Father of Eric Ashby relieved after remains identified
Eric Ashby disappeared into the Arkansas River after falling off a raft in June.
A body was found down stream a month later. On F riday, the Fremont County coroner was able to confirm those remains were Ashby.
“Nobody deserves not to know. And when it came back positive for Eric, of course I was shattered. He’s been my lifeline,” said Eric’s dad Paul Ashby. Paul has been involved in the investigation since the beginning. He says this confirmation has brought him a sense of relief. “It takes a load off of me. It puts something back in my heart that was lost because when you figure you may never know,” Paul said. There is also a bill going through the state legislature in memory of Ashby. It’s a duty to report law that would require anyone to call 9-1-1 if someone is in trouble. State Representative Jim Wilson has introduced the bill to the state house. It is going to the judiciary committee in two weeks. “The only thing that keeps me on this earth is the fact that because Eric died, there is just the possibility we can prevent somebody else from dying,” Paul said. He said since his son has been returned to him, he’s just looking for an apology. “I was more hurt because they weren’t willing to tell me the truth then anything else they could have done,” Paul said. I t took six months for the coroner to identify the remains because they had to be sent to Denver to be identified by the Colorado Bureau of Investigations.
