'Hole in Juan' developer goes missing

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Lake Havasu City Police Department was searching Tuesday for Red Lodge, Mont., developer Jeanne Rizzotto after apparently being alerted by concerned neighbors.

Rizzotto, owner of Century 21 in Red Lodge, was in the process of developing “Hole in Juan” RV Resort, a Robert Trent Jones II 18-hole championship golf course and upscale recreational vehicle park, in the Teec Nos Pos area of the Navajo Nation.

“She’s currently missing. We sent up the Department of Public Safety helicopter earlier today searching the area around her residence. It’s an ongoing investigation,” Lt. Rich Sloma, Lake Havasu City Police investigations lieutenant, said Tuesday.

“We don’t even have a report written yet. We have officers and a detective trying to put together some of the information.

Sloma said the DPS helicopter made several passes over the area but was unable to locate Rizzotto. “She’s been staying at like a trailer park on the tip of the island at Lake Havasu along the river.

“We’re checking the brush. A lot of that is undeveloped area along the water, so it’s very thick brush. We’ve got officers and detectives out there.” He said that if she did enter the water, it could be several days before they found anything because of the swiftness of the current.

“We understand that she had a couple arguments with people. We’re trying to get hold of her sons. We don’t have any evidence that she has committed suicide, we don’t have evidence that she disappeared. She is just missing at this time,” he said.

Debbie Stout of Red Lodge, who had worked for Rizzotto until around Labor Day when Rizzotto reportedly fired her, said she received a text message shortly after 5 a.m. Tuesday from Rizzotto, asking her to look after Rizzotto’s chimpanzees. Stout said Rizzotto had been scheduled to return to Red Lodge on Monday, but failed to do so.

Rizzotto’s vehicle was found at the Lake Havasu home, and neighbors said her boat and jet skis were still there as well, Stout said.

“The only thing they noticed that wasn’t there was this great big inner tube that you pull behind the boat. That’s why they were searching the water, thinking she went out on it.”

Rizzotto reportedly left several notes, her laptop and cell phones, and sent out e-mails to many of her business associates early Tuesday.

She had been charged in March with issuing a bad check for $155,000, and according to the Billings Gazette, was scheduled for a hearing today in Red Lodge on a forgery charge.