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Detectives are investigating the possibility of foul play in connection with a body found in a highly unusual place. A motorist spotted the body today in the midst of a freeway interchange.
They body was discovered about half a mile from the interchange where I-80 and I-215 connect, near the airport. Police set up a crime scene near the airport, within the interchange.
About noon today, a passing motorist spotted the body lying in a ditch. It was in a grassy area just a few steps from the main travel lanes of eastbound I-80. Investigators say the victim is a 47-year-old Utah man, but they haven't released his name. They've also said little about the condition of the body; but they did say there's evidence of trauma.
Utah Highway Patrol trooper Cameron Roden said, "We haven't come to any conclusions right now as to what actually happened. We are going to treat it is as suspicious death to make sure that all of our bases are covered."
The body was actually found between I-80 and an I-215 on-ramp. If someone dumped the body, they would have had to pull over, in the open, in a busy place. At this point, we don't know if the body wound up there in broad daylight or if it happened during the night and simply wasn't noticed until noon.
An abandoned car was found a couple of hundreds yards away. Investigators removed the dead man's boots and tried to match them with footprints in between. At last word they said they still haven't made a connection between the car and the body.
"We have no links between the Mustang and him right now. That doesn't mean that something couldn't develop, but we have nothing to link the two together right now," Roden said.
A helicopter hovered over the scene taking pictures, but this eye-in-the-sky may surprise you. It's a miniature remote-controlled model. The Highway Patrol now uses it frequently for investigations of crimes and accidents.
Roden explained, "They input the pictures, which they take on the ground and above from the air. They put those into a computer system, which maps out the scene in a scaled diagram proportion."
The eye-in-the-sky can be helpful in spotting evidence that investigators might overlook, but its main purpose is to map and document the overall crime or accident scene. Whether or not that will help solve this mystery remains to be seen
E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com
