Missing hiker found dead by KSAR

Flooding was likely the culprit that led to fatality

Staff report

The Vermont State Police (VSP) located the body of a man believed to be missing Appalachian Trail hiker Robert Kerker, 67, of Rhinebeck, New York on Friday, July 28.

Police said search crews located Kerker’s body along Stony Brook in Stockbridge about 1.5 miles downstream from where the trail crossed the brook around 2:30 p.m.

 Crews had focused efforts Friday on the brook after a witness reported seeing Kerker at the Stony Brook Shelter on the Appalachian Trail the night of July 9. 

He was known to have been at the Inn at Long Trail in Killington prior, police said.

The witness said severe rain and flooding that struck Vermont starting July 10 had elevated water levels on the Stony Brook and made the trail’s crossing of the stream dangerous. Kerker is not known to have been seen again following that encounter.

 The VSP Search and Rescue Team, Killington Search and Rescue, the Killington Police Department, the Department of Motor Vehicles and New England K9 Search and Rescue participated in the effort Friday afternoon to recover Kerker’s remains. 

Five members of the Killington Search and Rescue team responded and one member found Kerker on ATV after  a 3-hour search.  

“It was an unfortunate outcome,” Killington Police Chief Whit Montgomery said. “A number of us were able to get him out on a liter.” 

Montgomery said floodwaters had receded. 

“If we had gone in earlier he may not have been found or it could have impacted (the search),” Montgomery said. “The water had receded enough to not make it difficult.”

An autopsy conducted by the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office officially determined Aug. 1 that Kerker’s cause of death “was a probable drowning, and the manner of death an accident that occurred when Kerker was caught in the current of a brook” while hiking the trail in the storms.

Kerker was an experienced hiker who began his trek on the Appalachian Trail on June 1 in Bear Mountain, New York.

State officials confirmed, Tuesday, Aug. 1 that Kerker’s was the second death related to July’s catastrophic flooding.

The first flood victim was Stephen Davoll, 63, who died July 12, when he drowned in his flooded basement in Barre, officials said. 

In response to a question at Tuesday’s press conference, Public Safety Commissioner Jennifer Morrison said a “preliminary assessment” found that the death of 25-year-old Katie Hartnett, of Burlington, was not caused by flooding as had been previously suspected. Vermont State Police reported last month that Hartnett died after slipping and falling into the Huntington River in Richmond on July 14. Her body was recovered from the river the next day.

Morrison said she was not sure whether the final investigation into Hartnett’s death was complete.

Emergency officials have said that the determinations of whether deaths are formally linked to flooding are based on a number of factors, including autopsy results and federal determinations of the disaster’s “incident period.” Families of flood victims in counties covered by the federal disaster declaration may be eligible for grants for funeral expenses. 

Maggie Cassidy and Lola Duffort/VTDigger contributed to this reporting.