{"id":37093,"date":"2015-01-03T15:39:07","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T07:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=37093"},"modified":"2015-09-19T13:09:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T05:09:24","slug":"missing-american-found-dead-in-mexican-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/01\/03\/missing-american-found-dead-in-mexican-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing American found dead in Mexican mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hari<\/a>
Hari Simran Singh Khalsa (Photo courtesy of Ad Purkh Kaur)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MEXICO CITY \u2014 Searchers on Friday found the body of an American man who had been missing in the rugged mountains in central Mexico since going on a hike four days ago.<\/p>\n

Carlos Mandujano, the civil defense coordinator for Morelos state, said a search team found the lifeless body of Hari Simran Singh Khalsa, 25.<\/p>\n

He was found in one of the narrow gorges or ravines that crisscross the rugged mountains in the colonial town of Tepoztlan, not far from where he was last seen in a picture of himself that he sent by cellphone.<\/p>\n

“He has been found, but unfortunately, dead,” Mandujano said. “We don’t know the cause of death yet; that will be determined by the autopsy.”<\/p>\n

Khalsa’s family and friends said in a statement later that he apparently died from a fall. “He appears to have fallen while hiking and sustained a fatal injury to the head,” it said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico City also confirmed the death. It said it was offering consular support to Khalsa’s family and extended the U.S. government’s condolences.<\/p>\n

While helicopters and hundreds of police and rescue workers combed the craggy mountains and cliffs around Tepoztlan this week, it appears Khalsa never went very far.<\/p>\n

The body “was in the same wooded area, but the thing is that it is very rough terrain,” Mandujano said.<\/p>\n

The search began Tuesday after Khalsa didn’t return from going on a hike in Tepoztlan, about an hour south of Mexico City, with only a T-shirt, shorts, and little food and water, said his wife, Ad Purkh Kaur.<\/p>\n

Kaur said Friday from Tepoztlan that her husband was a yoga instructor born and raised in Brooklyn. The couple have been living in Leesburg, Virginia, but were planning to move back to Brooklyn at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

Kaur, whose legal name is Emily Smith, said she and her husband arrived in Tepoztlan for a yoga retreat Dec. 26.<\/p>\n

Tepoztlan, a frequent weekend getaway for Mexico City residents, is known for the towering, whimsically shaped cliffs and mountain peaks that tower over the colonial town on the valley floor.<\/p>\n

Kaur said she heard from her husband at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, when he sent a picture of himself on a mountain top pointing to the site of the yoga retreat, with the message: “Looking down on you!”<\/p>\n

She last heard from him about two hours after that, when he sent a text message.<\/p>\n

“I accidentally summited another mountain,” he wrote, Kaur said. “Looks like I’ll be a little later coming back. Save me some lunch if you can.”<\/p>\n

Kaur said her husband was an experienced hiker who was just getting into backcountry hiking, though she said he didn’t have much survival training as far as she knew.<\/p>\n

“He hasn’t done a lot of overnight hikes, or a lot of backcountry hikes,” she said before his body was found. “He has gone on accidental overnight hikes before and had to come down the next day … He’s very adventurous and strong and smart and capable.”<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson reported this story in Mexico City and Amanda Lee Myers reported from Washington.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MEXICO CITY \u2014 Searchers on Friday found the body of an American man who had been missing in the rugged …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":37094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-w","mauthors-mark-stevenson","mauthors-amanda-lee-myers","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}