[Az-Geocaching] Geocaching Makes the News

[Team Tierra Buena]

USC-Aiken students discover body 
Web posted Saturday, February 28, 2004 at 10:59 p.m.
By Peter G. Gilchrist | South Carolina Bureau 
AIKEN - Two USC-Aiken students walked into Hitchcock Woods early
Saturday morning on a high-tech treasure hunt and stumbled into a real
mystery. 
Tim Meesseman and Carl Williams, both 20, were using a global
positioning system to find hidden items in an adventure game known as
geocaching. 
Instead they found the remains of a skeleton. 
"At first I saw a skull and then I looked and saw a few decomposing
bones next to it," Mr. Meesseman said. "We couldn't believe it." 
The two were searching near Dribble Road, using the GPS to find the
longitude and latitude of the hidden cache. The coordinates are found on
a Web site, www.geocaching.com, and 28 caches are hidden in the
Aiken-Augusta area. 

"After I saw the bones, we saw a pair of Nike tennis shoes about five
feet from the skull," Mr. Meesseman said. "It looked like they were from
the 1980's or something. It had definitely been there a while." 
Lt. Michael Frank, spokesman for the Aiken County Sheriff's Office, said
it is unclear how long the remains had been in the woods, but said an
autopsy and a forensic reconstruction will be done to try to identity
the person. 
"Right now we don't know much. There wasn't enough information at the
scene to determine if foul play was involved," he said. "It could be
weeks before we know more." 
Patrick King, of Aiken, a regular on the geocache circuit, said he'd
heard of unusual finds during hunts, but nothing like this. 
"I've heard of people finding strange things like underwear, but I don't
think I've ever heard of anyone finding a body." 
--From the Saturday, February 28, 2004 online edition of the Augusta
(GA) Chronicle