Footage captures the moment explorers discover key piece in case of man who went missing over 10 years ago
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: EWU Crew/YouTube/NamUs
A key piece in a missing person's case has been discovered by explorers ten years on from an elderly man's disappearance.
79-year-old Warren Hagyard was last seen in April 2014 after having visited his son's home that afternoon. His wife Cathy was expecting him home afterwards, by Hagyard never showed.
A huge manhunt was then sparked in the hopes of locating him, with police pinpointing their search to a 400-square-mile area of remote rugged terrain in Nevada, USA.
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Hagyard's blue Honda Civic was later discovered stuck in a creek bed, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen.
By early May, police announced that they were scaling back their search for Hagyard to 'review strategies for the continuing effort', The Sacramento Bee reported at the time.
Fast forward a decade and any of Hagyard's remains were still yet to be found, until hikers were walking by an area of around three miles from where his car had been discovered some years ago in Coyote Canyon.
A shoe, a pair of blue jeans, some bones and car keys were found and presumed to be that of Hagyard's.
YouTube explorers EWU Crew wanted to look further around the area that some of Hagyard's presumed remains were found in the hopes of reuniting some of his belongings with his wife.
In a video shared in June of this year, the team documented the moment they came across a key part of the case - Hagyard's wallet.
"It appears as if we have found his wallet underneath this bush right here," the guy in the video explains.
They they retrieve the wallet from the bushes and look inside it to find credit cards and Hagyard's ID cards.
The explorers then came across a more insister find - some arm bones and a scapula, as well as the sole of a shoe.
Knowing that it was an ongoing investigation, the explorers left the items where they found them and notified police so that they could come collect them for themselves.
While evidence points to the idea that Hagyard sadly died while roaming the remote area, the question of why he was there still remains a mystery.
"No one knows why he was out here - it's crazy," the explorer mused as he panned the camera round to show the canyon.
"This is literally the middle of nowhere and how he even found his way out here [and] even got his car all the way back in this canyon... no one can understand how he did that."
It's thought that some of the items found by the team have since been returned to Hagyard's wife.
Washoe County Sheriff’s Office have been approached by UNILAD for comment.