UPDATE: Authorities find body of man after snowstorm

Elmore County authorities reported discovering the body near the Ada-Elmore County line last week of a man who had been missing for more than a week.

Walter L. Springer, 41, who lived on Desert Wind Road (just off Simco Road), had last been seen on Wednesday, Jan. 23, when he left the home that he shared with his wife, Toni, in the morning.

Sheriff's authorities did not, however, receive the report that he was missing until the following Wednesday, Jan. 30.

Sheriff Rick Layher said that Springer's wife, who has limited mobility, told them she and her husband had "had a little tiff" just before he left that morning, and she assumed he had gone to a relative's house to cool off, something he had done before.

The couple do not have a phone at their house, and it wasn't until Monday that she got a ride into town and discovered her husband was not where she expected him to be, Layher said.

She began checking with friends, including Springer's employer, Ron Castle, who lives a few hundred yards up the road from the Springers. Castle apparently began his own search in the area around their homes on Tuesday, but authorities believe drifting snow had probably covered the body. About mid-day Wednesday, Layher said, Castle notified the Sheriff's Office that Springer was missing.

It took a little while for the report to wind its way up the chain of command to Layher, whose department's manpower was stressed to maximum capacity that day with scores of slide-offs and accidents due to the storm that hit last Wednesday, and because Layher and his remaining officers were working a report of a possible kidnapping (which later turned out to be unfounded).

With dusk arriving soon, Layher made arrangements for the county's search and rescue teams to begin a search the following morning.

Thursday morning, one of his deputies drove out to the area between the Springer and Castle homes to set up a command post for the soon-to-be-arriving search and rescue teams. Castle volunteered to clear off the parking lot at his heavy equipment complex to give the teams a place to park their cars. A few minutes after he began he spotted Springer's body in a snowdrift, which the wind had partially exposed.

"Whenever we find a body like that, we always approach it as if it were a homicide, until it proves different" Layher explained. "You don't want to assume something else and then wind up missing something. You could lose evidence if you don't do it that way."

So Layher quickly called the Idaho State Police, who sent out a dozen detectives to help process the scene, while Layher and some of his other deputies and detectives began an investigation, including interviewing people who might have information about what had happened.

ISP forensic teams didn't complete processing the scene until nearly 8 p.m. that night and Springer's body was taken to the Ada County Coroner's Office where an autopsy was conducted Friday.

No foul play is suspected in Springer's death. It appears on the surface that he simply froze to death in the storm while apparently walking toward the Castle residence from his house.

But the official cause of death will not be known until all lab results from the autopsy are returned, a process that usually takes a few weeks.