Swimmers Floating Idaho River Find Unidentified Man’s Body

The smell of death hit 18-year-old Talena Bryant as she clung to a log and fought the Payette River current.

“I thought it was an animal,” Bryant said. “When I turned around, between me and the shore - in the logs - was a dead body.”

Authorities described the body found Thursday evening as that of a white male, 20 to 30 years old, 5-feet 10-inches and 160 pounds. He had short blondish-brown hair and wore jeans, cowboy boots and no shirt.

Boise County Sheriff Mike Butler said deputies did not search the body for identification and the man’s identity remained unknown on Friday.

“We won’t know anything for sure until I can get fingerprints and do an autopsy next week,” Boise County Coroner Larry Abbott said.

Authorities were not yet certain whether the man drowned or died of another cause before going into the water.

Butler said he believes the body had been in the river for three or four weeks when it was found wedged near logs by the Riverside Restaurant on Idaho Highway 55.

Bryant and a friend, Cora Fry, 19, both of Horseshoe Bend, found the body while tubing on the Payette River.

“I saw his head,” Bryant said. “His hair was in his face. When I looked closer, I could see his legs floating in the water.”

She said she was not frightened.

“I just wanted to get out of the water, because the current was starting to pull me under,” Bryant said. “I didn’t want to end up like him.”

When Fry spotted Bryant and the body, she ran to the restaurant and shouted, “Talena’s stuck, and there’s a dead guy!”

A man left his meal to pull Bryant out of the water.

“We just stepped over the body,” Bryant said.

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