It was reported that at 7:03 pm on Sunday night, a Fairbanks woman living along the Chena River heard a person on the river calling for help, and saw a yellow kayak overturned and a head bobbing in the water.

The woman ran to get her husband to help with the incident. By the time the two got back to the river with a canoe, they could only see the overturned kayak floating down the river, and the man in distress nowhere in sight.

The man recovered the kayak from the river and brought it to shore. An investigation into what the kayak held would find personal items belonging to a 33-year-old Joshua Graham, a known transient in the Fairbanks area.

Throughout the evening, Alaska State Troopers, University Firefighters, Goldstream Firefighters, Airport Police Officers as well as other volunteers searched along the river on foot, in several boats, and by State Trooper helicopter.

Because of high river levels and murky water due to spring break-up, and with chucks of ice flowing in the very cold water, there were no results reported in the search and it is suspected that Graham did not survive his encounter with the river.

Then, at approximately 10 pm on Sunday night, a man who had been on a four-day work trip, returned home to find that his residence had been broken into and several items had been stolen.

An investigation into that break-in would find that Graham had entered the man’s home and had been living there for several days before stealing items from the home that included jewelry and the yellow kayak retrieved downriver earlier that evening.

The search for Graham, who is not believed to have been wearing a floatation device, will continue today.