SMITHFIELD – The body of a Smithfield man who had been missing for a day was found Tuesday afternoon in woods about a half-mile from his home.
Phillip Golding, who would have turned 87 on Tuesday, was last seen by a neighbor about 8:30 a.m. Monday. The Maine Warden Service, dozens of other rescue personnel and volunteers combed the swampy woods all night Monday and on Tuesday morning.
The man’s body was spotted from a helicopter about 12:45 p.m., said Lt. Kevin Adam, search-and-rescue coordinator for the Maine Warden Service.
An autopsy will be done to determine how and when Golding died, Adam said, but nothing criminal is suspected.
“The Maine Forest Service spotted something; they called us and we sent in a couple of game wardens and we found the body of Phillip, deceased,” Adam said outside the command center at the Smithfield fire station.
Adam said the woods where the body was found are swampy, with grown alders and fallen trees. He said the body would not have been seen easily from the ground.
Golding was taking medication for “typical old age” symptoms, but had not shown any signs of dementia, Adam said.
During the height of the search, there were 19 game wardens, state troopers with tracking dogs, three searchers on horseback, 20 members of the Smithfield Fire Department and 32 certified searchers. An additional 29 volunteers signed up to assist. “This is a normal response for a search of this kind, where you have an individual who shouldn’t be missing, and is,” Adam said.
Neighbors of the Golding family, including 19-year-old Mackenzie Smith and Michelle Coxen-Glover, a retired registered nurse, were among the people who signed up as volunteer searchers.
“I would want someone to volunteer if my family member was missing, so here I am,” Coxen-Glover said.
The search for Golding began during the day Monday and stretched into the night as aircraft and a helicopter crew used infrared sensors that can detect body heat.
The Kennebec County Emergency Management Agency set up a communications center for wardens to coordinate the search from the Smithfield fire station.
Search and rescue squads were on the scene from Franklin and Waldo counties, as was a Community Emergency Response Team from Somerset County.
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