Hikers who found the body of British actor Julian Sands have spoken for the first time.
Sands’ remains were reportedly discovered by hikers near Mount Bald in June before being handed over to California authorities. His death was confirmed more than five months after he first went missing in January.
Now, the hikers have spoken to the LA Times about finding the late actor.
“It was surreal,” Bill Dwyer, one of the hikers, said after they came across a boot, then hiking poles, before stumbling upon Sands’ remains.
According to the hikers he was “he was dressed like a ninja” and they noticed that Sands was wearing microspike shoes, not crampons, which are believed to provide more grip on the steep, icy terrain that the actor was facing.
Dwyer added: “I was a little shocked to see the microspikes. They were just the wrong tools for the job at hand.”
Sands was last seen on Friday, January 13 in the Baldy Bowl area in the San Gabriel mountains, north of Los Angeles. At the time, San Bernardino’s County Sheriff department told the BBC that it had responded to 14 calls on Mount San Antonio over a period of four weeks due to bad weather conditions.
The confirmation of Sands’ death came just a week after the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department announced that it would be scaling back its search efforts after months of search attempts. However, the department confirmed that the case was still active, and that they would be operating in a “limited capacity”.
Police recently said Sands’ cause of death was “undetermined”.
Sands starred in films including The Killing Fields, A Room With A View, Arachnophobia,
Leaving Las Vegas and Warlock. He also featured in TV series including 24, Smallville
and Banshee. Most recently, he appeared in Benediction opposite Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi, in which he played a chief medical officer.