When 32-year-old Douglas Farnsworth went missing over a month ago in late September, family, friends and strangers went out searching for him.
His truck had been found close to Perseverence Trail near downtown Juneau, Alaska, and a camera recorded Farnsworth walking alone on Flume Trail at about 7:00 a.m. on Sept. 30.
Even though Alaska State Troopers, the Coast Guard and a local canine group turned up for the search, they couldn’t find the missing man.
Farnsworth’s family offered $5,000 for information leading to his finding, but two weeks in, they merely hoped to locate his body, believing him to have perished.
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“We want his body, and we’ll give whoever helps us find it $5,000,” sister Kiersten Farnsworth told KTOO-FM. “We’ve had hearsay that he’s passed and that his body was moved.”
Kiersten also started a private Facebook group for the search, but over a month passed before the family was able to get any closure.
On Sunday, an unnamed hiker was on the Flume Trail near Juneau with his dog. At some point, his dog took off, running about 100 yards off the trail, up a hill.
When the hiker caught up to his dog, he realized his wayward canine had made a gruesome discovery, and he called the Juneau Police.
“Officers responded and located the body about 100 yards up the hill from the Flume trail, near the area of Irwin Street,” the police report said. “Clothing items consistent with those worn by Douglas Farnsworth when he went missing were located amongst the remains.
“A cell phone and firearm were also located near the remains and they are believed to have been in Farnsworth’s possession. The body will be sent to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Anchorage for an autopsy. This case is still under investigation.”
Kiersten got the news at around 8 p.m. Sunday night, according to KTOO. Now the family is waiting on the official word as to how he died, which is proving difficult to determine as his remains have been scattered.
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“They did find some bones and his clothes and the gun and a phone,” she said. “So we can’t really determine how death was, just because most of him is missing.”
“I was really upset last night. I’d say the hardest part is calling family member after family member, re-explaining everything.
“They’re destroyed. They’re pretty crushed. A lot of them are stuck in this question as well — what happened?”
What made things really difficult, Kiersten said, is that police posted about the find around ten minutes after they called her, which complicated things.
“I was really surprised at how quick they jumped the gun to post though because I barely had time to call the family,” she said. “I mean, it took three days to make a post about him missing, but it took them hours to say that they found [him].”
While the family waits to hear the results of the autopsy, Kiersten has changed the Facebook group to be a general page for missing persons in Juneau, saying that she didn’t think anyone “should have to go through somebody missing and then feel like they’re not important enough to look for.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.