William Anthony Ott was 65 years old when he set out, in April 2012, on a three-week solo journey through a remote area of the Hualapai Reservation, within the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He was searching for thousand-year-old rock art panels, a style of multicolored pictographs that had obsessed him for decades. He never returned.
Nearly 15 years passed until, last December, members of the Hualapai tribe found human remains near the point where his search had begun. A DNA analysis, confirmed by the Arizona Department of Public Safety, determined what many had already suspected: they were Ott’s remains.
Scott Thybony, an anthropologist and close friend who took part in the original search, revealed to Outside magazine a detail that still has no official explanation. The body was found at the foot of a 4.5-meter cliff. His main backpack was never found. Authorities have yet to reveal the cause of death.