HAMILTON COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities in southwest Kansas have identified the body recovered in rural Hamilton County on April 18, as a missing Garden City man.

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s office reported Manuel Avalos, 29, was reported missing from his home in Garden City, Ks on April 7.

The report was made to the Kearny County Sheriff’s Office by his mother, who lives in Deerfield, Kansas.

According to the report on file in Kearny County, Avalos last spoke with his mother on April 5, 2017.

After becoming concerned that she had been unable to reach Avalos over the next two days, she filed the report.

During the investigation of the missing person, it was determined that Manuel Avalos had been contacted by sheriff’s deputies in the three counties while attempting to walk to Colorado. He was transported from an area near Garden City in the early morning of April 6 and transferred to a Kearny County Deputy at the Kearny/Finney County line.

He was given a ride to Syracuse and dropped off there at around 8:00 a.m..
During the afternoon of April 6, a Hamilton County Deputy received a report of a male walking on US-50 west of Syracuse and made contact with him. The male declined the offer of a ride and some water from the deputy, and was last seen walking west.

Avalos gave the initiating deputy an alias name prior to receiving a ride west. His identity as the missing person was not known until the Kearny County deputy later saw the picture in the missing person file and recognized him as the person receiving the ride the previous week.
Hamilton County patrol car video captured the contact with the man on April 6th 2017 and was useful in determining that the unidentified body was the same person who had received law enforcement assistance the previous week.

Formal identification was received on April 24 by fingerprint analysis. No foul play is suspected in the death and the investigation is ongoing.