JOYCE — You could tell from the sound of the late Chris Boysen’s voice that the man was far from his home, his landlord said.
The 54-year-old New Jersey native, who was found dead last week at the Heart o’ the Hills campground after leaving to go camping Jan. 22, spoke with a distinctive East Coast accent.
His speech, together with a big-city boy’s distrust of strangers, helped make him a loner in this Clallam County hamlet, said Al Morrison, who rented Boysen an apartment in his Seal Rock Road home above the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
“He was about as close to a hermit as anyone I’ve ever seen,” said Morrison, who reported Boysen missing Monday to the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.
His tenant had been missing for 12 days before his body was found Wednesday at the campground in Olympic National Park, Morrison said.
Boysen’s death is under investigation by the FBI and National Park Service police, who were mum on the possible cause of his death and its circumstances.
An autopsy was performed Friday and the body released to Drennan-Ford Funeral Home. An FBI spokeswoman said it could take “many weeks” before test results are determined.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Nichols, who also serves as coroner, called the autopsy “appropriate” in a case “where we don’t have an eyewitness to what happened immediately before the death.”
Nichols declined to say if suspicious circumstances or evidence of foul play surrounded Boysen’s death.
Meanwhile, Boysen’s next of kin, a sister, was expected to arrive in the area Saturday. She declined to speak with the Peninsula Daily News until she learned more about the death.
Morrison said Boysen had left his apartment Jan. 22, announcing he was going camping.
“He said he was going to go west,” the landlord said.
Boysen typically would camp in a tent or under a tarp or sleep in his Jeep Grand Cherokee, according to Morrison.
Sometimes, Boysen followed through on his announced travel plans, but he often decided to stay home.
“Most of the time, he didn’t go camping,” Morrison said.
On earlier trips to France and Nevada, Boysen had always called Morrison.
When he hadn’t seen Boysen for more than a week, Morrison said he checked the state Department of Natural Resources’ Lyre River Campground and Sadie Creek trailhead but found no trace of his tenant.
“We never thought he would stay away as long as he did,” Morrison told the PDN last week.
“We never worried about it too much, but after a week and a half, I said, ‘This is not right.’”
Boysen had checked into the Heart o’ the Hills campground Jan. 24, Morrison said he later learned.
Boysen bought a four-day camping permit and settled into campsite 18 near the campground entrance, unloading some firewood he’d brought with him in his Jeep, Morrison said.
Morrison and his wife, Sandy, eventually grew so concerned that they reported Boysen missing to the Sheriff’s Office, which tried unsuccessfully to locate Boysen through his cellular telephone.
Morrison also called Boysen’s sister, who had access to her brother’s bank records. They revealed that he had paid his rent before leaving and withdrawn $100 in cash, Morrison said.
Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s Office also broadcast the Jeep’s license number to other law enforcement agencies. Park personnel subsequently discovered Boysen’s body.
Park police notified the FBI, which holds jurisdiction over federal lands. Agents visited the scene last week.
“It would appear he [Morrison] would do this occasionally and come back after a few days,” said Capt. Ron Cameron of the Sheriff’s Office, which loaned the park a crime-scene trailer.
“It was totally coincidental that the ranger found him up at Heart o’ the Hills,” which is just east of Hurricane Ridge Road about 6 miles from downtown Port Angeles.
Morrison said he and his wife were Boysen’s only non-family friends.
He said Boysen had told him he’d worked as a restaurant cook, then as a cook aboard a submarine in the U.S. Navy and most recently as a cook on a fish-processing ship sailing out of Anchorage.
Boysen’s mother had moved from the family’s New Jersey home to a retirement condominium in the SunLand area of Sequim, where she was joined by her daughter and Boysen when he was not at sea.
When his mother died, the sister returned to New Jersey, and Boysen moved into Morrison’s apartment in April 2013.
An inheritance enabled him to quit his job, Morrison said.
“It was just perfect for him,” Morrison said of the apartment. “He just wanted a place to put his stuff.”
He was a good tenant, Morrison said.
“The guy seemed really honest,” he said. “He never did anything dishonest that I ever saw.”
Boysen played the guitar, Morrison said, but didn’t take up an opportunity to play with another musician Morrison arranged for him to meet.
No one would have mistaken Boysen for a Northwest native, Morrison said, by virtue of his voice and his aloof attitude.
It took Boysen a long time, according to his landlord, to accept at face value the friendliness of his Joyce neighbors.
Even then, Morrison said, Boysen kept to himself.
“He never had a visitor here, never,” Morrison said, and only left the apartment to buy cigarettes and groceries or for an occasional trip.
“He wasn’t into drugs,” Morrison said. “He wasn’t into any shady things.
“He was the nicest guy you wanted to meet.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
