Investigators from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and the Hastings Police Department said Tuesday that they need the public’s help in finding a vehicle that may have been parked near where a man’s body was found Sunday morning in a roadside ditch in Hastings.
William “Ike” Eickholt, 74, was reported missing early Saturday after firefighters responded to a report of a vehicle fire at his property at 13536 St. Croix Trail S. in Denmark Township, the southern tip of Washington County.
Officials say the discovery of the man’s body in the ditch in the 1300 block of Ravenna Trail (10th Street) in Hastings, about 3 ½ miles south of Eickholt’s property, is believed to be connected to Eickholt’s disappearance, but the man has not yet been officially identified by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office.
A cause of death had not yet been determined as of Tuesday afternoon, but his death is considered suspicious, said Chief Dave Wilske of the Hastings Police Department.
Friends say the man found dead was Eickholt, who had been living in his truck since his one-story house on St. Croix Trail South was left uninhabitable after a fire on July 30. The cause of the house fire remains under investigation, police said.
Anyone who was in the area is asked to call police if they saw anything suspicious from just after midnight through 9:50 a.m. Sunday in the areas of St. Croix Trail South, 110th Street South to Manning Avenue South, Morgan Avenue South and 127th Street South to U.S. Highway 61, or in any other location in that area of Washington County, said Cmdr. Kyle Schenck of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.
“We are asking residents in those areas to please check their surveillance videos, and if they see anything out of the ordinary, contact our 24-hour dispatch line at 651-439-9381,” Schenck said. “Nothing is too minor to have us check out.”
Anyone with information about a possible vehicle parked in the 1300 block of Ravenna Trail (10th Street) in Hastings, about 150 feet east of the bridge that crosses the Vermillion River, is asked to call the Hastings Police Department at 651-480-2300.
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