Pennsylvania: A man’s body was discovered frozen in a small Pennsylvania cave over 50 years ago and has finally been identified. A man’s body was found frozen in a small Pennsylvania cave over 50 years ago and has finally been identified.
The bones of Nicolas Paul Grubb, 27, of Fort Washington, were discovered in January 1977 by two hikers who had fled inside the cave to avoid bad weather. Grubb has long been known as the “Pinnacle Man,” referring to the Appalachian mountain peak near where his remains were discovered.
An autopsy at the time revealed no evidence of foul play and concluded that he died of a narcotics overdose. However, authorities could not identify Grubb’s body based on his features, belongings, clothing, or dental records. Fingerprints were taken during his autopsy but were misplaced, according to the Berks County Coroner’s Office.
Detectives from the state police and investigators from the coroner’s office had returned to the case several times over the previous 15 years, and Grubb’s body was excavated in August 2019 after dental records linked him to two missing person cases in Florida and Illinois.
DNA tests did not match, but a breakthrough occurred last month when a Pennsylvania state trooper discovered Grubb’s missing fingerprints. Within an hour of submitting the card to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, an FBI fingerprint analyst matched it with Grubb.
Grubb’s relatives were told of the discovery, and they requested that his remains be interred in a family plot. An earlier version of this item misspelled Nicolas Paul Grubb’s first name.
