A body was found Monday underneath a home at a resort on South Carolina’s Hilton Head Island, and investigators believe it is a Massachusetts man who disappeared from his vacation rental 10 days ago.
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office said it got a call at about 11:30 a.m. for “suspicious activity” and found the body during the investigation.
“The Beaufort County Coroner’s Office will conduct an autopsy on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, to determine the manner of death, as well as positively identify the decedent,” he sheriff’s office said.
Family told WJCL that the body found four houses down from their rental was 60-year-old Stanley Kotowski.
Kotowski was reported missing on August 16, as CrimeOnline previously reported. He was last seen leaving his family’s rental at Sea Pines Resort, barefoot and not carrying any personal items.
His wife, Jackie Kotowski, said her husband had become paranoid in the weeks leading up to the vacation.
“He just walked out the door,” she said. “He had really bad insomnia for about a month. He doesn’t have dementia. His anxiety just kept getting worse and worse and worse and he started to get a little paranoid.”
Jackie Kotowski told investigators that her husband “believes Sea Pines is a ‘set up’ and has a conspiracy that the people here are out to get him. She stated that Stanley has made several statements of people at this place ‘watching him.’”
Before leaving the house, she said, he told her to “promise me you will go on without me.”
