The son of Admiral Richard E. Byrd, the polar explorer, has been found dead of malnutrition and dehydration in a warehouse three weeks after he disappeared from a Washington-bound train, officials said.
Richard E. Byrd Jr., 68, left Boston on Sept. 13 to attend a ceremony at National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington honoring his father with a new stamp.He never arrived and his whereabouts was a mystery for three weeks.
"I put him on a train and my wife was supposed to meet him," his son, Leverett Byrd of Needham, Mass., told The (Baltimore) Sun in a story published Saturday. "What happened in between, I don't know. It's very strange, this whole thing. We're trying to come to grips with it."
"He idolized his father. The main focus of his life was to continue what my grandfather started," said Leverett Byrd, one of Byrd's four sons.