RYAN HYON - 18 yo - Cheektowaga/ Buffalo NY

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — A woman who found her teenage son's body along a
suburban Buffalo creek says his body was covered with leaves and brush.

Ryan Hyon's family says they found his body on the bank of Cayuga
Creek in Cheektowaga on Monday afternoon, two days after he disappeared
while out with friends in his hometown of Cheektowaga.

The 18-year-old's mother, Linda Hyon, tells local media outlets that
she and some family members spent the weekend searching for Ryan when he
didn't return home Saturday. She says they found his body beneath
shrubbery near the creek bank.

The teen graduated from Depew High School in June.

Investigators say Ryan's body may have been in the creek bed for at least a couple of days before it was found.

Police say their investigation into his death is continuing.
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP9f07c75e9cd948ba8a92593a787ccf29.html

Linda Hyon has survived more than her share of tragedies, but the
most unthinkable horror was when she discovered the lifeless body of her
learning-disabled son concealed beneath shrubbery Monday on the bank of
Cayuga Creek in Cheektowaga.


Hyon knew that something was terribly wrong when friends of her
18-year-old son, Ryan, told her he disappeared into the darkness at 4
a.m. Saturday and never was heard from again.

"I called every police department and every hospital in the area on
Saturday, and I described him because I knew he was carrying no
identification, but nobody knew anything about him," she recalled
solemnly during an interview Tuesday at her home in a middle-class Depew
neighborhood near Transit Road and George Urban Boulevard.

Ryan, who was in special-education classes for most of his life
because he was a slow learner, graduated in June from Depew High School.

Relatives and friends described him in glowing terms as, in the words
of one, "a friendly, outgoing young man who talked with people all the
time and never lost his temper." And, like many young men approaching
adulthood, he was struggling to find his way in the world. He did favors
and chores for the neighbors, including mowing their their lawns and
odd jobs.

And he occasionally experimented with alcohol and marijuana, "but
never any hard drugs, and he certainly was not addicted," his mother
said.

She last saw him alive at about 6 p.m. Friday when he left to spend
the night at a friend's house. She says he later went to another
friend's house, and people who were there told her he walked away at
about 4 a.m., ignoring their pleas for him to stay with them.

Hyon, a couple of her children and her fiance went searching for Ryan
on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, finally finding one of his shoes, and
then his hat, and finally his still-clothed body in the creekbed.

Police said they ruled out natural causes, suicide, or a swimming or
auto accident as the cause of death, but the results of an autopsy
conducted Tuesday still have not been fully disclosed.

So how did he die?

Based on conversations with people who knew her son and his friends,
Hyon has a theory. "I really have nothing to go on; it's just a guess,"
she said. "But I think he had an allergic reaction to some mushrooms
that he ate at that house and that he died there."

Investigators said Ryan's body may have been in the creekbed for at
least a couple of days before it was found. Hyon and her fiance, William
Butchart, believe Ryan's body was dragged to the edge of the creek and
covered with shrubbery in an effort to hide it.

They found him at about 12:20 p.m. Monday not far from the foot of Viola Drive in the Clinton-Harlem area.

"I was hysterical. I wanted to hug him, but I couldn't because my
other children pulled me away, and somebody called the police to tell
them what we had found," the distraught mother recalled.

"He was covered up so well that we walked past him three times before we found him," Hyon said.

Despite Ryan's learning disability, he had a great love for people,
she said. He had a tattoo of a teddy bear on his upper right arm "for my
mom," he had explained, because she liked teddy bears.

Friday, the last day she saw him alive, he got another tattoo: a
spider on his left forearm. Hyon said she did not know whether the
spider had any special meaning.

She described her son as "a tall skinny kid, 6-foot-1; he looked like a skateboarder."

Hyon's sister, Patricia Bable, confirmed, "Yes, he was a
skateboarder. He made friends with everyone. He had lots of friends. He
was a happy kid. And he loved video games."

The weekend tragedy is just the latest chapter in Hyon's troubled lifetime.

She is a child of Love Canal. A native of Niagara Falls, the former
Linda Murphy was just 7 when her family was evacuated from their home in
Griffon Manor by the Love Canal envi ronmental disaster.

She has lived most of her lifetime with only one kidney. She has
nurtured six children through their difficult teenage years and into
young adulthood. She has endured years of a failed marriage.

And now she wants to "look farther into the Love Canal situation" to
see whether anything that happened there could have contributed to her
son's learning disability or any other behavior that could have led to
his death.
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article590456.ece

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. - Police have released their findings in the death
of 18-year-old Ryan Hyon, whose body was discovered in Cayuga Creek on
October 10.

Cheektowaga police say Hyon died from a fall from the tree beneath
which he was found. The ECMC Medical Examiner's Office ruled the cause
of death was from multiple injuries due to the fall and that the manner
in which he died was accidental.

Police recovered a tree limb that has a fracture that matches a
branch high up in the tree Hyon was found under. The limb was found
partially covering his body. Detectives estimate that he fell
approximately 65 feet to his death.

Family members say that Hyon was reported missing to police on October 8, but the body was not found until the tenth.
http://www.wgrz.com/news/article/138865/37/Cause-of-Death-of-Cheektowaga-Teen-Determined