It was just before dusk when he found the body.
“I got this feeling, and I even said out loud to myself, ‘Something bad happened over here.’”
That was Chad, a Summit County local, telling Krystal 93 about the moment he accidentally discovered a partially mummified body near Officer’s Gulch on Oct. 3.
“Literally after that I see, next to a boulder, something that looks different than everything else,” he remembers. “Out of place.”
Chad was there prospecting for rare minerals and gold. It’s his after-work routine. He says it keeps him out of trouble.
He remembers it was getting dark. Maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him. So, he took a few steps closer.
“I saw what looked like an ear and I flew down the mountain so fast,” he says. ”I don’t even think I touched those rocks when I ran down.”
That was 10 days ago, just a few hundred yards from I-70 and within sight of the Copper exit ramp. This area was new to him, but it’s not exactly remote.
“Who knows how many times somebody walked by him, or somebody else did see him and didn’t say anything?” Chad says. “I don’t know, but I couldn’t do nothing.”
He immediately texted his mom. She suggested he call the sheriff’s office. But he also didn’t want to be the prospector who cried wolf.
“I didn’t really know what was there,” he says. “I didn’t want to call them for nothing.”
The very next day he reported his gruesome discovery, but only after returning with a friend – just to make sure.
“We definitely know now that that was not a stump,” he says. Police offered help and he refused. It’s not like he is having nightmares.
But he won’t be going back there anytime soon.
“I don’t know the guy,” he says. “I don’t want to know the guy. I didn’t want to have to find him, but apparently, I had to find him. If he has a family I wish them the best.”
Authorities still have not identified the body. Summit County Coroner knows the man is in his 40s or his 50s. He was there two weeks to two months. Recent dry heat even partially mummified the remains enough for an FBI specialist to pull fingerprints.
