BRINNON — The body of a 66-year-old Olympia man, who authorities think might have committed suicide, was pulled from the Duckabush River about 4 miles from Brinnon on Thursday afternoon.
“The preliminary investigation would indicate suicide,” although it’s possible he fell, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Detective Ryan Menday said today.
Menday declined to release the man’s name because the investigation is continuing.
Authorities were contacted at about 1 p.m. by a friend of the dead man.
The two had hiked to the spot, about an eighth of a mile from the Interrorem Cabin in the Olympic National Forest, and the friend had left him there.
The two were to meet at the trailhead at the cabin in a couple of hours.
When he didn’t arrive, the friend hiked back, found the body and then walked down to a logging operation to find a phone to notify authorities.
“The victim had received some recent news about medical conditions he was having so he asked his friend to drive him to this spot,” to meditate and write poetry, Menday said.
“He wanted to be alone in his favorite spot,” the detective said.
Law enforcement personnel and medical personnel arrived about a half-hour after the 9-1-1 call, Menday said.
They found the body downstream of a narrow, white water chute bounded by steep cliffs some 30-to-40-feet high, Menday said.
The Jefferson County Search and Rescue team rappelled down and hoisted the body up to the trail before carrying it out, an operation that took three to four hours.
The body is now at the Kosec Funeral Home in Port Townsend, Menday said.
Investigation will continue at least until the middle of next week, he added.
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or at leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
