A MISSING couple who survived a week in the desert before one of them died sent final coded messages to their loved ones.
Ronnie Barker, 72, and wife Beverly, 69, were driving through the Nevada desert when they “vanished into thin air” – prompting authorities to launch a desperate search for the pair.
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On Tuesday rescuers found Beverly – who survived the ordeal – and the body of her husband Ronnie more than a week after their last correspondence on March 27.
It later emerged that the couple had messaged their family: “37.757753, -117.809568. Help.”
But the GPS coordinates failed to send, according to their nephew, Travis Peters.
He said in a Wednesday Facebook post that he can only assume that as his aunt was being airlifted to the hospital her phone came into cell range and the message was sent late Tuesday.
“Now we know it arrived too late,” wrote Peters.
Peters said the pair had followed their GPS up a mountain before getting stuck.
The couple were found Tuesday in the remote Silver Peak area of Esmeralda County about 177 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Both were with the Kia passenger car they had been towing behind a 32-foot motor home before the RV got stuck in mud. They apparently decided to try to continue on in the car before it too got stuck.
Beverly was airlifted to a Reno hospital to be checked out.
She had melted snow for water and the car provided shelter from temperatures that dipped into the 30sF at night, Mineral County Undersheriff Bill Ferguson told The Associated Press.
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The couple are also said to have taken turns honking their horn in an SOS pattern.
Ferguson said he didn’t have information on when Ronnie Barker died or the cause of his death.
Their family had not heard from them since March 27 after they set off on a cross-country trip last month from Oregon to visit friends in Arizona.
Their RV was last seen on CCTV on Highway 95 near Luning shortly after 6pm that day, with the last recorded pings from their cellphones picked up just a short time later.
Ronnie and Beverly’s panicked family raised the alarm, with their daughter Jennifer Whaley telling WTHR they had “vanished into thin air”.
After days of searching, the couple’s white 2015 Sunseeker RV was discovered early on Tuesday afternoon west of Silver Peak – but it was empty.
Ronnie was tragically found dead a short time later, while Beverly – who is diabetic – was flown to a hospital in Reno.
The couple, from Indiana, had been making their way to the campground at Nellis AFB, where they were supposed to stay the night before going on back on the road.
“My parents were supposed to meet them (their friends) in Tucson on Tuesday evening March 29,” their daughter said, reports News13.
“That’s when they were supposed to be pulling into the campgrounds in Tucson. They didn’t show up.”
She said all contact with her parents – who never went more than a day or two without checking in with family – stopped on March 27, reports KVVU.
“All cell phone pings, everything, stopped on the 27th,” Jennifer said.
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