25 Year Old Colin Madsen Missing For Over a Week in Eastern Siberia Has Been Found Dead

The body of missing 25 year old Colin Madsen has been found in eastern Siberia. Madsen, a native of Jefferson City, Missouri, who was studying at a university in the nearby city of Irkutsk, vanished a week ago, March 27, early on a Sunday morning in the Sayan mountains, where he was on a hiking trip with friends. He was found two kilometers from the spa village of Arshan. According to accounts, Madsen had been traveling with three friends, two local Russians and another American student, on exchange at the same university. He left the guest house where the group was staying in the village of Arshan, without warning at around 5 a.m. and wearing only a T-shirt and trousers despite freezing temperatures outside. He had not been seen since. A cause of death has not yet been determined.

 A U.S. student missing for over a week in eastern Siberia has been found dead, Russian investigators said today.

Colin Madsen’s body was found by rescuers about a mile from the village where the Missouri man had disappeared in the Buryatia region, investigators said in a statement released by the local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the equivalent of the FBI.

Russian police had earlier opened a possible murder inquiry into Madsen’s vanishing in the foothills of the Sayan mountains, roughly 3,000 miles from Moscow, where a search for the student has been gradually intensifying since last Monday.

But today’s statement said that there were no signs of outward injury on Madsen’s body or any indication he had been robbed. Investigators said a cause of death has not yet been established but the statement suggested that it may be related to drugs.

Police are now testing Madsen’s body for traces of narcotics and the statement noted that the group with which Madsen had been traveling had taken drugs in the day before his disappearance.

Police today said the murder inquiry remained open while the full circumstances around Madsen’s death were established.

UPDATE I: Pravda is reporting that Madesen may have froze to death as a results of being impaired due to drugs.