LIMA: Police in Peru said Tuesday they have found the cold-preserved body of an American mountaineer who was buried by an avalanche 22 years ago as he tried to climb one of the highest peaks in the Andes.
Police in the Ancash region told The Associated Press they found the body of William Stampfl on Friday near a camp 5,200 meters (17,060 feet) above sea level. The 58-year-old Stampfl had been trying to climb the 6,768-meter Mount Huascaran.
Police said Stampfl’s body and clothing had been preserved by the ice and freezing temperatures. His drivers license was also found. It says he was a resident of Chino in California’s San Bernardino County.
Hundreds of climbers visit the mountain each year with local guides, and it takes them about a week to reach the summit. Stampfl was with friends Matthew Richardson and Steve Erskine when they attempted the ascent in 2002. They had traveled the world to climb challenging mountains and had summitted Kilimanjaro, Rainier, Shasta and Denali, according to a Los Angeles Times report at the time.
Erskine’s body was found shortly after the avalanche on Huascaran, but Richardson’s is still missing.
Stampfl’s body was brought down the mountain over the weekend and put in a morgue in the city of Yungay.
The body of an American climber buried by an avalanche 22 years ago in Peru is found in the ice
https://arab.news/zvtpu
The body of an American climber buried by an avalanche 22 years ago in Peru is found in the ice
- Police in the Ancash region found the body of William Stampfl on Friday near a camp 5,200 meters above sea level
- Stampfl’s body and clothing had been preserved by the ice and freezing temperatures
Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
- Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October
- Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service
LOS ANGELES: A second California doctor was sentenced on Tuesday to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Dr. Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician, pleaded guilty in federal court in October to a single felony count of conspiracy to distribute the prescription anesthetic and surrendered his medical license in November.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service. As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer. Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1/2 years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry’s ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks — Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen;” a go-between dealer Erik Fleming, 56; and Perry’s former personal assistant, Iwamasa, 60.
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine,” which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series “Friends.”
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
