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The body of a missing 60-year-old Massachusetts man was discovered by Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) deputies on Monday morning… or was it?
Confusion reigned in the South Carolina Lowcountry after The (Hilton Head, S.C.) Island Packet filed a report on Monday (August 26, 2024) stating definitively that the remains of Stanley Kotowski – who had been missing since August 16 – had in fact not been found.
“Kotoswski has not been found and (the) investigation remains ongoing,” the paper reported, citing its sources at BCSO. “They are continuing their search and investigation for the missing husband and father from Methuen, Massachusetts.”
According to the paper’s sources, the alleged “confusion” regarding the discovery of Kotowski’s remains was due to “the proximity of the coroner’s van… in response to an unrelated medical event.”
The problem? According to authorities and family members, the remains found on Monday morning do belong to Kotowski, pending the results of a coroner’s office autopsy.
As the Packet report was making the rounds in the Lowcountry, BCSO issued a statement on the investigation indicating the body its deputies discovered was likely Kotowski, who went missing eleven days earlier from a nearby vacation home.
“It is believed that the deceased male is 60-year-old Stanley Kotowski,” the agency noted.
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Kotowski’s family confirmed his passing shortly before 5:00 p.m. EDT.
“It is with deep sorrow that I share the heartbreaking news that Stan has been found,” Kotowski’s wife, Jackie Kotowski, wrote on Facebook. “Sadly, he is no longer with us. Our hearts are heavy with grief as we begin to process this unimaginable loss.”
Kotowski was last seen at approximately 10:30 a.m. EDT on a Ring camera leaving 226 South Sea Pines Drive – a vacation home in the Sea Pines resort community on Hilton Head. Kotowski was wearing a dark blue Coors Light t-shirt, shorts and no shoes – and did not have his cell phone with him.
The Ring footage depicts Kotowski calmly exiting the vacation home and walking into the street outside the front entrance to the residence. Putting his hands to his hips, Kotowski stands in the road for approximately fifteen seconds as if he is looking for someone, and then begins to slowly walk down the street – briefly looking back at the home and turning around and looking over his shoulder as he moves out of the frame.
Take a look…
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(BSCO)
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That was the last time anyone saw Kotowski alive…
Deputies deployed “K-9s, helicopters, drones, boats and foot patrol(s)” to assist in their search for Kotowski, to no avail.
Jackie Kotowski told WJCL TV 22 (ABC – Savannah, Georgia) her husband “just walked out the door.”
“He had really bad insomnia for about a month,” she told the station. “He doesn’t have dementia. His anxiety just kept getting worse and worse and worse and he started to get a little paranoid.”
Jackie Kotowski also alleged her husband believed the neighborhood where the vacation home was located was part of a “set-up” and that people were “watching him.”
Prior to departing the home that morning, Kotowski claimed her husband made a cryptic remark.
“Promise me you will go on without me,” he is alleged to have said.
At 11:30 a.m. EDT on Monday, BCSO deputies were alerted to reports of “suspicious activity” at a home in Sea Pines located just yards away from where Kotowski went missing. Four hours later – at approximately 3:30 p.m. EDT – they retrieved the body of a deceased male from “underneath a residence.”
Beaufort county sheriff PJ Tanner will hold a press conference today (Tuesday, August 27, 2024) to provide the public with additional information about the status of the investigation.
Count on our media outlet to keep its audience in the loop on the latest developments in this case…
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UPDATE |
Additional details on the case were provided by Beaufort County officials at a press conference held on Tuesday morning (August 27, 2024).
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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