19-Year-Old Teenager Finds A Dead Body While Playing Pokémon GO
Nintendo’s new mobile VR (virtual reality) game Pokémon GO has quickly captured the imaginations of players around the U.S. and has become popular ever since it was released earlier this week. The augmented reality game allows users to view the world through their smartphones and capture Pokémon in their neighbourhoods – or users can venture elsewhere in search of new Pokémon.
Pokémon GO was released in the U.S. on July 7 causing servers to crash due to the immense demand.
Shayla Wiggins, a 19-year-old resident of Riverton, Wyoming was attempting to locate a type of Pokémon that resides near natural water resources, so she headed down to the local river, jumping a fence to do so. Instead of coming across a wild Pokémon, Wiggins found the partially-submerged dead body of a man a few feet from shore and called the police.
“The Pokémons are all over Riverton. I was trying to get a Pokémon from a natural water resource.”
She said she climbed over a fence to get down to the river.
“I was walking towards the bridge along the shore when I saw something in the water,” Wiggins said. “I had to take a second look and I realized it was a body.”
She said the body appeared to be that of a man dressed in black and was floating three feet from the shore.
After authorities arrived, Wiggins led them to the corpse. Detectives told Wiggins it appeared the body had been there for less than 24 hours.
She described the incident as “pretty shocking”. “I was pretty scared and cried for a while,” she said.
In a statement supplied by KCWY News 13, the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating the death of the adult male located under the Wyoming Highway 789 Bridge around 8:40am.
“The body was discovered by local resident who was walking in the immediate area,” the statement read.
“The death appears to be accidental in nature and possibly that of a drowning. There is no evidence at this time that would indicate foul play.
“Evidence located at the scene has led investigators to believe the man went into the water at the location he was found.”
Investigations are still ongoing. The statement also read that more details of the conditions, surrounding the death will be released after preliminary autopsy results are received.
It is very difficult to think of a possible outcome to a session of Pokémon GO more distressing than heading out for a fun time, only to be greeted by such a horrific sight. While Pokémon GO has already directed people towards graveyards and churches, death is certainly not something that Nintendo wants one of their products to be associated with.
