Man Found Dead In Yukon

ANCHORAGE - An Anchorage man who left for a Christmas visit to his elderly father in Illinois instead froze to death along a closed highway in the Yukon after his car became stuck in a snowdrift.

A snowmobiler found the body of William Edwin Ray, 56, on Sunday, two months after he became stranded along the remote route near the U.S.-Canada border. He apparently tried to walk to Dawson City, 60 miles to the west. His frozen body was found about five miles from his car, police said.

An officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said that agency would not release the victim's identity until the body could be thawed and fingerprints lifted. But Detective Ron Emmons of the Anchorage Police Department said he was nearly certain Ray was the victim, and Ray's father said Canadian authorities told him they had found his son's body.

Neither police nor Ray's father knew why he took the Top of the World Highway out of the state.

Ray's death is strikingly similar to the deaths of an Anchorage couple and their grandchild earlier this winter.

Palmer and Leah Olrun and their 2-year-old grandson, Ethan, were found along the Denali Highway Jan. 17. They died of exposure after their station wagon became stuck in snow.