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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Body of missing Iowa trucker David Schultz found
Discovery made in field near where Schultz vanished last fall
The body of missing Wall Lake trucker David Schultz was found Wednesday afternoon in a Sac County field, not far from where his semitractor-trailer loaded with hogs was discovered abandoned over five months ago.
An unidentified individual reported to the Sac County Sheriff's Office that he found a body in his farm field, shortly before 2 p.m., according to a statement from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
"The body was found near the intersection where the semi of missing person David Schultz was located in November 2023," the statement said. "The body is being transported to the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner for a forensic autopsy."
The statement said no further details are being released at this time.
Schultz, a married father of 10-year-old twin boys, vanished before Thanksgiving. He was last heard from in the early morning hours of Nov. 21, 2023, according to the Lake View Police Department.
Schultz's Peterbilt semi — red with white stripes — was found the afternoon of Nov. 21 parked in the middle of the northbound lane of County Road N-14, not far from where it intersects with D-15 in northeastern Sac County. The semi trailer he rented was loaded with pigs, but Schultz was nowhere to be found on that stretch of paved roadway, which is flanked by cornfields.
Last year, the United Cajun Navy, a Louisiana-based nonprofit that assisted in the search, and volunteers scoured more than 100,000 acres in and around Sac County looking for Schultz.
The Journal reached out to Schultz's wife, Sarah Schultz, for comment after the body was found, but she declined to comment. She is expected to hold a news conference Thursday morning, alongside Jake Rowley of the United Cajun Navy, near where the body was found.
Rowley told The Journal by phone Wednesday evening that Schultz's body was found in the vicinity of the intersection of Union Avenue and 190th Street in rural Sac County, northeast of Sac City. Rowley said he rushed Wednesday from Marshalltown to Sac City when he learned Schultz's body had been discovered.
The place where Schultz's body was discovered, Rowley said, was not within the vast area searched by the United Cajun Navy. This, he said, was because it fell within an area that authorities said at the time already had been searched.
"The fire department, police department and the sheriff's department from that area told us that they had a 2-mile radius around where the truck was found," Rowley said.
"We had figured that the police department, or the fire department, or whoever — that original search party for the first few days — had searched that area, so we did not search that area," he added.
Rowley also asserted that Schultz's body was in a state of decomposition inconsistent with having been out in the elements for more than five months; the body, he said, was not as decomposed as it should have been under the circumstances, implying that "it got dumped later," he said.
"The decomposition does not line up with 186 days, from what I understand," Rowley said. (Schultz was missing 155 days.)
"There's a very good chance that the body wasn't there even when they searched," Rowley speculated. "And that the body was placed there after."
Sarah Schultz regularly posted updates on her Facebook page about her husband's case. She called his disappearance "suspicious" and said, "This is not something David would do. He would never leave. His family is his life."
During a Dec. 14, 2023, interview with The Journal, she expressed frustration with local law enforcement and said she felt the case was more than "small-town police" could handle.
Sac County Sheriff Ken McClure told The Journal that same day he was confident his office and the DCI would eventually solve the case. Efforts to reach McClure Wednesday evening were not successful.
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