BASIN, Wyoming — The Big Horn County Coroner's Office is turning to social media in hopes of finally identifying a man found dead in the Greybull River more than 50 years ago.
The body was discovered on July 10, 1973. Investigators estimated the man was in his early 20s, possibly late teens. More than five decades later, he still has no name.
Watch Bill Brenner talk about the unsolved case:
Big Horn County Chief Deputy Coroner Bill Brenner said the evidence recovered with the body is limited but has been preserved for decades. Items include prescription Ray-Ban sunglasses, cigarettes, moccasins, and a gold ring engraved with the initials "M.K." The man had no clothes, wallet, ID, or money on him.
"They've had these items that they found with the body for now 50-something years," Brenner said.
Those items have now been posted to social media in an effort to generate new leads.
"Social media is powerful. You know, nowadays, they didn't have that capability before," Brenner said.
Brenner believes the man may not have been from the area. He said witnesses at the time reported seeing three young men believed to be from Idaho near the river shortly before the body was discovered.
"Some witnesses at the time supposedly said they'd seen three kids, right before swimming down there and they thought they were from Idaho," Brenner said.
After more than five decades, investigators are still searching for answers about how the man died and why he was never reported missing.
"I truly believe this is either a homicide or it's a case where somebody passed away when they were doing something stupid and they just got out of there and left him. Because who else travels with nothing but what they have on their person?" Brenner said.
MTN News spoke with several residents who live in the Basin area and were there during that time. Most of them didn't know about the case, and those who did said they only knew about it from what was in the newspaper.
Annell Grant was 10 years old when the body was found. She remembers the stretch of river as a popular swimming spot.
"I was 10. I remember it happening because we lived just a few miles upriver," Grant said.
"Everybody had suspicions. But I didn't realize that he had never been identified," Grant said. "We thought maybe he was on the zipline and fell, got hurt and ended up down there at the bridge. But apparently, no, that's where he went in."
One of the biggest challenges facing investigators now is that many of the people connected to the original investigation are no longer alive.
"I tried to get a hold of the person who found the body and he's deceased. The sheriff is deceased. His deputy is deceased. The coroner that was there is deceased. So there's not many people alive who remember this case," Brenner said.
If no new leads emerge, investigators say the next step would be to exhume the body.
"We're hoping to give it more time and someone will come forward. If they don't, the only thing we can do is exhume the body, have an autopsy, extract DNA," Brenner said.
The man found in the Greybull River remains unidentified. After 53 years, investigators are hoping that changes.
