Missing man was not killed by the bear that was eating him, forensic report shows
When the body of a missing man was discovered last year, searchers said it was being eaten by a black bear, Smoky Mountain News reported.
But William Lee Hill, Jr. was not killed in a bear attack at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, according to WLOS. An autopsy showed the 30-year-old Louisville, Tennessee man “died of accidental methamphetamine intoxication,” per the TV station.
Hill overdosed on meth and died before the bear was feeding off his body, according to the autopsy. He suffered “extensive postmortem animal predation,” Smoky Mountain News reported.
“Syringes and other drug paraphernalia” were found near the body of Hill, who “had a history of drug use,” per the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Searchers found the bear “aggressively guarding” Hill’s body on Sept. 11th, and human DNA was recovered from the animal after it was briefly trapped by park rangers and Hill’s body was recovered, according to The Daily Times of Blount County.
Hill’s cause of death was not known in September and park officials decided to euthanize the bear “out of concern for public safety,” per the Knoxville News Sentinel, which reported the bear was shot and killed on Sept. 16th.
Park officials said an examination of the approximately 3-year-old, 155-pound bear showed it did not have rabies, according to The Daily Times.
“There really wasn’t any evidence that this bear had ‘anything wrong with it,’ ” wrote Ed Ramsay, the clinician overseeing the bear’s necropsy, per the newspaper.
Hill had gone to the park with his best friend, Joshua Morgan, to illegally remove ginseng, but they became separated, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.
The 31-year-old Maryville man died October 1st, according the Smith Funeral and Cremation Service website. No cause of death was listed in Morgan’s obituary.
Approximately 1,500 bears live in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which is a protected area, according to its website. While the park reported that bear attacks on humans are “extremely rare,” it warns people to maintain a distance of at least 50 yards from any bear, which it called “wild animals that are dangerous and unpredictable.”
“Treat bear encounters with extreme caution!”
This story was originally published February 4, 2019 at 6:02 PM.
