This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A 5-year-old boy from the Colorado City-Hildale area likely died from exposure while attempting to make his way back to the Jacob Lake, Ariz., campsite from which he disappeared Aug. 6.
The massive ground and air search for Jerold Joseph Williams ended Monday when a group of volunteer searchers found his body along Forest Service Road 240, 3.7 miles from where his family last saw him, chasing grasshoppers at about 1:30 p.m. last Thursday. There was no sign of foul play and the boy was fully clothed, according to the Coconino County Sheriff's Office.
According to a news release from the sheriff's office, preliminary results of an autopsy, performed Tuesday, indicated the boy died of environmental exposure.
"Based on the environmental conditions Jerold was exposed to, it is unlikely he survived the first night," the release said.
Investigators believe that Williams did not walk through the "very thick brush" between the campsite and where he was found, and instead followed the road — which would have been a distance of about 8 1/2 miles — and "may have walked off into the forest to lay down to rest."
For five days and four nights, periodically hampered by heavy rainfall and winds, more than 1,000 searchers had scoured the rugged desert terrain for the boy. People from the Utah-Arizona polygamous community where the boy lived; federal and state agency volunteers; search and rescue personnel from Coconino County and neighboring Washington County, Utah; and Air Force helicopters with nighttime thermal scanners gave thousands of hours to the search effort, which spanned an area of about 21 square miles.