A search for an 89-year-old Mendota Heights man who disappeared after telling relatives he was only stepping out for gas has ended with the discovery of human remains in a remote stretch of Wisconsin's Douglas County Forest. Edward Hanton was last seen leaving his home two weeks ago, and investigators say personal items recovered with the remains indicate the body is his, though forensic testing to confirm the identification is still pending. His green 2012 Honda CR-V had already turned up abandoned earlier this month on a trail deep inside that same county forest.
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office announced Wednesday that the remains were located in a heavily wooded area of the Douglas County Forest in the Town of Summit, according to Bring Me The News. The sheriff's office and the county medical examiner's office said they will continue investigating and plan a forensic examination to make a positive identification. Hanton's family had told authorities he may have been heading toward a cabin near Superior, Wisconsin, when he vanished, the outlet reported.
A Digital Trail From Mendota Heights Toward the Wisconsin Border
Hanton left his home on the 1200 block of Aspen Way around 3 p.m. that day, telling family members he was heading out briefly to get gas, according to KARE 11. Apple AirTag tracking data placed him near Highway 48 and Clover Circle in Cloverdale, Minnesota, roughly 10 miles east of Hinckley, shortly after he left, as reported by CBS News. Video surveillance later captured his vehicle passing through the Danbury and Webster areas of Burnett County, Wisconsin, around 6 p.m. that evening, roughly three hours after he left home, according to DrydenWire.
Hanton was an experienced outdoorsman in his youth, familiar with terrain stretching from north of Danbury to Pattison Park near his family's cabin by Amnicon Lake, DrydenWire reported. That familiarity, combined with the AirTag pings and the Danbury-area sighting, helped investigators narrow their search toward Douglas County. Five days after he was reported missing, his vehicle was located along a trail west of Bear Lake and east of Carlson Road, between Pioneer Trail and Tower Fire Lane, per the same account.
Multi-Agency Ground Search Across a Vast County Forest
Multiple law enforcement agencies helped launch an extensive ground search of the surrounding area once the CR-V was found, Bring Me The News reported. The effort brought together the St. Louis County Rescue Squad and K9 team, the Sawyer County K9 team, and volunteer firefighters from the towns of Summit, Superior, Oakland and Parkland, according to the same DrydenWire account of the operation. The cross-border response reflected the scale of terrain rescuers needed to cover before finding any sign of Hanton.
The Town of Summit, where the remains turned up, encompasses 65,153 acres of the Douglas County Forest — more than 23 percent of the county's total forest land — according to Douglas County figures. The forest itself, formally established in 1931 from tax-delinquent timberlands, spans more than 278,000 acres in total, making it the largest county-owned forest system in Wisconsin, per the county's website. That scale helps explain why it took days of coordinated searching before Hanton's vehicle, and later his remains, were found.
State Alert Systems and an Investigation That Continues
Hanton's disappearance also illustrates how Minnesota and Wisconsin coordinate when a vulnerable adult crosses between the two states. Minnesota law enforcement can issue Endangered Missing Person Alerts through the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension's Crime Alert Network when a missing person is considered at risk of physical injury or death due to factors such as advanced age or exposure, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Wisconsin's Silver Alert program, established by state law in 2014, similarly directs the state's Department of Justice to broadcast alerts through lottery terminals, digital billboards and highway messaging signs when vulnerable adults go missing.
As of Wednesday, the medical examiner's office had not completed the forensic examination needed for a positive identification, nor had officials released a cause of death. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office said the investigation remains ongoing, according to the same Bring Me The News report.
