A Crookston man who had been missing since Friday night was found dead Monday afternoon in the yard of an Alvarado, Minn., home, Marshall County Chief Deputy Randy Olson said.
Olson said an Alvarado fireman who happened to be driving by discovered the body of Roy Gustofson, 50, on the ground by a storage shed. The body had not been concealed, the chief deputy said.
"It's looking less like foul play," Olson said. "I would suspect hypothermia."
Olson said Gustofson's body, which was clothed and did not have any visible injuries, was taken to Altru Hospital in Grand Forks for an autopsy. Results are expected in a couple of days.
Gustofson's body was found in the Wagon Wheel mobile-home park, a couple of hundred feet from where he was last seen alive. Olson said that area had already been checked in the search for Gustofson.
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About 8 p.m. Friday, Gustofson was in a vehicle with two other men outside another mobile home in the park. The two men, Gustofson's friends from Crookston, went inside the home, which belonged to an acquaintance, to get a set of keys. A few minutes later, the men came out and Gustofson was gone, authorities said.
"We believe that he walked away from the vehicle," Sheriff John Novacek said. "There was drinking involved." Novacek said he does not know how intoxicated Gustofson was.
Alvarado sits about 20 miles north of Grand Forks. On Friday, the temperature dipped as low as 1 degree above zero in the Grand Forks area, the National Weather Service reported.
One of Gustofson's family members in Crookston reported him missing about 4 p.m. Saturday. That led crews to search Alvarado's city limits and to use aircraft to canvas the Snake River north and south of the city.
Monday, the sheriff's department inspected abandoned farmsteads around Alvarado for signs of Gustofson.
Reach Ingersoll at (701) 780-1269; (800) 477-6572, ext. 269; or send e-mail to aingersoll@gfherald.com .
