WAILUA — Seven days after he was reported missing, the body of Wailua man Chaise Lindstedt was found by hikers Wednesday morning in a stream about 1.5 miles north of the first Loop Road crossing in Wailua.
In the midst of processing their loss, Lindstedt’s family wanted to stress one point on Wednesday afternoon — “stop the search and don’t endanger yourself any more.”
“We still have friends ramping up to go out searching tomorrow,” said Lindstedt’s uncle, Luke Tremblay, on Wednesday afternoon, hours after receiving the news his nephew’s body had been found.
Lindstedt, 38, was born and raised on Kauai. He was last seen Oct. 27 and was reported missing to police Oct. 30. The subsequent search turned up his truck, a 2008 White Toyota Tundra, found Monday burned and abandoned on Powerline Road.
And though the family trusted
Kauai’s first-response and search teams, they weren’t about to sit back and do nothing. They mobi-
lized and searched through thick jungle.
Lindstet’s brother Ryan joined that search Sunday, combing the area by Loop Road. He ended up needing to be rescued, too, though. Tremblay said two of his buddies ended up hiking Powerline Road at midnight to find Ryan.
“He (Ryan) got stuck up there due to exhaustion and couldn’t go any further, and it was getting dark,” Tremblay said. “Jake and Dan Saylor, they hiked in and found him. Took five and a half hours. He just got back and we’re just now talking about his whole ordeal.”
Now that Chaise’s body has been found and Ryan’s safely back with the family, the focus has switched from finding Chaise to celebrating his life — and finding answers. A Kauai Police Department investigation is ongoing and an autopsy is pending to determine the cause of his death.
“We don’t know what he was doing up there but his truck got stuck there and, from what we determined, he blew the motor up trying to get out of there and ignited a fire,” Tremblay said.
Tremblay was out inspecting that truck when he got the news his nephew’s body had been found.
“They found his body down a 200-foot embankment so I don’t know what happened afterwards. It’s all speculation,” he said.
Chaise was an outdoorsman and an accomplished surfer, a Hawaii BMX champion, a good fisherman and an “all around good guy,” Tremblay said.
“I’ve been here his whole life and we’re all just taken aback,” he said. “We want to thank everyone involved in the search and we want to remember him. He was everything to us.”
Arrangements for celebration of life ceremonies are in the works.
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Jessica Else, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0452 or jelse@thegardenisland.com.
Anyone that grew up here knows you can’t conquer Powerline without a heavily modified truck and / or a bunch of other trucks with winches and tow ropes. Sounds like he got in some trouble, maybe someone drove his truck up there and ruined it to ensure any evidence burned. If you do get stuck there, you don’t just wander off into the jungle, follow the road back out. This has SUSPICIOUS written all over it. Sorry to say but many of the good people on this island have some hidden secrets.