Elk hunters found dead in Colorado were killed by lightning, coroner says

Lauren Penington, The Denver Post on Sep 24, 2025

Published in Outdoors

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

DENVER — The two elk hunters found dead last week in southern Colorado were killed by lightning, according to the Conejos County coroner.

Andrew Porter, 25, of Asheville, N.C., and Ian Stasko, 25, of Salt Lake City, went missing on a hunting trip near the Colorado-New Mexico border in the Rio Grande National Forest. They were last heard from on Sept. 11 and found dead Thursday, a week later, two miles from the Rio De Los Pinos trailhead.

Both men were killed by lightning, but were not directly struck, Conejos County Coroner Richard Martin said.

“A lightning strike to the ground took them in an instant,” Bridget Murphy, Porter’s fiancée, wrote Monday in an update on social media. “They didn’t do anything wrong, they didn’t feel fear or pain.”

Martin said the hunters had no significant injuries or burn marks, which made determining the cause of death difficult. He said lightning most likely struck a tree and continued into the men.

“He was an experienced outdoorsman who was in the wrong spot at the wrong time,” Murphy wrote of Porter. “… But what reassures me is that they were doing what they loved, without fear, well prepared and equipped and this is a bizarre horrific act of nature. It could’ve happened anywhere, to anyone.”