JUNEAU, Alaska (THE WASHINGTON POST) – Paul Rodriguez Jr was missing, believed to have been kayaking in the frigid waters near Alaska’s 13-mile-long Mendenhall Glacier before he disappeared.
It would be six days before a member of the search party found the key to the mystery, the Division of Alaska State Troopers said, a climbing helmet with a GoPro action camera, which had filmed Rodriguez’s drowning July 11.
“The GoPro video was recording when the kayak overturned and Rodriguez went in the water,” Tim DeSpain, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, said in an email. “The recording continued showing that the kayak overturned due to a strong current coming from the glacier.”
The 43-year-old’s body has not been found.
The first clue in the case was a July 11 call to state troopers about an empty kayak with a dry bag attached. No one nearby appeared to be in distress, the person reported.
A car belonging to Rodriguez was found unattended July 16 near the glacier’s visitor centre. Five days earlier, US Forest Service employees had seen a man walking from that car toward the glacier – about 12 miles northwest of downtown Juneau – wearing a T-shirt and carrying an ice axe and a climbing helmet.
Rodriguez’s roommate in Juneau had last seen him July 10, and a social media post Rodriguez made the next day showed a kayak that appeared to be near the glacier, police said. After the kayak was found, authorities made the connection to the photos posted online by Rodriguez.
The GoPro’s discovery on Monday solved the mystery.
Troopers said they believe Rodriguez was not wearing a personal flotation device when he drowned. Recovery teams will continue to search the lake for his body.
His son, Jaden Rodriguez, told the Associated Press that his father was a talented photographer who enjoyed paddle-boarding, snow-boarding and fishing. Paul Rodriguez Jr, his son said, would often say that life was short.
