A person walking on a bike path in the Mendenhall Valley made a grim discovery Thursday morning: A dead body partially submerged in a drainage ditch.
Juneau Police Department officers identified the deceased as 55-year-old Juneau resident Gary D. Brummitt. Next of kin have been notified.
JPD spokesman Lt. David Campbell said there were no signs of foul play. Brummitt’s body will be sent to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage for an autopsy.
On Thursday afternoon, the Empire observed police remove an overturned wheelchair and what appeared to be a dark-colored backpack found at the site, a ditch next to the bike path that parallels Egan Drive.
“Someone called and said they were walking on the bike path and saw a body,” said another JPD spokesperson, Erann Kalwara, adding the caller didn’t have a cellphone on them, so they walked to Fred Meyer to make a report.
According to an official statement from JPD, the report reached police at 11:19 a.m.
In the early afternoon, police and investigators wielded surveying equipment as they documented the scene then removed the wheelchair from a drainage ditch between the bike path and a chain link fence that separates the path from Teslin Street, a dead-end residential road.
Retiree Benjamin Suson lives in the house closest to the scene of the police investigation.
He was hanging Christmas lights and said he was unaware what had happened.
“My wife and I didn’t even notice it,” he said.
They left their home early in the morning and noticed police when they returned about 11:30 a.m. Their home is separated from the path by a chain-link fence.
“I didn’t hear anything,” he said.
The bike path at Loop Road and Egan Drive was closed during the investigation, but all surface streets remained open.
Juneau Police Department Sgt. Nick Garza retrieves a wheelchair while officers investigate the site where an adult male was found dead along the bike path near Mendenhall Loop Road and Egan Drive on Thursday.
