Weeks after Krista Hunt vanished, a body found east of Concrete shifted the case from uncertainty to prosecution.
CONCRETE, Wash. — The search for Krista Hunt ended on the Skagit River in March, and within days investigators had identified her remains, linked the case to the man last seen with her and sought a second-degree murder charge in Skagit County court.
What had been a missing-person case since Feb. 1 became something far more specific once the river recovery gave investigators a body, a confirmed identity and a tighter timeline. Hunt, 37, had disappeared after relatives said they lost contact with her in late January. By March 20, prosecutors had charged 42-year-old Juan Manuel Delgado Jr. with murder. The immediate significance lies in that sequence: a search, a recovery, an identification and then a criminal filing that says investigators believe Hunt did not simply vanish.
The public timeline sharpened first around the river. Deputies found human remains March 12 during a boat search near the Skagit River east of Concrete, close to milepost 90 on State Route 20, according to local reports. On March 18, the county coroner identified the remains as Hunt. For family members, that ended weeks of waiting without answers. For investigators, it appears to have provided the key moment when the case moved from gathering tips to assembling a murder charge. The sheriff’s office had originally circulated a missing-person flyer after Hunt was reported missing Feb. 1. At that stage, officials said only that she had last been seen in the Concrete area. After the river recovery, the case became more concrete in every sense: a victim had been found, and the geography of the investigation was no longer abstract.
Yet even after the identification, important medical questions remained open. The Skagit County Coroner’s public media report says the examination of Hunt was completed but that the cause and manner of death had not been determined and that the case remained under active investigation. At the same time, local television reporting cited injuries that included a broken neck, broken jaw and broken ribs. That combination has made the case especially striking: severe injuries were reported, but the coroner’s office has not publicly issued a final ruling on exactly how Hunt died. In practical terms, that means the court case may develop before every forensic question is publicly settled. It also means the eventual probable cause narrative, autopsy conclusions or later testimony could become central to understanding whether prosecutors are relying most heavily on injury evidence, physical evidence from a vehicle, witness statements or some mix of all three.
Before Hunt was found, her family had already been trying to explain why they feared for her. Pamela Hunt told KING that her daughter was last seen around Jan. 25 with Delgado after the pair ran out of gas near a restaurant in Concrete. She said Hunt got out of the truck and walked away, and that was the last known sighting she described. Pamela Hunt also said her daughter had previously told her about repeated abuse, including a broken leg that she said came after Delgado stomped on her leg and chest. In the most chilling detail to emerge publicly, Pamela Hunt said her daughter described an episode in which Delgado set a timer and said he would hit her every 15 minutes. Those statements came from family interviews, not from a public charging document, but they shaped the emotional frame around the case long before the murder filing.
The suspect’s own actions after Hunt disappeared have also drawn attention. Law&Crime, citing an affidavit aired by KING, reported that when a deputy contacted Delgado by phone on Feb. 1, he said he had not heard from Hunt in five days but wanted to return her two dogs. He reportedly said the relationship had problems in the past but that he believed they were on good terms. Two days after Hunt was reported missing, local reporting said, Delgado shot himself at a bar in Concrete and later told authorities he “missed Krista.” Those details do not resolve what happened to Hunt, but they form part of the strange and compressed timeline investigators appear to be examining: a woman disappears, her boyfriend offers shifting context, he survives a gunshot injury to himself, and weeks later her body is recovered from the river that runs through the same small community.
The court case began while Delgado was already in custody on another matter. Cascadia Daily News reported that he had earlier been jailed on charges related to possession of an explosive device. During a search of his residence, detectives found suspected pipe bombs, and a bomb squad concluded the devices were capable of causing serious injury or death, according to that report. Delgado was arrested in Mount Vernon on March 19 in the Hunt case and appeared in Skagit County Superior Court the next day, when a judge set bail at $1 million. Prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder, but public reporting has so far not laid out the full theory behind the charge in a detailed probable cause statement. That leaves several questions for the next hearings, including what evidence prosecutors believe proves intent or knowledge and whether any additional charges will follow.
For now, the case stands at the point where a search has ended but a fuller legal explanation has not yet arrived. Hunt has been identified, Delgado has been charged, and the coroner’s office still lists the cause and manner of death as undetermined while the investigation continues.
Author note: Last updated April 14, 2026.