Badly Decomposed Body Discovered In Latah Creek

Sheriff’s marine deputies removed a badly decomposed, partially mummified body from Latah Creek near Hangman Valley Road Saturday night.

Officials don’t know the gender, they don’t know the age, and they don’t know how it wound up atop a weedy log in the woods.

“We don’t have a cause of death, we don’t know anything about it,” said sheriff’s Lt. John Simmons. “We do have a skull and a skeleton.”

By its condition, investigators believe it had been there a long time.

Four firefighters hoisted the body up a steep, rocky bank and took it to Holy Family Hospital at 8 p.m, about an hour after someone reported finding it.

An autopsy will be performed Monday, Simmons said.

The log likely snagged the body as it drifted downstream, Simmons said. Though he suspected the body had washed downstream from elsewhere, Simmons said he didn’t think it traveled far. The amount of debris in the muddy stream would have kept it from getting very far, he said.

The body was clad in little more than tennis shoes, but investigators don’t know whether the person entered the water that way or if the current rotted the clothes. Simmons ruled out the possibility that the remains were of a child.

The site where the body was found, near the 10800 south block of Hangman Creek Road, is a steep drop below tree-covered ridge. Some rural homes are nearby.

“I think the remoteness of this spot added to the fact that it wasn’t found sooner,” Simmons said.

, DataTimes