The body of a 23-year-old New Jersey commodities broker, missing nearly two months after trudging off into a blizzard after a night of heavy drinking in Breckenridge, was found Saturday only a half-mile from the bar he had left.
Remains thought to be those of Alphonse “Mike” Barbiere were found in deep snow in an area few thought to search.
“This throws us for a loop,” said Bob Barbiere, 46, the brother of the man who had been missing since he left Cecilia’s Martini Bar early Feb. 8. “We were searching for him on the opposite end of town because when he left Cecilia’s he was headed north. He ended up south.”
Bob Barbiere said when his brother left the bar at 1:30 a.m., a friend saw him going toward the center of town instead of west, where he was renting a condo with family at Trails End Condominiums.
But when he realized he was going the wrong way and turned around, he walked by Village Road where he was supposed to turn right, his brother said. Visibility was only 3 or 4 feet at the time. He was apparently walking across a field toward the lights of a skating rink — likely thinking it was his condo — when he collapsed in the deep snow, Bob Barbiere said.
A man who had been searching for Mike Barbiere’s body found the missing man’s credit card Friday night and contacted authorities.
Breckenridge police began searching in the same area Friday night but didn’t find the body until Saturday morning, Assistant Police Chief Greg Morrison said. A piece of his coat was sticking up through the snow, he said.
Thus ended an exhaustive eight-week search in which dozens of volunteers and family members scoured Breckenridge. Family members, including Bob Barbiere, had been crisscrossing snowy fields and trekking up and down streets up to 14 hours a day, but mostly on the wrong end of town.
“He made it to a place they never thought he would have made it to,” Bob Barbiere said. “All logic ruled this out.”
The past week, four family members including Bob Barbiere had been searching in an area where a snowplow operator had recently reported seeing something that looked like a body in a snow bank.
Mike Barbiere had been vacationing with seven family members and friends when he left Cecilia’s on Main Street at South Park Avenue on the night of the blizzard. He had been drinking water the last two hours at Cecilia’s, apparently to avoid getting overly drunk because he didn’t want to miss the highlight of the vacation, “going on a snowmobiling adventure” the next day, his brother said.
He and one of his companions stopped outside the bar. The friend lit a cigarette, but Barbiere strolled off, Morrison said.
When he got turned around, Mike Barbiere oddly headed uphill, away from the lights of the city into a field with snow so deep it would have been impossible for most people to pass through, Bob Barbiere said. Mike Barbiere had played soccer and was a weightlifter. But his fitness and willpower might have gotten him into more trouble as he pressed forward into the deep snow, he said.
“He must have thought he could cross the field to his condominium,” his brother said.
Morrison said searchers had looked in the field in past weeks for Mike Barbiere, but the snow had been much deeper. His credit card was discovered and then his coat sleeve because the snow had been melting the past few weeks, he said.
Officials had to use ice saws and picks to retrieve the body, Morrison said. It took about two hours of hard work to free him from the icy field, he said.
The body was still encrusted with snow and ice so officials were not able to search the pockets for his identification, he said. But the body had on the same black and gray coat, jeans, black shirt and tan shoes that his family had reported he was wearing that night, Morrison said.
Summit County coroner Joanne Richardson’s office initially identified the body as Mike Barbiere’s but is awaiting a final determination after an autopsy Monday.
Police have already confirmed for his family that it is his body, Bob Barbiere said.
“Everybody has been so intent and focused on the search, it’s like a cold slap in the face learning that he has been found,” Bob Barbiere said. “The relief of finding him has not set in.”
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
