A hiker found a dead body on Camelback Mountain on Sunday, which is where it remained until this morning -- even though police were called to the scene yesterday afternoon.
Phoenix Police Department spokesman Trent Crump tells New Times the body was left on the mountain overnight because it became too dark for detectives to safely make the climb last night.
Crump says the hiker found the body near Echo Canyon about 4:30 p.m. yesterday. A detective hiked up the mountain to get a look for himself and determined it was too dangerous to continue investigating the scene in the dark and left the body on the mountain until helicopters could help detectives remove it this morning.
The body, Crump says, was already badly decomposed by the time it was
found. So, a few more hours on the side of the mountain probably wasn't
going to change much, forensically speaking.
Either way, we got word of the discovery last night, and knowing a dead
body was just sitting on the side of Camelback Mountain as we handed out
candy to trick-or-treaters made Halloween slightly more eerie.
Crump says it initially appears to be a suicide and all that police know about the victim is that it is an adult male.
Crump says a weapon was found near the body but says detectives haven't told him what type of weapon it was.
