I managed to drag myself to a search & rescue meeting last night for the first time in several weeks. There was a presentation by the local canine search team about their recovery of a body during a search this past November. The body belonged to a subject of a search that I was on last July. The July search was enormous, with 16 teams working over 4 days to find the subject and never picking up a single clue.

The ~4 months between the death of the subject and the discovery of his body meant that there wasn't much left beyond bones. There was no sign of trauma of any kind, though it is difficult to make an assessment when so much time has elapsed. All signs point to him having died peacefully in the mountains that he loved.

The presentation focused on the search strategy that led to the find and on the crime scene investigation that followed (the location of a deceased subject is always considered a crime scene until the state police and OMI say otherwise). The search, investigation, and recovery were a textbook example of how to handle a situation like this and it was very instructive for me. It was also nice to hear about the lengths to which the searchers on scene went out of their way to help the family and bring closure to them, something the state police officers and medical investigator seemed more-or-less disinterested in.