In the meantime, a number of others had joined the search, including Stokes’ stepfather, Robin Blanchard, and her mother. Stokes herself had arrived at 6:30 a.m.

“The girls went out onto the beach, while the parents were in the parking lot,” Matney said. “It was 6:45 a.m. when I received the call from Stephanie, saying that Raquel had discovered where the body was.”

“He’d hung himself from a madrona,” Stokes said. “It was his favorite tree.”

Both Moran and Matney used their phones to call for emergency services, after which Matney raced down the hill with Marley, ultimately reuniting with Moran at the Chinese Gardens just as emergency services personnel began to arrive.

Matney described a “circus” of activity, between emergency medical services and fire personnel.

While Stokes’ family was told to wait in the parking lot, Matney and Marley accompanied two police officers to locate Krusor, but by the time they arrived, they found Krusor’s stepfather standing over his body at 7:30 a.m.

“We were probably about 75 to 100 yards away from where Robin was,” Matney said. “Colin was deep in the brush. They tried to cut a hole through the brush with a chainsaw, but it had a carbide chain, which works for cutting metal, but not so much for wood.”

Matney estimated it wasn’t until 9 a.m. that recovery workers had Krusor’s body on a stretcher.

“It took a serious amount of time,” Matney said. “I’d called Karl 10 minutes before 8 a.m. to tell him I’d be late for work. I don’t think I was able to show up until 11 a.m.”

Moran didn’t leave the scene until 10:40 a.m., and she seconded Matney’s qualms with how the family was treated by responders.

“They asked for a search dog and were told no,” Matney said. “They asked for drones and were told no. They asked for the search to continue through the previous night, and they were told no. It wound up having to be his fiancee who located his body, and her stepdad who found his body.”

THE AFTERMATH

As for Stokes, she’s still racking her brain to figure out what she might have been able to do differently.

Stokes pointed out that Krusor had been coping with intense physical pain for a number of years.

“He was in therapy for migraines, insomnia and the depression they had caused,” Stokes said. “I wish the medical community had taken him more seriously.”

In the eight months prior to Krusor’s suicide, Stokes recalled how he would sleep no more than four, and as little as zero hours of sleep a night.

“I’m not angry with him, “Stokes said. “Colin was doing everything he could to seek help for his chronic pain and insomnia, including weekly sleep therapy and seeing a neurologist. He had so much he wanted to accomplish, and we had plans to get married. But he’d had these migraines since he was a teenager.”

Moran described Krusor as a “very intelligent” man who sought out the help he needed, but she opined that he simply “fell through the cracks” of the medical system.

“There’s a feeling sometimes that people who commit suicide are selfish,” Stokes said. “But I think Colin thought he was relieving us of the burden that he thought he was.”

“He didn’t want to put his friends or family through any more heartache,” Moran said.

Stokes encouraged those who are hurting to open up to one another, rather than bottling up how they feel.

“To be a hero is to be vulnerable,” Stokes said.