Nathan Dean Thurman

Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo Lawrence Police investigate a man's boney found on K-10 highway at 1600 rd. on the north side of the road in the west bound lane around 8:00 am Wednesday July 9, 2014. The body was reported by a diver around 6:00 am.

It was a cool summer night when Nathan Thurman packed all of his worldly possessions in a bag and set out.

The 37-year-old had landed in the Lawrence Community Shelter about 10 days earlier, revealing little about where he’d come from or where he was going.

Patrick Quinn, of Lawrence, got to know Thurman when he volunteered in the shelter kitchen. Occasionally, he’d share a cigarette with Thurman and shoot the breeze.

On the evening of July 8, Thurman was asking people how to get to Kansas City, Quinn said.

“He asked how to get out of town and was directed to 23rd Street,” Quinn said. “It was kind of spooky. He packed up his possessions into a road bag and took off.”

Quinn said Thurman’s spontaneous itch to leave Lawrence, though “spooky,” didn’t seem suspicious because Thurman was nomadic.

“He was a footloose guy; it didn’t feel like he was trying to flee,” Quinn said.

But Thurman never made it out of town. His body was discovered early the following morning outstretched beside the westbound lanes east of O’Connell Road near the intersection of Kansas Highway 10 and East 1600 Road. His body was perpendicular to the roadway with no visible signs of trauma.

“He made it to the highway, and that was the end of that,” Quinn said.

Frontier Forensics LLC in Kansas City, Kan., conducted Thurman’s autopsy on July 9. At that time, a representative of Frontier Forensics told the Journal-World that the cause of death would be determined “in about six weeks.”

It’s been three and a half months and there is still no word on what led to the seemingly healthy man’s death.

A Frontier Forensics representative, who asked not to be named, cited Douglas County Coroner Erik Mitchell’s heavy workload, saying 10 more cases were awaiting review before the he could work on Thurman’s case.

In general, Mitchell completes cases in chronological order, the representative said, but occasionally a case may be bumped ahead because of an upcoming court hearing.

Mitchell is currently backlogged and finishing cases that happened at the end of June and early July, the representative said.

After the Journal-World’s inquiry, Frontier Forensics said it would “put a star” next to Thurman’s name and to expect the results possibly within the next 14 days.

When Thurman’s body was discovered, Quinn began a search for Thurman’s next of kin. He tried contacting a Midwestern carnival company Thurman said he’d worked for in the past, but the company said no one remembered him.

Without a community to miss him, Quinn said he feared Thurman’s death had gone unnoticed.

“Nathan seemed to me kind of forgotten,” Quinn said. “He never talked about family.”

Law enforcement officials were able to locate Thurman’s grandmother and sister, who came to claim Thurman’s body, the Frontier Forensic representative said. He was cremated in Topeka in July.