{"id":16432,"date":"2025-09-23T19:31:58","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T19:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-who-died-northeast-of-durango-identified-cause-of-death-undetermined\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:57:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:57:12","slug":"man-who-died-northeast-of-durango-identified-cause-of-death-undetermined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-who-died-northeast-of-durango-identified-cause-of-death-undetermined\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who died northeast of Durango identified; cause of death undetermined"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=d1f43884-c744-586e-b030-0470460dc753&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office and the coroner\u2019s office prepare to move a man\u2019s body near the Shearer Creek Trailhead on Tuesday evening. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office and the coroner\u2019s office prepare to move a man\u2019s body near the Shearer Creek Trailhead on Tuesday evening. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Law enforcement has identified the body of a man who was found Aug. 20 on the side of Florida Road (County Road 240) northeast of Durango as 72 year-old Mark R. Lucas, a longtime Durango resident.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMark Lucas was in the area for quite some time here in Durango, but he did not have any family here,\u201d said La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office spokesman Chris Burke.<\/p>\n<p>Burke said the department has notified Lucas\u2019 next of kin, who live on the Front Range.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no foul play suspected in this case,\u201d Burke said. \u201cThe investigation is still active, and as soon as the case is closed we can release additional information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lucas was found near the Shearer Creek Trailhead.<\/p>\n<p>La Plata County Coroner Jann Smith said the final autopsy report will be released once the state accepts the toxicology report. The initial toxicology report did not find any drugs or alcohol in Lucas\u2019 system, Smith said.<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-1955a3c84c2b57b8525d2afc7f36a994\"><a href=\"mailto:sedmondson@durangoherald.com\">sedmondson@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>was found Aug. 20 on side of Florida Road<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[255,28,1901],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-sheriff"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20200,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16432\/revisions\/20200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16432"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}