Two elk hunters missing since Friday were found dead Thursday morning by Colorado search and rescue teams, according to Lynne Runkle, the aunt of Andrew Porter, one of the missing men.
“It is with a broken heart and through tears that I give you this update,” Runkle posted on a GoFundMe page she had set up to pay for the search. “Andrew Porter and Ian Stasko have both been found deceased. Their bodies were discovered earlier today by Colorado Search and Rescue. I will provide another update tomorrow. Please keep Andrew’s and Ian‘s families in your thoughts and prayers.”
Saguache County Search and Rescue confirmed the deaths in a Facebook post Thursday afternoon, saying it had ended its search.
Porter, of Asheville, North Carolina, and Stasko, of Salt Lake City, Utah, were last heard from Sept. 11 at around 3 p.m. when Porter shared his location with his fiancée, Bridget Murphy, from his Garmin InReach satellite communication device.
The two men, both 25, were hunting southwest of Monte Vista in Game Management Unit 81, which stretches from the Continental Divide on the west to the Rio Grande River on the east and down to the border of New Mexico. It is characterized as having extremely rugged terrain.
During a phone interview Wednesday, Murphy said Porter had been sending brief updates to her and his family every few hours until the afternoon of Sept. 11.
The last ping came from near Stasko’s car, which was parked at the trailhead. Murphy said she believed she had pieced together what might have happened based on gear police found in the car when law enforcement officials broke into it after she and Porter’s mother called the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office and the local Colorado Parks and Wildlife game warden the evening of Sept. 12.
Officials found wet clothes in the car, which told Murphy the men had been in inclement weather and had come back to change, likely when they sent their location Sept. 11. But none of the gear Porter would need to hunt, harvest or pack out an elk was in the car, which told her they’d likely gone back out hunting.
But Wednesday, Murphy reported there was a confirmed sighting of the men with their car at the Spruce Hole trailhead Friday morning. They told the person who saw them they’d seen a bull moose and were heading back out to find it.
The car was then moved back to the Rio de los Pinos trailhead. Murphy wrote on Facebook, “That gives us one more night and morning we know they were safe before the storms.”
Over the last week, multiple search and rescue organizations, along with the Conejos County Sheriff’s Office, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, local authorities and dozens of hikers, hunters and horsepeople, joined the search, as evidenced in official reports and social media posts.
An update posted to Murphy’s page said the prioritized search corridor was between the Rio de los Pinos trailhead and the Spruce Hole trailhead “including drainages, ridgelines and timbered areas.”
It said resources were still needed, including additional search and rescue teams as well as dog teams, horses, four-wheelers and drones.
“Thank you all. Say a prayer, God wrap your arms around them and keep them safe, help us find them,” Murphy wrote in her update.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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