The Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office has released the cause and manner of death for a man whose body was found on a jogging trail in Parkland on Jan. 5.
Francisco Guzman Gaytan, 45, of Lakewood, died from “acute ethanol use and hypothermia (environmental cold exposure),” and his death was ruled an accident, according to the medical examiner’s news release. Acute ethanol use refers to the recent consumption of alcohol, according to a medical examiner’s office representative reached via phone Thursday.
A resident saw Gaytan’s body on a jogging trail at the Parkland Prairie Nature Preserve at about 7:30 a.m. Jan. 5 and called 911 for a welfare check, The News Tribune reported. Pierce County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded and opened an investigation into the incident as a suspected homicide. No weapons were found at the scene, but there were indications of foul play to make the death appear suspicious, sheriff’s spokesperson Carly Cappetto told The News Tribune that day.
Cappetto maintained in a phone call Thursday that there was obvious blunt trauma to Gaytan’s body, and that there was enough evidence on the scene to indicate foul play had occurred. The determination from the medical examiner “was a shocking result to the sheriff’s office,” she said.
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