Broken snowmobile parts lead police to body of missing man, Maine officials say

The body of a missing man was found in the woods near his wrecked snowmobile, Maine officials said.

The man, a 43-year-old Connecticut resident, had gone snowmobiling late at night on Feb. 18, according to a news release from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

He was reported missing two days later, and Maine Game Wardens opened an investigation.

Using the man’s cell phone data, game wardens were able to pinpoint Rangeley, a rural town near the U.S.-Canadian border, as the likely site of his disappearance.

Afterwards, a Rangeley resident reported seeing pieces of a snowmobile scattered along the shoreline of a town lake.

A U.S. Border Patrol helicopter then circled the area and located the wrecked snowmobile.

Maine Game Wardens found the man’s body about 140 feet into the woods from the lakeshore on Feb. 22.

It was then determined that he had been snowmobiling on the lake when he crashed into multiple trees on the shore at some point on Feb. 18.

“Excessive speed and alcohol appear to be contributing factors in the crash,” officials said in the release.

A similar incident occurred in 2021 when a Connecticut man died while snowmobiling near Rangeley, according to WGME. Alcohol and speed also appear to have been factors in that accident.