TOWNSEND — Broadwater County authorities have identified a body found south of Townsend as a man reported missing from Helena last year.
Broadwater County Sheriff Wynn Meehan said Thursday that the State Crime Lab has determined the man was 48-year-old Philip Pietz.
Pietz was listed as a missing/endangered person, last seen Dec. 2 in the Helena Walmart parking lot. Authorities described him as a transient who lived in his truck. In December, they reported the truck had been found crashed at a ranch north of Helena.
Meehan said a rancher discovered the body Friday morning, in a field just off U.S. Highway 287, about four miles south of Townsend. He said the body had been there for a long time, so it was difficult to identify a manner of death – but he believes it was not a “natural death.”
“This is going to be a complex investigation,” he said.
Meehan said the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office and Montana Division of Criminal Investigation will also be involved in the case, and that other agencies may be brought in.
“This all started as a missing person for Lewis and Clark County, so there’s a lot of that groundwork that’s already been done,” he said. “They’ve shared that information with us; now it’s time for us to go through and start digesting all that and trying to figure out what’s been done and where we need to go from there.”
Meehan asked that anyone who has any information on the case email him at wmeehan@co.broadwater.mt.us or lead investigator Deputy Michelle Frost at mfrost@co.broadwater.mt.us.
“I’m hoping that people will see this and say, ‘I remember,’ or ‘I saw,’ or something, and they will share it with us and we can move forward to try to find the family some answers on what happened to their loved one,” Meehan said.
