Body of missing snowmachiner found near Kotzebue

KOTZEBUE, Alaska (KTUU) - A young Ambler man who went missing on Jan. 16 has been found dead near Kotzebue, Alaska State Troopers say.

According to a dispatch from troopers, searchers found the body of 18-year-old Thomas Brown around 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday over 10 miles south of Kotzebue.

Brown and a companion, 18-year-old Josiah Ballot of Selawik, had been reported missing on Jan. 16 after they told friends they were leaving from Kotzebue and possibly heading toward Noorvik.

Search teams in a private plane found Ballot approximately 28 miles south of Kotzebue on Jan. 20. Troopers wrote that Ballot suffered from “severe frostbite” and was taken to Kotzebue the day he was found, before being taken to Anchorage for further medical treatment.

Troopers wrote that searchers in a North Slope Borough helicopter spotted Brown’s remains near Cape Blossom, which is on the Baldwin Peninsula on the coast of Kotzebue Sound in Northwest Alaska.

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