David Schultz, 53, of Wall Lake, Iowa, vanished two days before Thanksgiving 2023. Schultz, 53, was found April 24 in a rural Sac County field, about a quarter-mile from where authorities found his semitractor-trailer truck abandoned more than five months earlier.
Authorities said his death was not a homicide, but had declined to elaborate, the Sioux City Journal reports. Dr. Kelly Kruse, a state medical examiner, listed Schultz’s manner of death as an accident, according to a copy of the death certificate obtained by the Sioux City Journal. Preliminary autopsy results indicated “no signs of trauma or serious injury” and authorities did not suspect foul play. State officials had been waiting for the state Office of the State Medical Examiner to finish the autopsy, the article said.
The article said the immediate cause of death was listed as “Hypothermia In the Setting of Acute Drug (methamphetamine) Intoxication.” In the “description of injury line,” the medical examiner listed: “Ingested drug and exposed to environmental cold.”
On the night Schultz went missing, temperatures dipped to 30 degrees. On the following day, Nov. 21, the low was 35 degrees. According to the Sioux City Journal, during the week that followed, the overnight low temperature at one point fell as low as 11 degrees. For three straight nights that week, the low temperature was 18 degrees.
A top Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation official told The Sioux City Journal the agency considers the case closed.
Schultz was last heard from in the early morning hours of Nov. 21. He was on his way to a hog confinement unit near Eagle Grove on the night of Nov. 20 to pick up a load of hogs and deliver them to a hog buying station in Sac City. The article said video footage showed him at a truck stop near Fort Dodge around 11:15 p.m. on Nov. 20. After leaving the truck stop, his truck was seen heading west on U.S. Highway 20. After reaching the intersection of Hwys. 20 and 71, the truck turned north on N-14, rather than traveling south toward the Wiechman Pig station in Sac City, the intended destination.
His Peterbilt semi was discovered on Nov. 21 parked in the middle of the northbound lane of County Road N-14 (Union Avenue), not far from where it intersects with D-15 (190th Street), in rural Sac County. The truck was reportedly shut off, the lights were off and the key was in the ignition. Authorities found his wallet and cell phone in the truck. A towel, cellphone charger and pocketknife were found with his coat on the opposite side of the road, the article said.
His mysterious disappearance attracted attention from people and media around the world, generating an outpouring of support for Schultz’s family consisting of his wife, Sarah, and twin boys.
His body was later found by a farmworker driving a tractor on April 24. The body was about a quarter mile east of N-14 and about a quarter mile south of where his truck was found, the Sioux City Journal reports.
How did they miss finding his body? In the days after he went missing, authorities, assisted by volunteers, searched about 100,000 acres extending out from where his truck was abandoned. Sac County Attorney Ben Smith told the Sioux City Journal that he believes his body was close enough to the road that searchers thought they would be able to see him from the road, according to the article.
