Editor: Shannon Cottongame
May 25, 2022
A missing person case culminated in the discovery of a body in Hill County Thursday, May 19.
According to reports, the Hill County Sheriff’s Office received a call the previous night from a Union Pacific Railroad employee about a vehicle along the railroad tracks but well off of the roadway in the area of HCRs 3105 and 3104. The sheriff’s office determined that the vehicle was registered to a man from the Austin area, and an investigation led deputies to believe that the vehicle’s owner was depressed and may be a danger to himself.
The sheriff’s office drone and an investigator with a K-9 searched the area for several hours without locating the man.
The search resumed Thursday morning with both of the county’s drones and HCSO personnel on scene along with the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office air unit and a game warden K-9 unit.
The game warden’s canine found the man deceased in a heavily wooded area at 1:05 p.m. Hill County Justice of the Peace Precinct 2 Shane Brassell pronounced the man dead, and Hillsboro Fire Rescue was requested to assist with retrieval of the body.
The man’s identity is not being released pending notification of family members. Chief Deputy Scott Robinson said that the sheriff’s office extends its condolences to the man’s loved ones.
The Lakelander 