Missing Executive Found in Las Vegas : Disappearance: A man who vanished almost four months ago is back home in Orange County. Family plans a news conference next week.

By DAVID HALDANE and GREG HERNANDEZ

Dec. 26, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

HUNTINGTON BEACH — Rowland Snowdon, an aerospace executive who disappeared without a trace nearly four months ago, has been found in Las Vegas.

Snowdon’s 25-year-old son, Rick, said Friday that his father has been returned to Orange County and was under the care of his doctors. The son said the family is planning a news conference next week to release some of the details about how his father was found.

According to a report in the Irvine World News, Snowdon, 48, of Huntington Beach was found this week in a Las Vegas hotel room after police randomly checked vehicle license plates in the hotel’s parking lot. After discovering Snowdon’s car, the report said, police found Snowdon in a room.

Irvine Police Lt. Vic Thies said his department was notified that Snowdon had been found but that he did not know any details.

“We know that he was found in Las Vegas and that his family evidently brought him back to California,” Thies said. “We have not interviewed him or talked to him.”

Police Chief Charles Brobeck said it is unlikely that Snowdon will be charged with any crime.

“As long as he’s returned and is in good health, there’s no criminal violation,” Brobeck said.

Thies said many in the department believe Snowdon left voluntarily.

Still, Thies said that the case remained a high priority and that Irvine investigator Larry Montgomery had spent “hundreds and hundreds” of work hours on it.

Montgomery “backtracked everywhere where Snowdon could have gone and worked with the family on all possible leads,” Thies said. “We got a lot of phone calls . . . and got a lot of leads and tips. Some were valid and some were not.”

Brobeck said he felt compassion for Snowdon’s family.

“I’m sure there is a lot of shock, dismay and concern,” Brobeck said. “The fact is, when someone is missing, there’s always the possibility that they just dropped out of society--people do that and sometimes they are never found.”

Rick Snowdon said the family would have no comment on the matter until Monday.

Snowdon was last seen Sept. 1 at 9:30 a.m. at a Union Bank branch in Irvine near John Wayne Airport. A business director with Parker-Hannifin, he was en route to a meeting at the company’s facility a few miles away. Records and a videotape provided by the bank show that he had just made a $4,900 cash deposit.

Rick Snowdon had given him the cash several days earlier as repayment of a loan.

In the last four months, Snowdon’s family had exhausted various leads in searching for the missing executive. Among other things, they circulated 25,000 flyers in English and Spanish and held a new conference publicizing the disappearance.