Things were going pretty well for 23-year-old hockey player Duncan MacPherson, that is until he vanished without a trace during a ski trip to Austria in 1989. It would be

14 years before he was seen again.

Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Duncan was a star defensive defenceman on the Western Hockey League’s Saskatoon Blades. In 1984, Duncan was selected in the first round of the NHL

draft by the New York Islanders. After not living up to expectations, the Islanders cut him in 1988.

“I just want to try getting away from here and see if hockey can be fun again,” Duncan MacPherson told a reporter after being cut from the team. Before taking

a coaching job in Scotland, he planned a leisurely trip to Europe with some hockey friends, including fellow player George Pesut.

According to Pesut, while in Nuremberg, Germany, Duncan said that he wanted to see Austria. “I just told Duncan, ‘Why don’t you just take my car’.”

In Austria, Duncan decided to take his first snowboarding lessons with an instructor named Walter Hinterhoelzl. Hinterhoelzl described Duncan as a fearless beginner, having had experience as a skier and

a hockey player and being OK with falling.

The slopes were particularly treacherous that summer because the August sun had created deep crevasses that were sometimes hard to see because of the speed of the incline.

On August 9, 1989, Duncan went out to practice after a lesson, but when the last gondola came up the glacier and the slopes were being groomed, he was nowhere

to be found. He never called Pesut or his mother, and he never showed up for his job in Scotland.

Fourteen years later, Duncan MacPherson’s body was discovered by an employee who was operating a snowmaking machine on the same slope where he was last seen. His body was completely

mangled. One leg was left intact, but his hands and forearms were amputated and the rest of his clothes and body were shredded.

The V-shaped crevice where Duncan was found was around 40 meters lower down the slope than it had been in 1989. According to the doctor who examined the remains and

performed a DNA test (Dr. Walter Rabl of the Innsbruck Institute of Forensic Medicine), shifting glaciers would break up a body if it fell into a deep crack, but according

to reports from the time when Duncan was found, he was not in a deep crack, so something else must have caused the damage to his body.

So you’re probably wondering what happened to Duncan’s stuff over the course of the 14 years. Remember the car he borrowed to get to Austria? It was found parked near

the gondola station of the glacier on September 22 by Duncan’s parents. Despite allegedly being in the lot for six weeks (which would indicate that something happened to the driver),

the car was never reported to the local authorities.

Duncan’s rental equipment was also never returned. The instructor (Walter) said he did not know if it had been returned or not, while the manager of the ski shop (Seppi)

said that he did not remember Duncan, there was no record of his rental, and there was no missing gear from the inventory.

There was a police report indicating that the gear had been returned, but a board was found near Duncan’s body, and it appeared to have been chewed up by the

blades of some heavy machinery.

There was also one red ski glove, two blue ski gloves, and one blue work glove found near his body.

Duncan’s wallet contained all of his identification, except his Canadian driver’s license.

His ski shoes were found with his mangled body, but his street shoes were not found.

The official death report for Duncan MacPherson says that there was an autopsy performed. When asked, medical officer Kurt Somavilla said he did send the body to the Innsbruck Institute

of Forensic Medicine for an autopsy.

“The injuries itself, I could not examine exactly,” said Dr. Rabl of the Institute. “We saw the clothed body, but we did not unclothe it. .... We never, ever did

an autopsy; we just had to do the identification.”

So...what do you think happened to Duncan MacPherson? Did he fall into the crevasse, break his leg, and die from exposure only to be found 14 years later? Or was

there foul play?

The truth is, there is no definitive answer, only a very strong and well-researched theory. Author John Leake spent many months going over the evidence and interviewing as many people

associated with the case as he could find, as well as experts in various fields for his book “Cold a Long Time: An Alpine Mystery.” For Leake, it is

clear that MacPherson was killed, probably accidentally, and that there was a cover-up.

“You’ve got clothing, bone, blood...wrecked on the surface, but then his body melts out of the remnants

of a shallow crevasse 14 years later,” he said in an interview with “Cold Case.” “How does this wreck wind up in a neat package in a shallow crevasse? Those

two actions do not go together, and I’ve talked to 20 different people who know glaciers, and crevasses, and physics, and everything else, and no one can explain to me

how those two things can happen without an intermediate action of someone, well... yeah.”

Leake and others believe that Duncan MacPherson broke his femur after a bad fall alone on the slope. While in shock and going through hypothermia, he would have been

unable to get out of the way of the slope grooming machine headed his way on the foggy day, and the driver would not have been able to see him.

The machine could have run over MacPherson, killing him and causing the terrible injuries to his body. Although it would have been an accident, the driver or his supervisor may

have covered up the incident by dumping the body in the crevasse. 

As for the missing evidence (his shoes and license) and the things that don’t add up: after 14

years, the odds of the MacPhersons catching a break and bringing charges against someone (or multiple people) have greatly decreased. However, they haven’t given up on finding the truth.