Even if the Snowcat could have pinned his body and at the same time knocked his board and boots off, it would not have ripped his feet out of the boots and the boots out of the bindings. The assembly would have given way at its weakest link (the binding straps). If Duncan had loosened the boot buckles before he was struck, the boots would have come off of his feet but remained in the bindings.
The top left side of the snowboard was damaged, as was his left foot, which was consistent with the liner of the left boot being shredded. And yet, oddly enough, there is no corresponding damage to the left ski boot. The violent force that damaged Duncan’s foot and the boot liner did not come into contact with the boot itself.
Likewise, the base plate of the left (forward) binding was struck hard, but there is no corresponding damage to the left (forward) ski boot. This indicates that the boot was not in the binding at the time the binding was damaged. In other words, Duncan was not wearing his boots and nor were his boots in the bindings at the moment his left leg and the snowboard were destroyed. Moreover, even though his left leg and snowboard were not connected to each other at the time they were both struck, they somehow came to rest, along with the left ski boot and liner, in a neat package at the bottom of a crevasse. How could this have possibly happened?
For a while I considered the hypothesis that Duncan had fallen into a crevasse, then managed to free himself from his snowboard and boots, and then attempted to climb out. An impossible feat, he had eventually frozen to death or been buried alive by a careless groomer. To explain the damage to his body and snowboard, I theorized that the men who’d recovered his body had become impatient to finish the grim task and decided to use heavy tools or equipment, thereby damaging the corpse. Ultimately I concluded that the evidence (see Appendix 1) doesn’t support this hypothesis, but thinking about it cost me many sleepless nights.
What exactly had happened to Duncan? The question was a riddle wrapped in a mystery, and it was driving me nuts.
Chapter 28: Pretending
The strange condition of his body and equipment was just one of many riddles that comprised the overall mystery of his death. The first perplexing question was why he wasn’t found at the end of the day on August 9, 1989, after he failed to return his equipment and pick up his clothing. If he snowboarded off-piste and fell into a crevasse, the rescue service could have saved him or at least recovered his body. However, according to Stubai Glacier personnel and the police, Duncan wasn’t reported missing to the rescue service. Why wasn’t he?
Walter Hinterhoelzl, the snowboarding instructor, implied that he’d seen no reason to sound the alarm because he’d assumed that Duncan had simply forgotten about his clothing in the ski school office. Josef “Seppi” Repetschnig, manager of Sport Shop 3000, implied that he’d seen no cause for alarm because he had no memory or record of Duncan renting gear, much less failing to return it. In other words, both men simply hadn’t thought about Duncan until his parents showed up six weeks later looking for him.
Their stories might have been plausible if Walter’s snowboarding school and Seppi’s rental shop were located at the base of the mountain, where a customer might go straight from the slope to an après ski party, get drunk, and forget to return his gear. However, the Eisgrat Station is located almost 1,200 vertical meters from the base. In order to get down to the valley in August, one must either ride the gondola from the Eisgrat (which closes at 4:15 P.M.) or hike five hours down a steep path. Moreover, the entrance to the gondola terminal is only a few meters from the rental shop and ski school. The notion that Duncan rode down on the gondola without first returning his gear and picking up his clothing made no sense, especially given that he was wearing hard ski boots.
When his body emerged in 2003, he was found with a Duret snowboard and nylon gaiters inscribed with “Rental 3000.” At that point, it became clear that he must have also left his shoes and his Saskatchewan driver’s license (as a deposit for the gear) in either the rental shop or in Walter’s office. These abandoned items—yet another alarming sign that something had happened to their owner—were never returned to the MacPhersons, which meant that someone had disposed of them. Finally, contrary to standard procedure, Duncan’s missing snowboard was never reported to the police.
An injured customer left to spend the night on the mountain at an altitude of 3,000 meters would likely die of hypothermia, if not from his trauma. Thus, as everyone who worked at the Eisgrat Station knew, it was critical that any customer who failed to return his gear and retrieve his possessions be reported to the rescue service.
After Duncan’s car was found in the Stubai Glacier parking lot, the entire investigation of his disappearance hinged on figuring out whether he’d returned his equipment. The equipment was the telltale sign of what had happened to him. If he’d failed to return it, it meant that he’d gone into a crevasse while snowboarding on the Schaufelferner. If he had returned it, it meant that he’d come off the slope and gone to meet his end somewhere else. Until this was clarified, there was no sense in searching for him far and wide with dozens of men, dogs, and helicopters.
Inspector Franz Brecher did a remarkable job of not clarifying whether the gear was returned. He did take statements from Seppi and Walter, but only a year later, after Lynda complained to Prosecutor Wallner about the lack of recorded testimony. The more I studied Brecher’s conduct, the more I was drawn to the conclusion that he had not wanted to determine whether the gear had been returned. Instead, he joined Walter and Seppi in a verbal dance around the truth of the matter. The closest he came to revealing the truth was when he told Lynda in the summer of 1990 that Duncan may have used two different snowboards on the day he disappeared, and that she should ask Walter about it. He was referring to the probable fact that Duncan had rented his gear from the Sport Shop 3000 in the morning, and then used one of Walter’s boards in the afternoon.
After months of studying the snowboard issue, I concluded (see evidence in Appendix 2) that, by August 10, 1989 at the latest, both Walter and Seppi knew that Duncan hadn’t come off the slope, and both men concealed their knowledge from the MacPhersons. On the evening of September 22, it must have been disturbing for Walter to see the parents of his missing pupil checking into the hotel where he worked in the evenings during ski season. They were obviously determined to find someone who’d had contact with their son, and Walter knew that numerous persons—including a group of Italians who’d stayed at the hotel—had seen him with Duncan on the glacier. It had been his duty to make sure his pupil understood the slope boundary markers, was outfitted with proper equipment, and had sufficient control to remain within the boundaries. When Walter approached the MacPhersons, he established himself as forthcoming and helpful. Feeling grateful to him, they didn’t think to ask him challenging questions, even after Inspector Brecher suggested they ask him about a second board.
Though Seppi was less active in deceiving the MacPhersons, he played along with the lie. If he and Walter had told the truth, they would have spared Lynda and Bob years of miserable perplexity and most of their retirement savings. Why had they pretended not to have noticed the signs that Duncan hadn’t made it off the slope? They doubtless knew he was dead, but what was it about his death that made them feel they had to remain silent about it?