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Body found on west bank of Animas River identified

Family members: Randy Shaw a good man plagued by drugs

The body of a 40-year old man discovered Saturday afternoon along the west bank of the Animas River near West Park Avenue has been identified as Kansas native Randy Shaw.

“We all knew this phone call was coming,” said Shaw’s brother, Jack. “We were just glad he was found and not off the mountain somewhere and never heard from again.

“We’re all torn up about it. But at the same time he’s not suffering anymore.”

Around 2:30 p.m. Saturday, a worker spotted Shaw’s body behind a West Park Avenue home, downstream from the Main Avenue bridge. The body was in a sleeping bag, covered in brush near the river’s edge.

Detective Sgt. Deck Shaline said an autopsy will determine if foul play may have played a role in his death. Yet, he noted, “There were no obvious signs of any trauma.”

It also remains unclear how long Shaw’s body had been along the riverbank. Cathy Seibel, the deputy coroner, said, “It’s obvious he’s been there awhile,” but could not immediately pin down a time frame until after the autopsy.

According to family members, Shaw was a good soul plagued by drugs, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“We don’t want him to be another nameless face found in Colorado that nobody knew,” Jack Shaw said. “He was somebody.”

Randy Shaw grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas, an old salt mining town with a population around 40,000 – about an hour northwest of Wichita.

“We just had good times,” Jack Shaw said of their childhood. “We grew up dirt poor so we had to make our own fun. He was a real good kid, just got messed up with the wrong crowd.”

Hoping to get back on the right track, Randy Shaw joined the military in the late-1990s and was stationed in Georgia. However, Jack Shaw believes that experience had detrimental and irreversible effects on his brother’s mental health.

“I can’t prove it, but I believe he had PTSD,” he said. “He never talked about it. That was something he always kept to himself. And there was a lot of stuff from our past that probably contributed too.”

Shaw’s sister, Hazel Brott, said when their mother died in 1999 from cancer, Randy delved deeper into drugs, eventually divorcing his wife and losing custody of his three sons.

The family admitted Randy – the youngest of four siblings – to a drug rehab facility in Georgia. After he was released, Randy relocated to Kansas to live with Jack.

“Then one day, about 10 years ago, he didn’t show back up,” Jack said.

Randy never called himself “homeless,” his sister said, instead preferring the term “hippie hobo.” He traveled the country, from one city to the next, either by train hopping or hitchhiking.

“Nobody approved of his lifestyle,” Jack Shaw said. “But he’d say, ‘I’m free to look at what God gave us.’”

The last his family heard from Randy was about a month and a half ago while he was in Arizona. He and his then-girlfriend had an argument and separated. Neither his brother nor sister knows why Randy was in Durango.

“He was supposed to be heading home to Kansas to see his sons,” Brott said. ”But we’ve been hearing that since January.”

Randy’s 14-, 18- and 20-year-old sons were adopted by family members after their mother left 16 years ago. The children “only know of Randy,” Brott said, but have no relationship with their father.

“He wasn’t just a homeless bum,” Jack said. “He was a veteran who had family. But he also was a drug addict that just couldn’t cope.”

Funeral services will be held in Kansas. Brott said the family is desperately trying to track down Randy’s dog, a brown and white pit bull mix named Johlene, to possibly gain more information about his death, and to keep a piece of Randy alive.

jromeo@durangoherald.com Durango Herald reporter Mary Shinn contributed to this report.

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