Autopsy done on missing hiker
By TERRY CORCORAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: February 3, 2005)
An autopsy on a New York City man whose body was found last week in the
Hudson Highlands State Park, four weeks after he went missing, shows that
he died from blunt-force trauma.
The ruling by John Stahl, the Putnam County coroner, appears to support the
theory that Myung Geuk Choi, 63, fell while hiking on the challenging
trails that lead to Breakneck Ridge. The Flushing, Queens, man had
apparently been hiking in the park for years and was familiar with its
terrain, police said.
"From all appearances, the death was caused by a fall from the cliff," said
Capt. William McNamara of the Putnam Sheriff's Office, which is handling
the case with the state park police.
Police were awaiting a toxicology report from the autopsy, McNamara said.
A Fishkill man found Choi around 4 p.m. Friday near the base of a 100-foot
cliff after hiking into the park to admire ice formations on the side of
the cliff, police said. The area from where police think Choi fell was
several hundred feet from the nearest marked trail. Choi had been missing
since Jan. 2, when he went hiking in the park with a Korean-American woman
in her 60s. Choi, a contractor in the construction business, is also of
Korean descent, police said.
Choi's daughter, Jean, reported him missing to the Sheriff's Office in the
early morning hours of Jan. 3, prompting a search over several days by more
than 100 police officers and volunteers. The search was scaled back after a
Jan. 11 snowstorm, but it was still in effect when Choi's body was found.
According to the police account, Choi and his companion, who were members
of a New York City hiking club, took a train from the Bronx to Cold Spring
on the morning of Jan. 2 and walked to the 14,000-acre park. Once on the
trails that lead to Breakneck Ridge, the woman and Choi parted ways when
they came upon two men, described as Asian, possibly Korean. The woman told
police it appeared that Choi knew the men.
Choi told the woman that he would meet her back at the train station as he
walked off with the men. The woman went back to Cold Spring and, after
waiting for Choi, took a train back to the city, where she notified a
member of their hiking club. The member notified Jean Choi, who then went
to Cold Spring with friends to look for her father on the night of Jan. 2.
She reported her father missing around 12:40 a.m. the next morning.
McNamara said the two men seen with Choi came forward a couple of days
after he was reported missing. Investigators spoke with them and were
confident they were not involved in Choi's disappearance, he said.
