The body of rugby league star Bryn Hargreaves has been found after he went missing over a year ago, his family have confirmed.
Hargreaves, who was 36 at the time, was reported missing in January 2022 by his employer, having failed to arrive for work. His disappearance sparked a major search led by police and tracker dogs in West Virginia.
There were repeated attempts to track Hargreaves down but they sadly drew a blank. His family set up a GoFundMe page in a bid to to raise funds for a private detective to take on the role of finding him.
Now, though, the family have learned the devastating news which they had feared for 14 months. His older brother, Gareth Hargreaves, announced the former prop's passing with a post on Facebook.
"RIP Bryn Hargreaves," the post began. "With incredible sadness I can confirm after 14 months we have finally found Bryn. We still do not know the cause of death or what actually happened on 3/1/22. Thanks to all those that have helped in the search. We would appreciate a little space and will keep you updated when we have any further information x."
The rugby ace's mother, Maria Andrews, also posted her thoughts, writing that he was "heartbroken" upon hearing the news. "Not something I wanted to be sharing," she wrote. "I'm in bits #heartbroken my beautiful son Bryn i can't think of any words to describe the pain xx."
Hargreaves was born in Wigan and achieved a boyhood dream of playing in Super League for the Warriors. He also played for St Helens, where he won the 2008 Challenge Cup, before moving to the United States to work in the oil and gas industry 10 years ago, shortly after his final club, another historic rugby league side in Bradford Bulls, went bust.
At the time of Hargreaves' disappearance, his family believed that he may have been abducted.
"Bryn had mental health issues and was in severe pain with his back from a car accident in December (2021)," Gareth explained last June as they desperately continued the search. "He'd also been away from his family at Christmas. The most likely scenarios were that he decided to harm himself or had decided to disappear for a bit and come back.
"But five months on, those two possibilities look less likely because you've got to think a body would turn up. We had his bank account investigated by the police which showed there's no withdrawals and his wallet and his ID and passport are all still in his apartment so he had no means of access to his cash and no ID to travel.
"So you start to think of the other possibility, that he didn't plan to go missing and that someone has had some input, through abduction or something along those lines. You start to think of all the weird things at the time which start to add up. When the police went around to his apartment, the door was closed but unlocked and the shower was still on.
"And on the night of his disappearance he had ordered a couple of bottles of gin from a mail order firm to be delivered in the next day or two."
