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| Greg Monroe of Victorville (KABC) |
Riverside Press-Enterprise
The search has ended for a missing hunter in the Mojave Desert where a body believed to be his has been found in a natural water well, according to a family member and sheriff’s officials.
“It was covered in brush. And he fell right into it,” Norco resident Teresa Dalton said Wednesday, Nov. 13, of her father-in-law, 62-year-old Greg Monroe of Victorville.
Sheriff’s officials confirmed the discovery.
“Monroe was located on Nov. 7 deceased,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said in an email.
But efforts to confirm the tentative identification are continuing, emphasized coroner’s spokeswoman Sandy Fatland.
Monroe disappeared after driving into the New York Mountains near the Nevada border on Oct. 28 so he could start deer hunting early the next day, Dalton said. He was reported missing when he failed to return home as planned on Halloween.
His Toyota truck was found at his desert campsite and it appeared that at least most of his food was still there, suggesting that he became lost early in his trip, Dalton said.
The body was found in a 40-foot-deep well that was half filled with water from a natural spring, meaning Monroe would have been about 20 feet underground after the fall, Dalton said.
“There was no way he could get out,” she said.
Sheriff’s helicopter crews helped search teams and Monroe’s family and friends scour the region. Between the two groups, Sixty to 70 people were involved in the search, Dalton estimated.
“It was a good effort,” she said.