Body of man found near town on Halloween identified

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The body of a man found in the woods behind Pandora’s Box late last month has been identified as an island homeless man.

Officials from the King County Medical Examiner’s Office said last week that the body of Jeffrey S. Ashborn, 44, was found just after noon on Oct. 31, but his date of death is estimated to be around Sept. 30. His death has been ruled a suicide by hanging.

Officials said that they had no address for the man. Islander Emma Amiad, who works with Vashon’s Interfaith Council to Prevent Homelessness (IFCH), said that the council knew it was Jeff “right away, through the grapevine.”

“He is homeless, he has no address,” Amiad said. “It’s my understanding he’s only been here for three or four months … a short time.”

Days after Ashborn’s body was found, Pandora’s Box owner Cheryl Pruett told of the discovery. She said she was walking through the area behind her store with two Kimmco Inc. employees as part of her plan to clear some vegetation from the area. After talking with them about her plans, she headed back to the store. After a few moments, one of the Kimmco men found her to tell her about the body.

“His (the Kimmco employee’s) eyes were all big and he said, ‘I think you have a problem here,’” she said.

He told her that he had seen what he thought was a body in one of the trees. She grabbed her phone and returned to the area behind the store.

“He was out of the way. You wouldn’t have seen anything if you weren’t looking through the brush,” she said. “I called 911 and I was very calm, but the 911 operator definitely was not. They ask you, ‘What’s your emergency?’ And I said I wasn’t sure. I just said there was a human form … and I wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”

Deputies arrived at the scene shortly after Pruett’s call and took the body away. They remained on the scene until around 2 p.m. that day.

“It’s just sad,” Pruett said after the discovery.