A body was discovered Saturday morning near the 40-mile marker of Boulder Canyon that matches the description of 18-year-old Megan Trussell, who disappeared on February 9. The body was found by City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks rangers in a “hard-to-reach” location within Boulder Canyon.
Trussell was last seen on the University of Colorado Boulder campus, where she was a student, on February 9 at 10 p.m. The CU Boulder Police Department issued a missing person’s report to the public on Thursday and began working with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, including the Colorado Bureau of Investigations (CBI) and the FBI’s field office in Denver.
Judy Brocato, Trussell’s friend, said Trussell’s phone “pinged” inside the Boulder Canyon on Saturday, the day she went missing. Brocato said she was “perplexed” regarding Trussell’s disappearance. She said that Trussell isn’t a hiker and the weather was very cold and snowy on the evening that she went missing.
A cause and manner of death has not yet been determined and the investigation is ongoing. A GoFundMe page that was set up for search efforts has been modified to collect funds for Trussell’s memorial service. Her father, Joe Trussell, said that “we're never gonna get over it, and the grief will last the rest of our lives. We're different people now.”
Joe Trussell tried to contact his two daughters on February 12 to arrange a trip to Boulder and take them out for dinner. Megan didn’t answer the phone, which he said was “weird.” He contacted Megan’s mother, who hadn’t heard from Megan either. They informed the police and discovered that Megan hadn’t been seen since February 9 and she had not used her phone since then.
While the body matches the description of Megan Trussell, the sheriff’s office is still awaiting confirmation from the Boulder County Coroner’s Office.
The sheriff’s office said “we understand the community’s concerns and are committed to gathering all relevant facts. Unfortunately, it is too soon to determine what caused the death.”
