The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
No foul play suspected
[ By Mark Reaman ]
The Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the death of a Western Colorado University student whose body was discovered up Taylor Canyon last week.
The county’s swift water team was dispatched on Thursday, January 14 to recover the body of 20-year-old Sarah Thurlow, whose body was discovered by sheriff’s deputies in the Taylor River near mile marker 16 just below the Taylor Reservoir.
Gunnison County sheriff John Gallowich said deputies discovered Thurlow’s body in the river after responding to a call concerning an abandoned vehicle about 12:30 on the afternoon of January 14.
“Officers arrived at the scene where the abandoned Prius was located and ran the license plates,” explained Gallowich. “It came back as part of a missing persons report out of Loveland for the driver of the vehicle. No one was in the car so the officers checked the area and found the person’s body in the river.”
Gallowich said the swift water team was called in to help recover the body that was lodged against a rock outcropping and held there by the river current. Thurlow was a student at WCU and her body recovery was completed about 4:30 that afternoon.
The incident remains under investigation but Gallowich said there does not appear to be any foul play involved.
