Remains may be of Idaho man missing since 2000

SALMON, Idaho — A dismembered body found in an isolated cabin near Idaho City appears to be an Idaho man who vanished 14 years ago while in the company of the son of a Chicago hit man, authorities said on Wednesday.

Idaho State Police detectives said the skeletal remains found in an isolated cabin near Idaho City are likely those of Josh Reddington of Salmon, who was 25 when he disappeared in 2000 after traveling from his hometown to Idaho City with a friend, Michael Dauber.

Dauber was arrested in March by Idaho authorities and charged with first-degree murder in the disappearance and shooting death of a friend, Steven Kalogerakos, in 2007. Kalogerakos’ dismembered body parts were uncovered last year in a makeshift grave in rugged mountainous terrain near Idaho City, prosecutors have said.

Dauber, 45, was originally from Chicago, where his father, William Dauber, was a mafia hit man who was himself gunned down with his wife in 1980, Idaho law enforcement officials said.

No one has been charged in Reddington’s death, which “appears to be a homicide,” Idaho State Police said in a written statement. It will be several weeks before a positive identification can be obtained and evidence analyzed to determine a cause of death, they said.

Reddington’s mother, Vera Pohto of Salmon, said authorities contacted her earlier this week to ask her son’s shoe size and later confided that they strongly suspected the remains were those of her son.

“I want to know if it is him for sure but I feel in my heart it is him. It’s a relief to know he has been found even though his body has been all chopped up,” she told Reuters on Wednesday.

Reddington, a helicopter logger, was last seen by his mother just before Memorial Day weekend in 2000 when he and Michael Dauber stopped in Salmon before traveling to Idaho City for work, Pohto said.

Searches over the years led nowhere and police had no new leads when the sheriff in Salmon attended an FBI workshop on disappearances and serial killers and asked state and federal authorities to reopen the cold case, she said.