Body found in Coeur d’Alene National Forest prompts death investigation

A bear hunt in the Marie Creek area of the Coeur d’Alene National Forest ended with a grim discovery Sunday evening, when a citizen found the body of a woman in a remote wooded area and alerted the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies and detectives had to work through steep, heavily timbered ground, and crews removed numerous trees before vehicles could reach the scene.

The sheriff’s office said it received the report at about 8 p.m. on June 7, 2026, and backcountry deputies and detectives responded to the area. Investigators said the woman appeared to have been at that location for an extended period of time, a detail that points to a case centered first on identification and recovery rather than on an active crime scene.

A passport found nearby indicated the woman may have been a 69-year-old from New York. Her identity is being withheld until the Kootenai County Coroner’s Office makes a positive identification and next of kin are notified. The sheriff’s office said no foul play is suspected at this time, and an autopsy is expected to be scheduled as part of the investigation.

The case underscores how quickly a search or hunting outing can become a major backcountry response in North Idaho. The Idaho Panhandle National Forests cover about 2.5 million acres of public land in the panhandle of northern Idaho, and the forest system includes thousands of miles of roads and trails open to motorized travel. That scale gives residents and visitors access to large swaths of country, but it also means emergency crews often face long delays, limited road access and difficult decisions about how to preserve a scene while still reaching it.

Marie Creek sits within that broader backcountry landscape, where steep slopes and dense timber can slow both rescue work and investigative recovery. For Kootenai County, the death investigation is another reminder that the same forest roads and hunting grounds used for recreation can also become the setting for complex emergency response.