Now, after the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office launched a death investigation into a body that was just found in the area that was being searched for the missing 33-year-old, authorities are determining whether his story may end there, too.
Salvagni "vanished into thin air" sometime after December 8, which is when the manager at the motel where he was staying in Eagle last saw him, according to Salvagni's family. His dog, a dalmatian with a noticeable spot on his left eye, was found six days earlier, on December 2, at the Stegosaurus Park and Ride underneath a random person's car.
Fast-forward to early January, and Salvagni's family hadn't heard from him for weeks. "Vaporized," his dad, Brian Salvagni, tells Westword. "Completely out of character."
On January 28, Salvagni's vehicle was discovered by security at the Stegosaurus Park and Ride with its door and hood open and the battery taken out and left on the ground. Security said the car had been previously spotted on January 22 but not before that, according to the Salvagni family.
On Saturday, March 2, searchers with the nonprofit Colorado missing persons group Justice Takes Flight and other organizations from out of state, including the Wyoming-based outfit Wyofind, scoured the area behind the Stegosaurus Park and Ride and other parts of the hogback. A number of items were found, but what stood out the most were two hiking shoes — Timberland PROs — found in different places about twenty to thirty yards off the Dakota Ridge Trail path.
One of the shoes has a large tear in the toe area and was found upright by a searcher named Myra Garcia, who spotted it on a steep downslope on the side of the ridge facing C-470. The other was found approximately forty yards away to the left of the other shoe, in an area that levels off slightly. Both were untied and located along what appeared to be a wild game trail.
On Tuesday, March 6, Brian Salvagni sent Westword a video that he took with his cell phone showing footage from a gas station surveillance tape of Salvagni attempting to enter the station while it was closed. In it, he can be seen wearing shoes that are identical to the ones found on Saturday. After Westword noted this, Brian Salvagni promptly notified authorities in Eagle and Jefferson County.
"I was shocked," Brian says. "Absolutely flabbergasted. I couldn't believe my eyes. I was very clear when we found the shoes on the hill that these are Nick's style and they are his size. So to be thinking it was his shoes two days ago and now seeing it on video, I was stunned and couldn't believe my own eyes. I sat there and watched it for hours on end. I tried to see if there was anything unusual with his mannerism or the way he walked. It was all very, very normal. When I looked every other time, I just never saw the shoes. I never saw it until now."
Describing the shoes and how they appear to be a perfect match, Brian adds: "You see the red stripes. You see the front of that shoe damaged. It's the same."
Deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office went to the site and collected the shoes on Wednesday, March 6, and an extensive search was launched using both personnel and drones.
According to the JCSO, a body was found between 1 and 2 p.m. in "Jefferson County Open Space Land" by a member of the sheriff's Mountain Patrol Unit. Public information officer Jacki Kelley says the death does not appear to be suspicious "based on the look of the scene."
"I always said that the Stegosaurus lot has the answers to what's going on with my son," Brian says. "I think that's a place Nick is familiar with. It's a common sense place to stop. That's the last stop before you get into the mountains."
The surveillance video showing Nick Salvagni was from a gas station in Grand Junction, which lines up, according to his dad.
"We know he was traveling from the mountains into the city area on December 1," Brian says. "We also know that on the 1st, his dog must have gotten away from him and gotten away from him right at the same parking lot where his car was found."
Surveillance footage shows Salvagni's shoes — the same shoes that were later found on a ridge in Golden.
Chris Perez
Salvagni had been going through a few hardships and had quit his job as a truck driver over a dispute about pay, but the problems were nothing that would have caused him to go off the grid or run away, his father says.
According to Brian, Nick Salvagni was looking for work in Denver before his disappearance. He had just gotten his Commercial Driver License (CDL) and contacted a friend in Brighton on December 1 to see if he could get some long-term housing.
When Brian tried to get in touch with Salvagni on December 4, his phone was dead. "That wasn't unusual, you know; he switched phones often," Brian explains. "So it didn't pique my interest until we got to the 8th, 9th, and I couldn't get in touch with him at all. I started calling around to his friends and family members and people that I knew he stayed in touch with, and nobody had heard from him since the end of November."
Brian, who lives in Cleveland, came to Colorado in late January to see what he could find out. He spoke to the motel manager who last saw his son; she claimed the last time she saw Nick was December 8 and that he wasn't there when she went to clean the room on December 9.
Brian's first meeting with the Eagle Police Department didn't end well, he says, but police called him back later that day and said they would file a missing persons report. He got another call on January 31 notifying him that Nick Salvagni's car had been found.
Shoes found on a steep incline along the Dakota Ridge Trail in Golden appear to be identical to ones Nick Salvagni was seen wearing on surveillance video.
Chris Perez
Britney Hartman, leader of Justice Takes Flight, was at the hogback on March 6, with Westword and JCSO deputies to retrieve the shoes found Saturday. "I'm very happy they took it seriously and are doing everything they possibly can to help us today," she says. "Watching the video, you can clearly see they are his shoes, down to the hole in the top. It's insane."
One of Hartman's theories about Salvagni's disappearance, which the family also believes could have happened, is that he somehow lost his dog on December 1 while heading in or out of Denver, and he returned on December 8 to look for him. While trying to find the dog, something happened to Salvagni, and he was left stranded at the hogback in below-freezing temperatures, with AccuWeather and Weather Underground reporting lows of 19 and 16 degrees in parts of Golden on December 9.
"If I was doing a car ride like that, especially if there was some traffic on one end or the other, I guess that would be the perfect place to let your dog out to go to the bathroom," Hartman says. "So to me, I think what happened is he was either going to Denver or back, let the dog out, stretch his legs, pee, go hiking or something, whatever. And the dog got loose. We don't really know a lot of Nick's movements after that, but we know his car was found at the Stegosaurus lot. Since both the car and the dog were found in the same area, it makes me believe that Nick can't be too far from that location."
Salvagni's dog, which has since been adopted (on account of the animal shelter initially not knowing where he came from), wound up taking part in the search for him on Saturday, March 2. Hartman took some of Salvagni's belongings and old clothes that his family provided and had the dog smell them and walk around the area where his car was found and parts of the lower hogback near the Stegosaurus lot.
"Holding Nick's items for his dog to sniff to go find him...it was so emotional and heartbreaking to watch the dog's facial features change when he smelled those articles," Hartman says.
Now it's time for the police investigators to do their work and try to find out what happened.
"We have called for investigators to the scene, crime scene techs, coroner, all of the normal stuff," Kelley says.
"We have to do all of the due diligence."
While an official identification of the body will likely take some time, Salvagni's dad says he's "confident" that it's his first-born son.
"I have talked with detectives from Eagle and Jefferson County and a Coroner, so, I am sure," Brian wrote in a Facebook post late Wednesday. "I want to thank all who shared, cared, contributed, and prayed for our family over the past couple of months. The outpouring of support was mind-boggling. I know Nick appreciates everyone who helped make it possible for him to come home one last time. Keep the prayers and positive energy coming. Please feel free to post here or call or text or email, but please also allow me to take a couple of weeks to process all of this. If I do not get right back to you, please let me say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU now."
This story was updated with Brian Salvagni's statement on Thursday, March 7.
