Remains of SC man missing for 2 months found under machine at his job, coroner says

GREER, S.C. — The remains of a South Carolina man who had been missing for two months were found under a machine at his workplace, according to The State.

Duncan Gordon, 20, was last seen while working at Industrial Recovery and Recycling in Greer, which is less than 60 miles from the Georgia border.

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Gordon was working on top of a plastic shredding machine when he vanished.

The machine he worked on was checked several times after the man’s disappearance, including by his own father, who was a supervisor at the plant, and by sheriff’s investigators and cadaver K-9s.

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The coroner’s office and the South Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Administration became involved in the investigation in June, nearly a month after Gordon’s disappearance. The coroner said that because there was no body found, they could not consider it a death investigation.

A third search of the machine recovered material under the conveyer belt near a plastic shredding machine. It was tested at the scene for human blood and came back negative. But later tests in a lab, after the material was hydrated, came as matching Gordon’s parents’ DNA.

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According to Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger, the machine processed around 60,000 pounds of plastic between the time Gordon was reported missing and when the first investigator arrived at the scene.

“I ask you to also consider that the missing man weighed between 210 and 250 pounds, Clevenger said in a release. “What was recovered by the detective may be approximately 2 ounces.”

Clevenger ruled that Gordon fell inside the shredding machine, where he died.

Clevenger was not able to issue a death certificate, but said the missing person’s case is closed.

OSHA is investigating whether there were any safety violations at the business.

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