Police released the identity of the deceased Thursday morning. Read the new, updated article here.
A hiker near the site of the old Treadwell Gold Mine found a dead body floating in the mine’s glory hole on Tuesday, according to a news release from the Juneau Police Department.
At about 3:45 p.m., the hiker called JPD to report the grisly discovery, and JPD and Capital City Fire/Rescue special teams arrived. CCFR special teams spent the next few hours working down the steep terrain and removing the body from the water, according to the release.
The man was identified as 56-year-old Steven Earl Carey, according to an updated JPD statement Thursday. Police found a Washington driver’s license in the man’s wallet and tracked down his next of kin, according to the release. Family members told police that Carey had come to Juneau unexpectedly, the release states. Alaska records show that Carey might have lived in Juneau in the 1970s and 1980s, according to the release.
Campbell said the death doesn’t appear to be suspicious at this time due to the lack of any signs of injury or trauma, so there also is no cause of death determined yet. The body will be sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage for an autopsy, police say, and the investigation is ongoing.
A short spur that goes off the main maintenance road by the mine — which was at one point the world’s largest gold mine before its collapse in 1917 — leads up to the area above the glory hole. In mining parlance, a glory hole is an unofficial term for a large, open-pit mining excavation.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
