Missing Marine Noah Pippin likely died of exposure

Missing Marine likely died of exposure during blizzard in Bob Marshall Wilderness
By EVE BYRON
Independent Record

An investigation of the site where Noah Pippin died, 18 miles from the eastern edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, makes Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton believe the Iraq war veteran succumbed to exposure.

Dutton said he thinks Pippin, a former Marine described as a large, polite man with a shaved head, was seeking shelter from inclement weather and ducked behind some large boulders in a scree field near the Chinese Wall after being seen near there on Sept. 15, 2010. An icy rainstorm on Sept. 16, 2010, turned into a blizzard during the ensuing days.

“He wasn’t as ill-prepared as we had thought,” Dutton said on Saturday, after using a helicopter to get to the remote site where Pippin died. “We found his sleeping bag, a water jug, his poncho, his hand gun and a small device that plays music (like an iPod). He still had food left, and he did have a map."

“There was no sign of foul play,” Dutton added. “There was an extremely bad storm, and it was readily apparent he had sought shelter under a big rock. He was exposed when animals pulled his remains out from there and scattered them.”

The gun, a 38-caliber revolver, was too rusty for Dutton to determine whether it had been fired. He said it will be sent to the Montana State Crime Laboratory for further investigation.

Pippin, 30, had served three tours of duty in Iraq, and then joined the Los Angeles Police Department. He quit that job, spent a month in Michigan with his family, and then told them he was going back to California to join the National Guard.

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