PORT ANGELES — A woman whose friends had reported her missing and emotionally “in crisis,” according to police reports, was found dead Monday night on the beach below 10th Street on the city’s west side.
A related air and ground search for a man said to be trying to locate the woman ended when he was found alive Tuesday morning.
Port Angeles Deputy Police Chief Brian Smith said the body of Amy L. Lingvall, 54, bore no signs of foul play but had suffered head, neck and upper-body trauma consistent with a fall.
The cliff below the end of 10th Street stands 100 or more feet above the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
The Clallam County coroner requested an autopsy and blood analysis.
Smith said Lingvall, of Port Angeles, was found by an unnamed party at about 8:20 p.m. and appeared to have been lifeless “for some period of time” when responders reached her at about 9:23 p.m.
She had been reported missing Sunday and “had numerous persons concerned about her,” Smith said.
Port Angeles Fire Department paramedics and firefighters and a U.S. Border Patrol search-and-rescue team used Border Patrol all-terrain vehicles to reach the body via the shoreline from Nippon Paper Industries USA about a mile east of where Lingvall was found.
They recovered the body just ahead of an incoming tide, Smith said.
Meanwhile, police were told that George Burke of Port Angeles also was missing and reportedly trying to find Lingvall.
A Coast Guard helicopter from Port Angeles searched the cliff area for Burke, 61, using night-vision and heat-sensing equipment but found no one.
At 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, police located Burke, who was reported to have walked away from the cliff in darkness.
There were no witnesses to Lingvall’s death, which remains under investigation. Lingvall’s body remained in the coroner’s control Tuesday.
