By Joseph T. O’Connor ExploreBigSky.com Editor
This story has been updated from one written Sunday Jan. 20.
BIG SKY – A man’s body recovered at Beehive Basin Sunday morning, Jan. 20 has been identified. Madison County Sheriff David Schenk identified the body as 47-year-old Chris Andrew Karantinos of Jefferson, S.D. An autopsy revealed Karantinos’s death a suicide.
“There are unanswered questions we have [about the case],” Schenk said. “We determined there was no foul play as we see it, but Gallatin County Big Sky Deputy Ted Quillen is investigating further into the details of the incident.”
The Madison and Gallatin County sheriffs’ offices identified the victim after determining a pickup truck at the Beehive Basin trailhead was registered in the Karantinos’ name, according to Schenk.
A group of skiers discovered the unidentified body around 9 a.m. Sunday and reported it to the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, which called Big Sky Search and Rescue.
SAR members recovered the victim and skied him out to a helicopter.
The sheriff initially found no identification on the victim and thought at first that the body may have been another person of the same age reported missing last Thursday.
Karantinos’ body was turned over to Dokken Nelson Funeral Home in Bozeman and arrangements are being made to return his remains to South Dakota, according to a Madison County Sheriff press release received by the Weekly on Tuesday, Jan. 22.
ExploreBigSky.com will be updating this story as details are released.
