Chance Englebert official cause of death revealed, but his family adamant ‘this is not how it ends’

Remains discovered in October 2025, in rural western Nebraska, are those of Chance Englebert. Authorities have now declared Englebert’s official cause of death as “accidental,” the result of a fall from as high as 290 feet.

Despite the official ruling, Englebert’s family, friends, and some online followers of the case, remain unconvinced. “This is not closure to us at all, but only more whys,” his mother, Dawn Englebert, told Cowboy State Daily. “Our hearts hurt more than ever.” Hikers discovered Englebert in mid-October on a rugged, remote cliff on the north side of Scotts Bluff National Monument, not on a well-used hiking trail. The hiker then alerted the authorities. Investigators found personal items nearby that matched those of Englebert, prompting DNA testing that confirmed the identity.

Still, those close to Englebert, including his mother Dawn, are skeptical that Chance would have ended up at such an isolated location on his own, especially under the circumstances surrounding his disappearance.

What happened to Chance Englebert?

Chance vanished on July 6, 2019, during a visit to his in-laws’ home in Gering, Nebraska. That day, he left a family golf outing after an argument, telling his wife he was leaving. Then, when she refused to go with him, he told friends he planned to walk the roughly 35 miles to Torrington, Wyoming, across the Nebraska-Wyoming border, following the path of the North Platte River.

Englebert’s last known sighting was from surveillance video that captured him walking alone in nearby Terrytown, about 1.5 miles north of Gering, where he appeared to look at his phone and make a sharp left turn, consistent with someone consulting a map. His final communication was a strange text message at 9:08 p.m., just as a violent storm swept through the area.

Over the ensuing six years, more than 17 agencies — aided by drones, cadaver dogs, divers, volunteers on foot, horseback, and ATVs — searched the Gering-Scottsbluff region and along the North Platte River. Friends and private investigators also launched independent efforts, distributed missing-person posters, and even offered a $200,000 reward. The case went viral as community members and armchair sleuths urged authorities to look for evidence of foul play.

Now — even with remains identified and investigators concluding the death was consistent with at least a 130-foot fall from a cliff at Scotts Bluff, based on blunt-force trauma and skeletal damage consistent with “a rapid-deceleration event” — questions are unanswered.

His family, as well as some in the public, doubt that Chance would have ventured up that steep, isolated terrain alone at night in a storm. One local woman retraced the route and called the climb nearly impossible under those conditions, and expressed her doubt about the conclusion. To them, the official ruling has merely deepened the mystery and intensified the grief.