Matthews family Loses Home in King Fire, Son Still Missing

We ran a story in June about Cody Matthews, the 23 year old El Dorado County man missing from his family's home near Ice House Reservoir.

The family was faced with another tragedy this week. Here is a story that ran this week on www.kahi.com:

In June, 23-year-old Vernon Cody Matthew’s walked into the woods behind his family’s vacation cabin and never returned. The search for Vern and Cyndi Matthew’s son began instantly. Rescue crews and volunteers searched the surrounding area for eight days. Community members put fliers up and volunteered in search efforts. They combed the wooded area near their home, for three months. They made Facebook pages dedicated to finding him.

On August 28, the parents acquired access to his Facebook page and posted “Cody, we miss you dearly and are trying hard to find you. If you find you can’t log on, please contact us so we can get your FB account back to you and bring a great sigh of relief to us all”

On September 13th, the biggest hurdle of the search happened, the King Fire started, right where they were hoping to find more clues about their missing son.

While the King Fire’s violent path progressed, the family kept vigil on their missing son. In early September the couple even planned a celebration for their son’s birthday on the 17th in his honor. They celebrated his special day with a kayak trip while holding picture of him in the boat, with giant smoke plumes off in the distance. They even ate his favorite meal for dinner, sushi.

As the fire grew and got bigger, the Matthews never changed their focus of finding their missing son, even when they were ordered to evacuate their home in the White Meadow neighborhood. They’d heard from Cal Fire that some homes in White Meadow had been damaged, but Vern and Cyndi’s primary concern was just looking for more clues for their vanished son. They suspected the vacation home did not survive. Even worse, they’d worried that the possibility of those clues that could lead to answers could be burned up, which was heartbreaking for the couple.

When the evacuation was lifted, the Matthews learned that their home was one of the 10 that burned in the King Fire. Everything was gone, except their hope.

The vacation cabin had become the Matthews primary residence for the past three months during the search for Vernon. Both of them quit their jobs so they could focus all of their attention on finding him. They are a family who is not giving up.

The Matthews are currently camping along the Highway near Pollock Pines. They are in need of a running travel trailer to continue searching efforts of their son.

Below are two links dedicated to helping the Matthews Family.

On Facebook, Search for ….. help The Matthews

http://www.gofundme.com/evrems