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Utah County Sheriff’s Office looking to ID human remains found in mountains east of Springville

By Curtis Booker - | Oct 30, 2024
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A Utah County Sheriff's Office vehicle is shown on Sept. 27, 2024, outside of Utah Lake State Park.
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This image shows the general area near Springville where a climber found human remains Saturday Oct. 26, 2024.
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This image shows the general area near Springville where a climber found human remains Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024.

Hiking in Utah’s backcountry can lead to a bevy of discoveries, and in the case of one hiker, they reported finding human remains in a canyon east of Springville, according to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.

Authorities say they got a call Saturday from a man who told them he was climbing in very steep terrain above the northeast part of Springville when he came upon what he believed were human remains.

In a press release issued Tuesday, Sgt. Spencer Cannon said the area where the remains were found is often referred to as “Springville Rock Canyon” and sits north of the Lime Kiln.

Investigators responded and found what appeared to be skeletonized remains, according to the release. The medical examiner later confirmed that the remains are human.

Other than the fact that the remains were those of a human, authorities haven’t had much else to go on in determining who the person is or even what gender they were.

Cannon said authorities are awaiting a final report from the medical examiner’s office but indicated it may take some time due to pending toxicology results.

According to the release, investigators have spoken to local law enforcement agencies, and none have any missing person cases that they believe may be connected to these remains.

“It’s possible that this person was never reported missing, It’s also possible that this person was reported missing, but maybe not anywhere near here,” Cannon said. “Maybe they were reported missing from, you know, Oklahoma, and it would be hard to make a connection if that person, this person, doesn’t have any connections to Utah.”

Cannon said it’s also unknown how long the remains had been at the location — though, based on the conditions of the remains, he added, they don’t appear to be recent, nor historic.

“It’s likely that it’s been a year or more, but not much longer than a few years, probably,” Cannon said when reached Wednesday afternoon.

Commenters on social media questioned if the remains belong to Kiplyn Davis, who disappeared nearly 30 years ago.

In May 1995, Kiplyn, 15 at the time, reportedly vanished from Spanish Fork High School. Her body was never found.

Former classmate Tommy Olsen was convicted in connection to Kiplyn’s death in 2011 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but he never revealed where her remains were located, KUTV reported.

However, an online page dedicated to finding Kiplyn’s body rebuked suggestions that the remains were hers.

“The remains are not my sister Kiplyn Davis” said Karissa Davis, who runs the “Find Kiplyn Davis” Facebook account, in response to comments on a post by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.

At this point, investigators are continuing to follow leads to determine who the remains belong to and they are seeking help from the public.

According to the release, investigators found evidence in the area suggesting there may be a reason people like to go there for recreation or fun, though they didn’t indicate what that evidence was.

“It’s not a destination place like you would expect of some places, say in American Fork Canyon or Provo Canyon, but there was evidence there. And I can’t go into what that evidence was,” Cannon said.

Anyone who may frequent the area or knows something that can help investigators identify the deceased is asked to reach out to the Utah County Sheriff’s Office by calling 801-851-4010.

“(If there is) somebody who knows someone who (frequents the area) that they haven’t seen for a while and suspects that it could be them,” Cannon said, urging those people to contact authorities.

“We know very little right now, and so we’re trying to find out anything that we can to help us know who this person is and what they might have been doing there and how this happened to them,” Cannon told the Daily Herald.