Nearly a week after the body of Dave Schultz was discovered in a field less than a mile from where his abandoned red- and white-striped Peterbilt with a loaded trailer of pigs was located in Sac County, Iowa, his family has more questions than answers.
The Wall Lake, Iowa, man’s widow, Sarah Schultz, says she’s relieved that Dave’s body has been found. But she and other family members still don’t know how he died and why it took 155 days for the 53-year-old’s body to be found in an area that had been heavily searched after he was reported missing on Nov. 21, 2023.
“It’s good that he was found — at least we know where he is and we can be at ease with that, even though we don’t know what happened yet,” Sarah Schultz told FreightWaves. “I’ve been dreading this day, but I’m relieved it’s over. It’s exhausting to wonder and wait every time a body is found to find out if it was Dave. I feel exhausted.”
Sarah said she received a call Wednesday from Sac County Sheriff Ken McClure that someone had reported finding a body in a field. She confirmed the boots and truck keys found at the scene belonged to her husband.
On Thursday, the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner conducted a forensic autopsy and identified Dave by his dental records.
Darrell Simmons, special agent in charge at the Iowa Department of Safety, said investigators don’t suspect foul play based on the initial autopsy but that it may take up to six weeks before histology and toxicology reports are completed.
“Once the final autopsy report comes back, I want to sit down with the medical examiner and go over everything and make sure that we are confident in what we’re going to release at that point and time,” Simmons told FreightWaves. “We will probably never understand everything that happened, but when we get more of this information back from the autopsy lab results, we can hopefully get some idea of what led up to this or why this might have happened.”
A mysterious disappearance
Sarah said she last saw her husband alive around 7 p.m. on Nov. 20, after he stopped by the house to change clothes before heading out to pick up a Seaboard Foods load of 120 pigs near Eagle Grove, Iowa. Seaboard Foods is the third-largest pig producer in the United States and the fourth-leading pork processor. It has farm operations in Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas and Colorado, according to its website.
However, authorities say Dave never arrived for his midnight appointment at the site where he was supposed to offload the pigs: the Wiechman Pig Co. buying station in Sac City, Iowa. Wiechman’s home office is in Fremont, Nebraska, and it has 16 locations in the Midwest, including six pig-buying stations in Iowa.
Around 3 p.m. on Nov. 21, a Sac County secondary road employee reported seeing Dave’s custom rig in the northbound lane of County Road N-14, but no Dave. The rig was facing the opposite direction of the buying station where Dave was scheduled to arrive with his load of pigs.
In the cab of his truck, investigators found his wallet, including his driver’s license, cellphone and around $2,000 in cash, which Sarah confirmed he had in his wallet earlier. His coat was in a nearby ditch.
After the rig was found, law enforcement searched the immediate area on foot and with a K-9, according to a Dec. 9 press release by McClure.
“The Sac County Sheriff’s Office requested assistance from the Iowa State Patrol airwing unit,” McClure said in the release. “An airplane was dispatched from Iowa City that was equipped with forward-looking infrared. A State Patrol pilot flew over the surrounding area and did not detect a heat signature that would be consistent with a person. For the next two days, law enforcement, area firefighters and volunteers expanded the ground search on foot and with the use of drones. Nothing of significant value was located.”
Investigators obtained video footage showing Dave at 11:15 p.m. on Nov. 21 at the Marker 126 Travel Center east of Fort Dodge, Iowa, on U.S. Highway 20. According to the press release, Dave was there for 16 minutes. He is then seen on a Department of Transportation camera on Highway 20 west of the truck stop heading west.
“This was the last time David was seen,” McClure said. “Cellphone data obtained from David Schultz’s phone corroborates this timeline.”
Aiding in the search were members of the nonprofit search-and-rescue group the United Cajun Navy, led by Jake Rowley, the organization’s Midwest team leader, along with countless volunteers. They searched over 100,000 acres in the area where the tractor-trailer was found, but without success.
Sarah said she is convinced something happened at the truck stop where Dave had stopped for 16 minutes, which may have contributed to his mysterious disappearance. When Dave’s rig was found, it was facing the wrong direction and the headlights and flashers were off. Dave wouldn’t have done that, she said, because a vehicle traveling on that part of the highway could have struck the back of the rig in the dark.
“I still believe he was taken because I’ve talked to people who searched that field and said there’s no way in hell they could have missed him,” she said.
Simmons declined to comment further until final autopsy results are available.
Time marches on
In the five months since Dave was first reported missing, Sarah said she has tried to stay strong for the couple’s 10-year-old twin boys, Isaack and Joseph, who have been in grief counseling since their dad went missing.
“I never believed that Dave had taken off and left us to start a new life. Anybody that knew Dave knew he wouldn’t do that,” she said. “He wouldn’t have left me or the boys.”
Prior to Dave’s disappearance, he had recently purchased a bright yellow Peterbilt and was fixing it up. Sarah said the truck has since been sold. The red and white Pete that Dave was driving on the night he went missing is also for sale but needs a little work first, she said.
“I’m hoping it will sell soon because Dave didn’t have life insurance,” Sarah said. “He was in good shape; he could outrun our 10-year-old boys. We didn’t count on him dying so young.”
Sarah’s cousin, Ramie Uren, has set up a GoFundMe campaign to help with the family’s financial expenses.
No date has been set for his funeral as Sarah said she wants to ensure that Dave’s family is included in the planning.
“I have a meeting on Tuesday after I drop the kids off at school,” she said. “I know Dave’s brother will be there, and hopefully his parents will be there, too, to start the arrangements and picking things out for the service. I’ve never planned a funeral before. I’m still trying to make sense of why this happened and what happened.”
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