ALTA, Utah, June 22, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — Police have identified the body of a female hiker missing since Tuesday afternoon near Cecret Lake.
She has been identified as Amanda Marie Caseiro, who turned 22 a couple weeks ago. She is originally from New Jersey, and was going to school at Utah State University.
A tweet from Unified Police Department at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday confirmed that the hiker’s body had been found at the bottom of a 100-foot cliff. Crews then worked to recover her body, the tweet said.
Caseiro, who was alone when she fell, appears to have slipped.
Lt. Lex Bell, spokesman for UPD, said that the victim went hiking Tuesday evening at about 5 or 6 p.m. in the Albion Basin area, which is near Cecret Lake in the Alta ski resort boundary.
“When she didn’t return at dark her boyfriend and her brother became concerned and called us,” Bell said. “They told us where she had gone, she’d been there before, she’s an experienced hiker. We located her vehicle then began a search on the ground, when we didn’t find her quickly we called for air support, and the Utah Highway Patrol sent the helicopter.”
Crews did not find her, but returned in the morning. Caseiro was at the base of about a 100-foot cliff in some boulders, and appeared to have died from the fall.
Bell said Caseiro probably died last night.
“By the time we were looking for her it would have probably been too late.”
We actually retraced her footprints, tracked where she had gone up the side of this cliff to get to the top to have a look, you could see a couple of places where she walked out to the ledge to get some pictures or look then continued up. The last place she went out to look it looks like she just tragically fell.”
Bell said evidence suggests she was taking a picture and slipped.
“It’s real wet this time of year up there even if there’s no snow immediately where you are the ground is saturated,” said Bell. “And where she was there’s intermittent snow everywhere, and the ground is really wet, the rocks are super slippery especially when your feet are wet.”
Caseiro’s mother lives in New Jersey, and she and her brother live in Utah. She also has a boyfriend who lives in the area, where she had been staying during the summer.
“She’s familiar with the area, has a Utah driver’s licence, and has hiked here before,” Bell said. “They knew where she’d been going, generally, which helps. She had good hiking boots, she had a backpack with the right equipment, she was prepared.”
A cell phone ping could have helped police, but her phone was shattered.
