South Carolina authorities on Tuesday revealed the cause of death for Stanley Kotowski, a Massachusetts man who disappeared from a family vacation in Hilton Head on Aug. 16.
Kotowski, 60, was apparently suffering from insomnia and anxiety when he left his family’s Hilton Head vacation rental and wandered off on the morning of Aug. 16. He was missing for 10 days before the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office located his remains beneath a Sea Pines residence on Monday.
Authorities later identified the deceased as Kotowski, and Beaufort County Coroner David Ott on Tuesday determined his cause of death to be asphyxiation by hanging and his manner of death as suicide.
“The day of the incident where he was located, the Sea Pine security, along with the sheriff’s office were on their daily canvas of the area. The Sea Pine security officer walked the neighborhood… again, and he smelled something that was a foul odor, and then he saw that there were some flies in the area, and he contacted the sheriff’s office,” Lt. Eric Calendine said during a Tuesday evening press conference.
Authorities searched around the building, and “it was not easy to find” a place with access to the crawl space beneath the house.
“We ended up finding a hatch by… the outdoor shower on the deck itself, removed the hatch, officer went down, took the flashlight around, didn’t see anything, had to crawl through the crawl space… to finally locate the body,” Calendine explained.
SOUTH CAROLINA POLICE FIND BODY OF MASSACHUSETTS MAN WHO VANISHED FROM HILTON HEAD FAMILY VACATION
Ring doorbell footage released over the weekend shows Kotowski leaving his family’s Hilton Head rental residence on the same day he disappeared.
In the video released by the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, Kotowski can be seen walking out the front door of the South Sea Pines Drive rental barefoot. Kotowski also appears to be confused in the video as he stops walking and looks around in the middle of the street before continuing on.
MASSACHUSETTS MAN MISSING IN SOUTH CAROLINA AFTER HE VANISHED FROM HILTON HEAD VACATION
Kotowski’s wife, Jackie Kotowski, told local news outlet WJCL that he “just walked out the door.”
“He had really bad insomnia for about a month. He doesn’t have dementia. His anxiety just kept getting worse and worse and worse and he started to get a little paranoid,” she said.
A BCSO report obtained by WJCL says Jackie told deputies her husband “believes Sea Pines is a ‘set up’ and has a conspiracy that the people here are out to get him. She stated that Stanley has made several statements of people at this place ‘watching him.’”
Before Stanley left their rental, he apparently told Jackie, “Promise me you will go on without me,” according to the report.
“It is with deep sorrow that I share the heartbreaking news that Stan has been found,” Jackie wrote in a Monday Facebook post. “Sadly, he is no longer with us. Our hearts are heavy with grief as we begin to process this unimaginable loss.”
She thanked “everyone who offered their support, shared information, and helped in the search efforts.”
Beaufort County authorities said during the Tuesday press conference that the entire community was helpful with search efforts. Even out-of-state property owners called Hilton Head officials to allow them to search their residences for signs of Kotowski.
