Officials ID man 47 years after he was found frozen in cave along Appalachian Trail

After nearly 50 years, officials revealed the identity of a man who was found frozen inside a cave along the Appalachian Trail in Albany Township, Pennsylvania.

“For 47 years, this man remained unidentified. A nameless figure in a long-forgotten case," Berks County Coroner John Fielding III said during a press conference on Tuesday, Aug. 27. "But today I’m honored to announce that through the unyielding determination of federal, state and local agencies, the Berks County Coroner’s Office has confirmed the identity of this individual. His name is Nicolas Paul Grubb, a 27-year-old man from Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.”

The discovery of the “Pinnacle Man”

On Jan. 16, 1977, around 3 p.m., two hikers found the frozen body of an unidentified man in a cave just below the Pinnacle along the Appalachian Trail in Albany Township, Pennsylvania. The discovery was made during one of the coldest months in Pennsylvania’s history, with an average high of only 8 degrees and a low temperature of 4 below zero, officials said. Snow totals during that winter reached 49 inches.

The man was described as a white male between the ages of 25 and 35 with blue eyes and reddish curly long hair who stood between 5-foot-10 and 5-foot-11 and weighed 155 pounds.

At the time of his death, he had a full beard and a “T” shaped scar on the left side of his chin. He was wearing a size 38 dark brown suede/buckskin jacket with tassels on the sleeves and torso, faded Wrangler blue jeans, a brown leather belt, a brown knit turtleneck sweater, a long winter undershirt and pants, two pairs of socks, ankle length brown leather hiking boots, leather gloves and sunglasses.

He was also wearing a 14-karat white gold ring inset with a blue stone and in his pockets he had a comb, pen, pencil, matches and $1.78.

Officials said there were no obvious signs of foul play. An autopsy was conducted on Jan. 17, 1977, at Reading Hospital. While the autopsy did not specify the time of death, the cause of death was listed as an overdose of Phenobarbital and Pentobarbital and the manner of death was listed as a suicide.

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Since no one claimed the man, he was buried in the Berks County Potter’s Field. The case then went cold for decades.

Timeline of the investigation

In August 2009, the man, nicknamed “Pinnacle Man,” was entered into the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUS) database. A decade later, in April 2019, the database showed two potential matches of men who disappeared from Florida and Illinois. However, they were later determined to not be a match.

While the man’s fingerprints were taken, the original copy of the prints were missing and the quality of the copies was too poor to be used for identification, officials said.

On Aug. 5, 2019, the man’s body was exhumed from Potter’s Field and taken to Reading Hospital, where he was examined by a forensic anthropologist, forensic pathologist and a forensic odontologist. A full forensic dental exam was performed and the man’s NamUS record was updated. Samples were then shipped to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification.

More than two years later, in May 2021, the center contacted the Berks County Coroner’s Office and told them that the samples didn’t produce any results. While the coroner’s office offered to send more samples, the center said they couldn’t do further testing due to a backlog of cases.

In July 2021, the coroner’s office received the samples that had been shipped to Texas and placed them back with the rest of the man’s remains. The man’s body was then stored in the office’s evidence room.

In October 2021, the coroner’s office learned NamUS had moved to a new facility and were preparing to process samples but wouldn’t accept any samples prior to Jan. 2022.

In Nov. 2022, the man’s samples were mailed to the forensic DNA testing service Bode Technology but a match was still not found.

Investigators then tried to perform a facial approximation which failed due to the facial bones being broken or missing during the exhumation process. The Coroner's Office then considered reinterring the remains.

A major breakthrough then occurred in August, 2024. A Pennsylvania State Police cold case detective for Troop L, Reading Barracks, located the man's original fingerprint cards and submitted them to NamUS. On Aug. 12, an FBI fingerprint expert was able to determine a match in less than an hour, identifying the man as 27-year-old Nicolas Paul Grubb of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania.

Investigators then contacted Grubb's family member who confirmed his identity and provided documents.

What we know about Nicolas Paul Grubb

Grubb, known by his family members as "Nicky," served in Company C, 1/111th Infantry of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard in 1971 before receiving an honorable discharge.

Berks County Coroner Chief Deputy George Holmes said officials are still working to learn more about Grubb. They plan to amend his death certificate. Grubb's relatives want his remains to be with the family plot. The Coroner's Office is currently working to bring him home.