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Anchorage Daily News
Anchorage Daily News published the story about Chris's body and where it was found. Jim Gallien sees a news report about a boy who was found twenty-five miles west of Healy on Stampede trail. To Jim this sounded like it could be Alex. Jim called the state troopers to identify the body. The troopers developed the roll of film they had found at the scene of his death. Now Jim was able to properly identify Alex. -
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The search
After Jim Gallien had identifie "Alex", The police ventured out to find the family of Alex McCandless.Tthe police began their search for a boy missing from eastern South Dakota. They thought for sure they had found their man but it was just a false lead. -
AM radio
Westerberg had not heard from Alex since spring. On september 13, Westerberg had been taking home his harvest crew to Carthage. He got a radio call from a fellow worker to turn on his Am radio. Westerberg did so, and he had found the Peter Harvey station where they were discribing the body of the young man briefing. Westerberg phoned the state troopers and identified him. -
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Sam
When Westerberg had talked to the police he told them that McCandless worked for him, and he has his W-4 with his social security number. Police traced the number to northern Virginia. Authorities in Alaska contacted law enforcement in Virginia. They got a list of phoning directories for the area, but Walt and Billie had moved to Maryland. Fortunatly they found his older step brother Sam. -
Identifying his brother
Chris's older brother Sam had gotten a call from Fairfax County homicide. It added up to Sam that the hiker was Chris. Sam went to the Fairfax County polic department where the officer showed him a picture they retrieved from the roll of film. He recognized the man in the picture as Chris. Sam went to get his wife and went to Maryland to explain to his parents what had happened to their son.
