SLO police identify skeletal remains found on Bishop Peak in December
The human remains of a skeleton found in December on Bishop Peak have been identified, according to the San Luis Obispo Police Department.
Using dental records, investigators identified the remains as those of Charles Leader, 36, of Florida, said SLOPD Investigations Sgt. Aaron Schafer.
“Charles last spoke to family members back in October of 2020 and at that time he was homeless living in the South Lake Tahoe area,” Schafer said in an email. “Before locating his body, we had no documented contact with him.”
Leader’s cause of death is unknown, and the SLO County Sheriff-Coroner’s Office said will it “take months for a determination since the remains were so degraded,” Shafer said.
A hiker initially alerted police to the skeletal remains at about 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 10, 2021, after veering off a trail on the mountain.
“The hiker described the remains as just skeletal remains with clothing as if the body had been in place for a long period of time,” a Dec. 11 SLOPD news release noted.
Police officers and a San Luis Obispo sheriff’s deputy then hiked up the mountain in an effort to locate the remains on Dec. 10, the news release said.
After several hours of searching in the darkness, the effort was called off due to safety conditions and resumed on Dec. 11, according to a past Tribune article.
The next day, police detectives, sheriff personnel, the San Luis Obispo City Fire’s Urban Search and Rescue team, and a CHP helicopter located the remains of a human male on the north side of the mountain.
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