Authorities say they have identified the deceased man who was found in the Mendenhall River on April 10.
When the man’s body was found in the river, police found cards (the kind typically found in a wallet) in a booklet with his name on them, Juneau Police Department Public Safety Manager Erann Kalwara said. When the body was sent to the State Medical Examiner, the examiners there confirmed the man’s identity.
“The person has been positively identified through fingerprints,” Kalwara said via email Tuesday. “He was from California and we are working with agencies down there to ascertain and notify his next of kin.”
Police don’t release the name of the deceased until informing their next of kin first. As of this past Friday, police had still not tracked down the man’s family, Kalwara said via email.
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The circumstances around his death are still unknown. There were no signs of significant trauma to the man’s body. Police have not released an approximate age of the man or the area of California he was from.
He was discovered shortly after 11 a.m. on April 10 when a man reported to police that he saw a coat in the river near the Dredge Lake Trail system, according to a JPD press release at the time. Police were able to haul the body out of the water, and JPD Officer Steve Scherrer told the Empire that it looked like the body had been in the water for about two days.
Capital City Fire/Rescue Assistant Chief Tod Chambers told the Empire at the time that the body was discovered about a 30-minute walk upriver from the Dredge Lake Trailhead on Back Loop Road in about knee-deep water. The JPD release stated the body had been wedged on a rock.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
