SAC CITY, Iowa — An autopsy found that an Iowa truck driver who went missing last fall and whose body was found in a farm field this spring died of cold caused by being very high on methamphetamine.
The Sioux City Journal said that Dr. Kelly Kruse, the state medical examiner, said that David Schultz’s death was an accident. He was 53 years old. Schultz was also a farmer. His body was found in a Sac County field on April 24, about a quarter mile (half a kilometer) from where his truck was found parked in the middle of the road on November 21.
Kruse ruled out murder because Schultz had taken meth and then been outside in the cold. She didn’t answer right away when the Associated Press called her on Friday to get more information.
After Schultz went missing, it got very cold in the days that followed.
Schultz, of Wall Lake, left his house late Oct. 20 to get a load of pigs from a hog pen near Eagle Grove. He had to take the pigs to a cattle dealer in Sac City, a small town about 145 km (90 miles) northwest of Des Moines, the next morning. No one could reach him on the phone when he wasn’t there.
Schultz’s truck was found that afternoon, less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) northeast of where he was supposed to be. His wife had reported him missing. The pigs were indoors yet again. Schultz’s phone and cash were in his truck, but his jacket was out on the side of the road.
Police searched the area first, and then more than 250 volunteers joined the larger hunt. But it wasn’t until spring that his body was found.
