By Eric Francis, Standard Correspondent
QUECHEE — Hartford police are continuing their investigation into what is believed to have been a suicide jump into the Quechee Gorge sometime on Monday morning or perhaps Sunday evening.
The name of the victim is being withheld while the investigation proceeds but police have confirmed that their initial identification is that of a “younger” male from the town of Hartford.
“He is not someone that we are familiar with…nobody came across him” in previous police activities around the town, Hartford Police Major Brad Vail said Monday afternoon.
A passerby crossing on the pedestrian walkway on the Route 4 bridge spanning the Quechee Gorge looked down shortly before 8 a.m. on Monday and spotted the body in the Ottauquechee River Gorge 163 feet below, touching off an emergency response that eventually led to the body being lifted out of the gorge later in the morning using a crane belonging to the Hartford Fire Department that was specially designed for such recoveries.
Major Vail said that no vehicles were found near the gorge that could be associated with the victim and he estimated it will be mid-week before police wrap up their investigation and are prepared to release the man’s name.