Officials Rule Man's Strange Death "Accidental"

By GIL BRADY
Casper Star-Tribune correspondent

Filed 7.22.07

JACKSON, Wyo. – Sheriff’s investigators have closed the tricky case of a 24-year-old man found dead here in a cold creek over two miles downstream after a security camera captured him leaving a local saloon alone and intoxicated well past midnight last May.

During a convoluted two-month-long investigation -- where officials initially suspected foul play and released incriminating information they later recanted -- Jonathan Koberna’s death May 23 has now officially been ruled an accidental drowning “after hypothermia and paradoxical undressing,” Det.-Sgt. Slade Ross of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

On May 24, a guest at the Wagon Wheel motel, near the saloon Koberna was last seen drinking heavily with friends and leaving, stumbling but alive, found the Utah native’s cell phone, wallet, keys and still-tied shoes side by side, pointing toward the water. The personal items lay near a bench some 2.2 miles upstream from where Koberna’s body was found at about 1 p.m. by a man walking his dog along the Russ Garaman trail, behind Elk Run Townhomes, the previous day.

Ross said Koberna’s unzipped jacket was also found partially afloat in still waters near his shoes and cell phone on the grassy bank after probably getting “caught in an eddy”.

(Click & Read on courtesy of NewWest.net)

Photo caption & credit: "Johnathan Koberna, age 23" courtesy of The Koberna family.