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Body of forest worker is found Friends and relatives discover Morris' body; how he died is unknown By PAUL FATTIG Mail Tribune The body of Todd Morris, the Forest Service contract worker missing in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness since Jan. 26, was found by family members Thursday morning. The Centralia, Wash., resident was about 150 feet down a steep slope off the ridgeline trail on the west side of South Bend Mountain. It is unknown how the 35-year-old died, although the region was enveloped by a severe snowstorm that dropped up to two feet of snow in the area when he was reported missing. His body was to be flown out by helicopter and taken to the county medical examiner Thursday afternoon, according to Lt. Brian Anderson of the Josephine County Sheriff's Office. After an intensive search led by Josephine County Sheriff's Search and Rescue was called off Feb. 1, family members assisted by friends continued looking for the seasoned forest worker. He was found by five family members and friends who had been in the wilderness since Monday. Thursday was to be their last day to search on this trip. The body had no apparent injuries, according to the searchers. "Maybe he got too cold, maybe he twisted an ankle, maybe he decided to hunker down," said Phil Handley, speaking by cell phone Thursday from the site. "The smart money and everybody agrees is that (he wasn't) going off that damn trail unless he was hurt," he added. "There was no evidence that he was hurt." The site is about 18 air miles northwest of Selma deep in the Siskiyou National Forest. The trail near where he was found leads to Collier Bar on the Illinois River where Morris and his father-in-law, Mike Kazio, had established a base camp for their contract work. Kazio last saw Morris late in the day on Jan. 26 when a snowstorm blew in as they were hiking back to camp from a survey site where they had been monitoring plant growth for the Forest Service. Morris went back to retrieve a hatchet left behind, but never returned to camp. Kazio searched for Morris the following day, then hiked out and notified authorities. About two feet of snow fell in the area late in January. Warm weather since then has melted most of the snow. "He was found fairly close to the trail - about 150 feet away," Handley said. "There was no snow where he was found today." The region had been combed earlier by searchers but a body covered by snow would have been easily missed, officials said. Kazio, who had been searching for his son-in-law nearly every waking moment since he disappeared, was among Thursday's searchers. "It seems like he (Morris) must have frozen to death up there," said Charlie Leist, an uncle living in Rockville, Md., who had been in contact with the search party. Finding Morris will help the family cope with his death, he said, adding, "They wanted closure." Morris and Kazio had been contracted in July by the Forest Service to conduct plant inventories necessary to help the agency evaluate forest health. The work included measuring vegetation on 21/2-acre plots that are 3.4 miles apart in the wilderness. The two were seasoned forest contractors respected for their work, officials said. They had entered the wilderness before the snowstorm hit. Morris had been wearing warm clothing but was not prepared for the extreme conditions that blew into the area on the day he was reported missing, officials said. Morris and his wife, Sicily, have a young daughter. Although he had been working in the Northwest in recent years, he hailed from rural south-central Ohio. South Bend Mountain, which rises to some 3,400 feet above sea level, is on the northern fringe of the wilderness area. There are no roads into the rugged region. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2002 Mail Tribune, Inc.