The body of a Virginia man who tried to walk home was found after his vehicle broke down during a snow storm this week, the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.
The man, 34-year-old Jacob Whaley, informed his family Monday that he was going to try to walk back to his home in Louisa County after his vehicle broke down in neighboring Hanover County during the snowstorm. That stranded hundreds of drivers on Interstate 95 in Virginia.
Whaley last texted his family at 8:45 p.m., according to WRIC-TV, telling his mother he was missing. His family informed the Sheriff’s Office that they believed Mr. Whaley was possibly near Greene’s Corner Road.
The Louisa County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it had “immediately responded to the family’s request to review both the road area along Greene’s Corner Road, the intermediate roads and their residence,” but that the search was unsuccessful.
On Thursday, a search party made up of volunteers and members of the Sheriff’s Office found Mr. Whaley’s body in a “very dense pine plantation” just over 200 yards from Greene’s Corner Road.
“This was a heavily forested off-road area that the search team had a hard time traversing,” Maj. Ronnie Roberts, deputy chief of the Louisa County Sheriff’s Office, said in an email Saturday. “Our county had a 100 percent power outage and impassable roads.”
Speaking to WRIC, members of Mr. Whaley’s family expressed their frustration with the Sheriff’s Office and said they believed he should have done more to find Mr. Whaley.
“I’m so mad at this county,” said Shannon Whaley, Mr. Whaley’s mother. “All they had to do was go out and yell at him.”
“Louisa County let him freeze to death,” said Angela Whaley, Mr. Whaley’s sister.