Body of missing Iowa trucker found in Sac County

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 news release from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

“The body was found near the intersection where semi-missing person David Schultz was located in November 2023,” the release said. “The body is being transported to the Iowa State Medical Examiner’s Office for a forensic autopsy.”

The statement said no further details are being released at this time.

Schultz, a married father of 10-year-old twins, disappeared before Thanksgiving. He was last heard from early in the morning of Nov. 21, according to the Lake View Police Department.

Schultz's red-with-white-striped Peterbilt tractor-trailer was found on the afternoon of Nov. 21, parked in the middle of the northbound lane of County Road N-14, not far from its intersection with D -15 in northeast Sac County. The trailer he rented was loaded with pigs, but Schultz was nowhere to be found on this stretch of paved road lined with cornfields.

Last year, the United Cajun Navy, a Louisiana-based nonprofit organization that assisted in the search, and volunteers searched more than 100,000 acres in and around Sac County looking for Schultz.

The Sioux City Journal has reached out to Schultz's wife, Sarah Schultz, for comment. She declined to comment when contacted by a Journal reporter Wednesday evening. She is expected to hold a news conference Thursday morning near where the body was found, alongside Jake Rowley of the United Cajun Navy.

Rowley told the Journal by phone Wednesday evening that Schultz's body was found near the intersection of Union Avenue and 190th Street in rural Sac County, northeast of Sac City. Rowley said he rushed from Marshalltown, Iowa, to Sac City on Wednesday when he learned Schultz's body had been discovered.

The location where Schultz's body was discovered, Rowley said, was not in the large area searched by the United Cajun Navy. This, he explained, was because he was in an area that authorities at the time said had already been searched.

“The fire department, police and sheriff in that area told us they had a two-mile radius of where the truck was found,” Rowley said.

“We had thought that the police, or the fire department, or whoever — the original search team for the first few days — had searched that area, so we didn't search that area,” he added. .

Rowley also claimed that Schultz's body was in a state of decomposition inconsistent with having been exposed to 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 was thrown away later,” he said.

“The decomposition doesn't add up to 186 days, from what I understand,” Rowley said. (Schultz was actually missing 155 days.)

“There's a very good chance the body wasn't there even when they searched,” Rowley added, referring to searches by local law enforcement and emergency services. “And that the body was left there afterwards.”

Sarah Schultz regularly posted updates on her Facebook page regarding her husband's case. She called his disappearance “suspicious” and said: “It's not something David would do. He would never leave. His family is his life.” In a Dec. 14 interview with the Journal, Schultz expressed frustration with local law enforcement and said she felt the case was beyond what “small town police » could manage.

Sac County Sheriff Ken McClure told the Journal the same day that he was confident his office and DCI would eventually solve the case. Efforts to reach McClure Wednesday evening were not immediately successful.

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