Police release name of Dallas man found dead
By Brielle Schaeffer, Jackson Hole, Wyoming
November 22, 2011
Police on Monday identified the man found dead and frozen Saturday up Cache Creek as David Wayne Percival.
Percival, 59, of Dallas, was found at about 9:15 a.m. by two hunters east of the Cache Creek Trailhead. It’s estimated he had been deceased for seven to 10 days, police said.
The hunters found a backpack and then a boot and noticed someone buried under freshly fallen snowfall, Capt. Tripp Wilson of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office said. They immediately notified authorities.
Two deputies, one being the acting county coroner, responded to the area, which was about 1,300 to 1,600 vertical feet above Cache Creek Trail, police said.
It took deputies about two hours to hike to the location of the body. The spot, on the north side of the canyon about a mile from the road, is not near any established trail or development.
Teton County Search and Rescue assisted with removal of the body from the steep ridge. The road and trail were closed for several hours during this time.
There were “no signs of any criminal activity,” Wilson said, and “no weapons found.”
Teton County Sheriff’s Office received no reports of a missing person, he said.
“He wasn’t a hunter, so I’d assume he was hiking,” Wilson said.
The coroner performed an autopsy of Percival on Monday but had no information to release, police said.
Toxicology reports can take several weeks.
Police are still investigating and treating the area as a crime scene, Wilson said. He had no other information on Percival or his time in Jackson Hole.