Credit: Summit County, Colo.
The Summit County Coroner’s Office announced the positive identification of a man whose remains were found by a hiker at the base of the Sky Chutes over six years ago.
On July 10, 2016, a hiker walking up a game trail in the “Y” portion of the Sky Chutes on the west face of the Ten Mile Range near Copper Mountain found what appeared to be a human skull laying on the forest floor.
Members of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, Search and Rescue Dogs of Colorado (SARDOC) initially responded to the area and recovered the skull. Upon return to the site at the request of Summit County Coroner Regan Wood, the Summit County Sheriff’s Office and SARDOC, joined by Park County Search and Rescue, found additional skeletal remains just below timberline along with a backpack and a handgun, the serial number of which had been rendered unreadable.
Officials determined that, based on the physical evidence and the skeletal morphology of the newly located remains, the additional evidence found was associated with the skull. With no identifying information available, officials from the Coroner’s Office began an exhaustive, years-long process to learn the identity of the individual.
“I could not give up. I knew this man probably had family and friends that had spent the same amount of time wondering what had happened to their loved one. That was my motivation – I refused to give up on finding answers,” said Deputy Coroner Wendy Kipple of the Summit County Coroner’s Office.
Kipple and her team continued their effort by sending remains to researchers at the University of North Texas Human Identification Lab for analysis, after which the information was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons (NamUs) database. A clay facial model was also built by a forensic artist.
A call to the Summit County Coroner’s Office in February of this year was the break in the case Kipple needed.
“I received a call from Joan Hanlon and Missy Koski of the DNA Doe Project, a non-profit that uses investigative genealogy to identify remains of unknown persons,” said Kipple. “They gave me a possible name of the decedent and their family,” she continued.
Upon contacting the family members, Kipple arranged for a DNA sample from a brother of the decedent, which helped positively identify the remains as Jeffrey Peterson who, as determined by officials, died in 2012 of self-inflicted wounds at age 53, four years before his remains were discovered.
According to Kipple, who spoke with Mr. Peterson’s family at length, Jeff graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research. He was on the executive leadership team at Management Systems Laboratories (MSL) at Virginia Tech for many years and, according to his family, was a pioneer in the development of E-commerce software.
“Jeff was from Virginia but loved the mountains of Colorado and would drive his RV to Summit County and spend time here hiking and skiing,” said Kipple. “The place Jeff chose to take his life was on the back side of Breckenridge Ski Area that looked out across to Copper Mountain Ski Area, two of his favorite ski areas.”
During Kipple’s conversation with Peterson’s family, Kipple learned that Peterson was frustrated and disappointed after the 2008 financial crisis, in which he lost a great deal of wealth. The family had not heard from him since his announcement he was moving to Belize ‘never to be heard from again’, according to Kipple.
“I would like to offer my deepest condolences to Jeff’s family and friends and hope they can find some peace in now knowing what happened to him,” said Kipple.
Kipple thanked her team at the Summit County Coroner’s Office, the DNA Doe Project, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, DNA Analyst Missy Wood, The Summit County Sheriff’s Office, SARDOC, Park County Search and Rescue, Interpol, the FBI, and forensic artist Beth Bucholtz.
Republished courtesy of Summit County, Colo.