Editor's note: This story was updated at 4:14 p.m. July 21 with new information.
A Philomath woman was found deceased last week in a remote part of Harney County after a wildlife survey helicopter crew spotted her abandoned vehicle marked with a distress signal, according to Oregon State Police and Philomath Police Chief Dave Gurski.
Gabrielle Denis Mahoney, 46, had apparently left home more than a week before she was found, Gurski said. According to an Oregon State Police desk log, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife employees contacted OSP on July 16 after spotting a black Kia Soul with “SOS” written on the roof during a survey flight over Rawhide Canyon, a high-desert area east of Wagontire and southwest of Burns. No one was seen near the vehicle.
The vehicle’s license plate was traced to an address in Philomath. OSP received the call for service at approximately 7:40 a.m. July 16 and asked Philomath Police to conduct a welfare check the following morning. Officers found no one home, Gurski said.
“We later determined that she had left … about a little over a week prior, so maybe about 10 or 11 days prior, and hadn’t been heard from in at least a week, and so some acquaintances of hers were a little bit concerned,” Gurski said.
Troopers responded to the area and located the vehicle. A search revealed Mahoney was deceased nearby, according to the OSP desk log. Gurski said he believed that troopers used an all-terrain vehicle to reach the remote location and found what he described as a makeshift camp.
A medical death investigator ruled the death was not suspicious and an on-scene investigation by OSP detectives concluded there was no foul play. LaFollett’s Funeral Home in Burns took possession of Mahoney’s body. The vehicle was left at the scene for next of kin to retrieve.
(Danielle Jester of the Klamath Falls Herald and News contributed to this story).
