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Fatal balcony fall ruled an accident by Summit County Coroner’s Office

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The man who law enforcement believes died after falling from a balcony in Dillon on Aug. 30 died from injuries sustained in the fall, according to his autopsy.

Dillon Keystone Police Department officers found the man, who the Summit County Coroner identified as Benjamin Christopher Daugherty, a 26-year-old from Basalt, unresponsive around 8:12 p.m. Daugherty’s autopsy identified his manner of death as an accident.

The Dillon Keystone Police Department believes Daugherty was climbing the outside of a Dillon apartment building when he fell.



Johnson wrote that Daugherty was not renting a unit in the building and “had no affiliation to the location of the fall.” Police believed drugs and alcohol “were a factor” in Daugherty’s death, he added. Daugherty’s toxicology report in his autopsy shows a positive for psilocin, a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms.

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