The Oneida County Sheriff’s Office is confirming the two bodies they found Monday are Aiden Grefe, 17, and Dakota Brown, 16.
The teens are from Merrill. They were reported missing from the Town of Harrison Sunday morning.
They were found in the Oneida County Forest in the Town of Enterprise about five miles away.
Their deaths are being investigated by the Oneida and Lincoln County Sheriff's Offices as well as the Oneida County Medical Examiner’s Department.
Oneida County Sheriff’s Captain Terri Hook says their deaths are under investigation.
“We would say exposure played a factor in the deaths of the teens. Obviously, everyone knows what the weather was like this weekend. It went from being really warm to really cold and they got caught in that,” said Hook.
Law enforcement is not giving more information than that right now while it’s still under investigation.
Hook did want to stress how grateful they were for all the different agencies that helped in the search effort.
“We used a lot of different resources and that’s really what we want to focus on is how many resources it took to find them. You can see this is a very vast forest. Without these resources, it would have been even more difficult than it was,” said Hook.
There were numerous Fire Departments that responded to assist including Fire District Alfa, the Crescent Fire Department, the Corning Fire Department, the Merrill Fire Department, the Newbold Fire Department, the Pine River Fire Department, the Russell Fire Department and First Responders and the Tomahawk Fire Department.
Our state partners included the Wisconsin National Guard, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the Wisconsin Emergency Management.
The Oneida County Forestry Department and the Oneida County Land Records assisted in providing maps of the area. The UTV and ATV Patrol assisted in search on the ATV/UTV trails. The Newbold Search and Rescue provided dogs for the search.
The Rosewood Barn and Derek’s Town and Country provided shelter and refreshments for all those involved. Deputies were assisted by the Rhinelander Police Department and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.
