Missing or Dead Hikers: Abe Mounce, Aubrey Sacco, and Scott Lilly

RICHMOND, VA - Scott Lilly's body was found on the Appalachian Trail (AT) in Amherst County this week, and the FBI is asking for all hikers who may have interacted with Scott -- or seen him on the trail -- to come forward.

Lilly's death is being investigated by the federal law enforcement agency, and while an exact cause has not been disclosed, the FBI has stated that his death appears suspicious.

Scott Lilly's death on a hiking trail isn't the first to occur on the AT or elsewhere in the country. Other hikers have met with a fatal end -- or been lost during hikes (like Abe Mounce, in the Rockies or Aubrey Sacco, who has been missing in Nepal for over a year).

Sometimes a body is found and we learn the hiker met with a fatal end due to extreme temperatures or a miscalculation of judgment. Judgment can become clouded on long and high altitude hikes, especially under such adverse conditions as can occur during winter months. Other times, as the FBI suspects in the Lilly case, deaths appear suspicious and could be the result of foul play.

According to Tom Perrin, the Saguache County Coroner, the body discovered in May of this year off one of the Sangre de Cristo trails has still not been officially identified as Abe Mounce, the Atlanta man who went missing in October of last year.

DNA testing is being conducted on the skeletal remains and it is unclear when results will be made known to the general public; however, it bears mentioning that Mounce's driver's license was found at the ransacked campsite scene when the skeletal remains were found by another hiker.

Aubrey Sacco's family in Colorado conducted an extensive search -- as much as possible, at least -- in an effort to locate her after she went missing last year. Over a year later, Aubrey remains missing in Nepal, her disappearance as much a mystery today as before.

The FBI's involvement in a hiking death isn't always a foregone conclusion, so Virginia's recent death on the Appalachian Trail undoubtedly has some elements that warrant their involvement at this juncture. Typically park police or local law enforcement agencies in an area assume jurisdictional authority in such cases.